American Auto manufacturers are on thin ice – having invested heavily in EV infrastructure only to have the Trump administration pull the rug.
The trick now is to maintain and expand EV offerings despite the head wind from DC. One way is to switch course on some existing facilities to serve the growing market for stationary electric storage.
It’s promising that one GM initiative will move into the cutting edge of Battery tech – Sodium ion systems.
General Motors plans to begin making components for large storage batteries, the company said Tuesday, joining Tesla, Ford Motor and other carmakers in pushing into a growing market and compensating for slower sales of electric vehicles in the United States.
The batteries, which can be the size of shipping containers, store excess energy from solar panels, wind turbines and other power sources. Utilities, data centers and other big energy consumers use them for backup power or to manage fluctuations in electricity supply or demand.
Tesla has been selling storage batteries since 2015. Ford said last year that it would convert a factory in Kentucky to make large batteries, after shutting down production of electric vehicle batteries at the plant because car sales fell short of expectations.
G.M. plans to develop battery cells for large-scale storage using a relatively new technology. Peak Energy, a company based in California and Colorado that is teaming up with the automaker, will integrate the cells into industrial-scale systems.
Making storage batteries, which Tesla and other companies also produce in smaller sizes for homes, could help automakers get a better return on the investments they have made in battery factories.
G.M. and other U.S. carmakers have scaled back production of electric vehicles after Congress last year eliminated tax incentives that could be worth up to $7,500. Sales slumped, forcing G.M., Ford, Stellantis and Honda to report billions of dollars in losses from electric vehicle investments that now won’t pay off.
At the same time, most automobile executives expect electric vehicles to gradually replace vehicles that run on gasoline or diesel. Sales of battery-powered models are surging in much of the rest of the world because of rising fuel prices caused by the war in Iran.
“We believe that E.V.s are the future,” Mary Barra, the chief executive of G.M., said in an interview last week with “NBC Nightly News,” adding that car buyers would set the pace of change.*
G.M. plans to develop battery cells in which sodium is the main active ingredient, a different approach from Ford or Tesla. Sodium, often derived from soda ash, is much cheaper and easier to process than lithium, the main ingredient in most storage and electric vehicle batteries. Sodium-ion batteries also do not require elaborate cooling and heating systems to operate safely and efficiently.
Meanwhile, China continues to maintain, and maybe widen, their lead in this area.