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GM enters $650 million investment and supply agreement with Lithium Americas

In a massive investment deal, GM will look to extract enough lithium from Nevada's Thacker Pass mine to manufacture 1 million new electric vehicles.

Ozzie Mejia

January 31, 2023 11:20 AM

Lithium Americas

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With an eye towards its future, General Motors struck a deal with Lithium Americas to work towards developing the Thacker Pass mine in Nevada. This is the largest lithium source in the United States and this deal should secure GM's future in electric vehicle production. The deal is worth $650 million USD.

Here's the statement from the General Motors website:

Under the agreement, GM will make a $650 million equity investment in Lithium Americas, which represents the largest-ever investment by an automaker to produce battery raw materials. Lithium Americas estimates the lithium extracted and processed from the project can support production of up to 1 million EVs per year.

Lithium carbonate from Thacker Pass will be used in GM's proprietary Ultium battery cells. Lithium is a key material in lithium-ion batteries and stands up well to repeated charging and discharging (including enabling fast charging), delivers higher energy density, and offers more usable capacity than other battery types.

GM is launching a broad portfolio of trucks, SUVs, luxury vehicles and light commercial vehicles using the Ultium Platform, including the GMC HUMMER EV Pickup and SUV, GMC Sierra EV, Cadillac LYRIQ, Cadillac CELESTIQ, Chevrolet Silverado EV, Chevrolet Blazer EV, Chevrolet Equinox EV, BrightDrop Zevo 400 and BrightDrop Zevo 600.

Production on EVs with lithium from the Thacker Pass mine is expected to begin in the second half of 2026, during which GM will have exclusive access to the mine's contents. The automaker sees it as an opportunity to gradually ween itself off of petroleum-fueled vehicles and begin competing with other electric vehicle manufacturers like Tesla and Ford. GM stock responded positively to the news, jumping by 7-8 percent during Tuesday's trading session.

Thacker Pass is the third largest lithium mine in the world and GM's acquisition is big news for anyone following the development of electric vehicles. We'll continue to watch for any news coming from the EV world, so keep it on Shacknews for any updates.

Ozzie Mejia

Senior Editor

Ozzie has been playing video games since picking up his first NES controller at age 5. He has been into games ever since, only briefly stepping away during his college years. But he was pulled back in after spending years in QA circles for both THQ and Activision, mostly spending time helping to push forward the Guitar Hero series at its peak. Ozzie has become a big fan of platformers, puzzle games, shooters, and RPGs, just to name a few genres, but he’s also a huge sucker for anything with a good, compelling narrative behind it. Because what are video games if you can't enjoy a good story with a fresh Cherry Coke?