GM joint venture no longer responsible for Lansing battery jobs after state board vote
- The Michigan Treasury Department gave GM and its partner the funding between June and September 2023.
- Now that state officials have formally separated the joint venture on the Lansing plant, each company is independently responsible for meeting the agreed upon metrics.
- GM said in December 2024 that it would recoup about $1 billion in its sale of Ultium Cells to LG Energy Solutions, but the $120 million grant benefitting Ultium would stay with LG.
Members of the quasipublic Michigan Strategic Fund in Lansing voted Tuesday to remove references to General Motors from the Lansing plant project on which GM initially partnered with South Korean battery maker LG Energy Solutions.
GM is still responsible for creating 1,840 jobs and investing $4 billion at its Orion Township facility as part of its agreement with the state of Michigan to fund a battery manufacturing and EV manufacturing facility.
The decoupling of the investment has been in the works since GM sold its stake in the Lansing Ultium Cells LLC battery plant to its joint-venture partner LG. GM said in December 2024 that it would recoup about $1 billion in its sale of Ultium Cells to LG Energy Solutions, but the $120 million grant benefiting Ultium would stay with LG, even after GM’s sale.
Just two months before leaving the deal, GM decided to drop the Ultium name from its EV technology, after spending years and millions of dollars to promote the brand. GM also said in October that it will start building a battery cell development center at the company’s Global Technical Center in Warren. The company has already broken ground on the site, according to the company. The center will be a new building with a target of early 2027 to start building battery cells.
Two months ago, GM inked a multimillion-dollar deal with a Norwegian battery supplier for its synthetic graphite anode materials. The agreement is slated to start in 2027 and run through 2033.Need a break? Play the USA TODAY Daily Crossword Puzzle.
Originally agreed upon Jan. 25, 2022, the agreement meant GM and LG would be reimbursed on the conditions of investing $1.5 billion creating at least 1,360 jobs in the Lansing facility. To convert GM’s Orion Township facility for electric vehicle production, a projected investment of $4 billion and creation of 1,840 qualified jobs were required. GM’s Orion Township electric truck project and its joint venture Ultium Cells battery plant in Delta Township, west of Lansing, had until the end of 2030 to create the promised jobs.
Changing the terms of the deal with the board’s approval mitigates the risk of a clawback, or the instance of the Michigan Strategic Fund suing both companies to return taxpayer dollars. Now that state officials voted to formally separate LG and GM’s two projects, each company is independently responsible for meeting investment and job creation metrics in order to keep the money. This won’t be a problem, as fund officials told media that both companies remain on track to fulfill their requirements.
Late last year, the state of Michigan reportedly paid General Motors and its joint venture every cent of the $600 million taxpayer-funded grant in 2023 — $120 million for its Lansing location and $480 million for the Lake Orion location. This was before either facility had been completed, or documenting even a tenth of the total 3,200 jobs required to access that money.
The Michigan Treasury Department gave GM and its partner the funding between June and September 2023, more than a year before GM’s announcement that it would sell its stake in the Lansing-area battery plant.
Separating from the agreement means GM no longer is responsible for the Lansing plant’s success. However, the requirements remain in place for its Lake Orion plant, which has been plagued by production issues.
The board approved updating the base employment level to remove existing employees associated with the Orion Township Project and remove the provision that allows excess qualified jobs created by GM to count toward the qualified job commitments.
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GM joint venture no longer responsible for Lansing battery jobs after state board vote, source
