General Motors Invests in EV Battery Recycling Technology

General Motors and Lithion Recycling have announced that GM Ventures, the automaker’s investment arm, has made a strategic investment in Lithion’s Series A financing round, supporting a new GM-Lithion strategic partnership agreement to pursue a circular battery ecosystem using Lithion’s advanced battery recycling technology.

This collaboration between GM and Lithion will focus on:

• Validation of Lithion’s recovered battery materials for use in the production of new batteries and potential to acquire battery materials
• Joint investment in research and development for both recycling processes and recyclability of future battery design

With a recovery rate of over 95% and using Québec’s green energy, Lithion’s technology and operations will reduce greenhouse gas emissions by over 75% and water usage by over 90% compared to mining battery materials, as demonstrated by a third-party lifecycle analysis.

In August, Ultium Cells, GM’s joint venture with LG Energy Solution, opened its first US battery cell plant, with two additional plants under construction. A fourth planned battery cell plant will bring GM’s projected total US battery capacity to 160 GWh. GM now has binding agreements securing all its battery raw material to reach annual planned capacity in 2025, including lithium, nickel, cobalt, and full cathode active material supply. As the company moves forward, it will work to increasingly localize its battery materials supply chain to North America.

In 2023, Lithion will launch its first commercial recycling operations, drawing on data from its highly successful industrial-scale demonstration plant commissioned in January 2020. The opening of this facility, with a capacity of 7,500 metric tons per year of lithium-ion batteries, will be followed in 2025 by the launch of Lithion’s first hydrometallurgical plant.