News of General Motors Corp. exiting bankruptcy at a breakneck pace, creating a leaner greener company majority-owned by the U.S. government, flooded financial news outlets Friday morning. What got less press was a giant state-of-the-art research facility opening in Michigan.
How will GM compete with rivals in the hybrid and electric car market? At a press conference on Friday in Detroit, chief executive Fritz Henderson stressed that fuel efficiency and the technology around it will be a major pillar in GM's new strategy. Henderson also said in a press release
announcing GM's exit from bankruptcy, "Success on the revenue side means building the stylish, high-quality, fuel-efficient vehicles that customers want -- and getting them to market fast."
The Detroit company will launch the Chevrolet Volt extended range electric vehicle (pictured) in 2010, expects to have 14 hybrid models in production by 2012 and will have 65% of vehicles alternative-fuel capable by 2014. In order to support those goals, a Global Battery Systems Lab opened this week in Warren, Mich. Automobilemag.com
notes the lab spans 33,000 square feet -- four times larger than GM's previous tech center battery lab -- and will be used by GM's growing team of more than 1,000 engineers working on advanced batteries and electrically driven vehicles worldwide.
Powering the new vehicles will be lithium-ion batteries, a sector exploding with joint ventures and the creation of manufacturing plants. As we noted in
this sector roundup, GM chose LG Chem Ltd., the South Korean chemicals giant, to supply it with lithium-ion batteries for its Chevy Volt. And LG Chem says its investing W1 trillion ($799 million) to build a battery plant near Seoul.
The Deal's Lou Whiteman, who will be writing more on GM later Friday,
wrote a story (subscription required) Thursday analyzing what the New GM would be like. He noted that GM today has a cost structure that is competitive with the foreign rivals that have battered it for nearly three decades but may not have enough new vehicles in its immediate pipeline to woo back customers. -
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