The joint venture will create 1,100 new jobs.
In a call today with reporters, GM CEO Mary Barra announced that the company would be teaming up with LG Chem to supply battery cells for the automaker’s upcoming electric vehicles including EV trucks. Overall, the company is expecting to have 20 EVs for sale by 2023.
The joint venture will break ground on a plant in the Lordstown, Ohio area next year to produce the battery cells and is expected to create more than 1,100 new jobs. The two companies will invest $2.3 billion and the plant will produce more than 30-gigawatt hours per year.
“The opportunity ahead, and the potential benefit, is too great to go it alone. Aligning with like-minded partners, we are bringing the skills and resources to ensure that clean, electric vehicles will prevail — reimagined, fun to drive, better for the environment and with efficiency and economics that prove their worth,” said Barra.
In a release of the news, Barra also stated that “climate change is real. That is indisputable and we take the challenges it presents seriously.” GM’s Chevy Bolt was one of the first long-range EVs to come to market when it was introduced in 2016.
