General Motors to build new battery facility at Warren Technical Center

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DETROIT - In the latest electric vehicle announcement to hit the airways and break ground, General Motors says it is constructing a new battery facility in Warren to help speed up the production of the power sources while cutting down on their costs.

The Wallace Battery Cell Innovation Center will find a home at GM's Warren Global Technical Center campus and is expected to be completed by mid-2022.

GM's announcement follows its competitor's massive electric vehicle campus plan in Kentucky and Tennessee where Ford said it will boost up investment in its EV fleet by constructing three battery plants and an electric truck plant.

GM says it hopes its newest facility will help it reduce battery costs by 60%.

"The addition of the Wallace Center is a massive expansion of our battery development operations and will be a key part of our plan to build cells that will be the basis of more affordable EVs with longer range in the future," said Doug Parks, GM executive vice president, Global Product Development, Purchasing and Supply Chain.

According to a release from the automaker Tuesday, the Wallace Center will allow GM "to accelerate new technologies" in its batteries while enabling the company to expand production methods to its other battery plants in Ohio and Tennessee.

The latest venture at the Warren Technical Center is part of the facility's plan to expand the campus. Currently, an R&D lab for battery development and the Estes Lab for testing their durability are already on-site.

The Wallace Center will construct lithium-metal battery cells for vehicles. The current application for those batteries are in cell phones.

The new battery plant will be named after Bill Wallace, a GM director who worked on the company's battery development years ago.