GM invests in LMH manganese batteries

Australia has been tapped to play a key role in a plan designed to wrestle away some of China’s global dominance.

Electric cars could become cheaper and more efficient through new technology with Australian minerals at its core.

General Motors is leading a charge toward new batteries made with a high proportion of manganese produced in Western Australia’s Pilbara region.

The tech, which is also being pursued by Ford, promises to reduce dependence on cobalt and nickel supplies increasingly controlled by Chinese firms.

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An employee holds a full-size prototype LMR battery cell at the General Motors Wallace Battery Cell Innovation Center. Photo: Steve Fecht for General Motors

The carmaker promises to make new Lithium Manganese-Rich (LMR) batteries that match the cost of existing Lithium Iron Phosphate (LFP) batteries while delivering significantly more range.

Which means that, mile for mile, the LMR batteries are cheaper than existing tech.

Andy Oury, battery engineer and business planning manager for General Motors in Detroit, told Australian reporters “this is a big deal”.

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“That’s going to help us get battery costs that are comparable to LFP with significantly higher energy density,” he said. 

“There is hundreds of pounds of weight savings for the same amount of range when you go from LFP to LMR.”

GM is working with LG in a joint venture called Ultium Cells to make the tech a reality.

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Ford is also investing in manganese batteries. The brand’s chief executive, Jim Farley, recently told US media that difficulties securing lithium and other minerals made battery production a “hand-to-mouth” proposition.

Ford chief financial officer Sherry House told reporters that rare earth materials in China had to go through a difficult export control and administrative process before reaching Wester brands.

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General Motors battery technician Steven Petty Jr. focuses on aligning electrodes on an anode sample for a prototype LMR battery cell in the making. Photo: Steve Fecht for General Motors

Kushal Narayanaswamy, director of advanced battery cell engineering for GM, wrote in May that “LMR is going to make it possible for GM to offer EVs with premium range at considerably lower cost. We can’t wait.”

Lower prices are just the beginning.

While General Motors representatives are reluctant to talk up a tech war with China, EV experts are quick to point out the major upside of LMR batteries.

🇺🇸GM’S NEW BATTERY TECH COULD MAKE GAS CARS OBSOLETE - AND CHINA LESS RELEVANT

GM says it’s cracked the EV code: a new lithium manganese-rich (LMR) battery that’s 30% more energy-dense and just as cheap to make.

No cobalt dependency, no China-controlled patents, and fewer… https://t.co/n1rjmvEZ1Wpic.twitter.com/lZvdhhNFQQ

— Mario Nawfal (@MarioNawfal) May 13, 2025

Wired says successful implementation of the tech “could be a game changer” that would “circumvent China’s stranglehold on intellectual property for EV batteries”.

Inside EVs points out that “China holds a commanding grip on the raw materials that power most electric vehicles sold in the U.S. and around the world”, which is why Charged EVs says shifting to manganese-rich battery chemistry could “provide a way to break China’s dominance of the market”.

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Australia has an enormous role to play in the pivot to LMH batteries.

GM has invested in ASX-listed mining firm Element 25, forging an agreement for the Western Australia-based company to supply enough manganese sulfate to put 1 million electric cars on the road.

Madeleine King, Minister for Resources and Northern Australia, announced on Tuesday that Element 25’s Butcherbird manganese project in the Pilbara secured $50 million in support through the a loan by the government’s Northern Australia Infrastructure Facility.

Element 25’s Butcherbird manganese project. Image: Element 25

Element 25 managing director Justin Brown said on X that it is a “pivotal step in the delivery of what is going to be a game-changing project for the company”, and a “key step in our journey to become an end to end, vertically integrated refiner of manganese into high purity battery products for electric vehicle battery manufacturing.”