Earlier this year at the 2019 Detroit Auto Show, Cadillac announced plans to shift to electric vehicles in the future, but no concrete details were provided. Rumours are that Cadillac has plans to launch its first electric offering by 2022, a sleek-looking SUV based on General Motor’s BEV3 architecture, according to Carbuzz.
Now Cadillac has taken the first big step to making that happen by announcing a patnership with LG Chem to mass produce battery cells for their future EV line-up. The deal, worth an estimated $2.3 billion USD, will include a brand new assembly plant in Ohio that will have a projected 30 gigawatt-hours (GWh) annual capacity, with the flexibility to expand in the future.
For comparison, as of May 2019, Gigafactory 1 has achieved a theoretical capacity of 35 gigawatt-hours per year but utilization levels have resulted in a 24 gigawatt-hour output. If Cadillac is able to follow through on the plan, it would certainly be an impressive feat that could overtake Tesla as the highest-volume battery plant in the world.