GM simulated 300,000 EV battery designs before building one cell

By Daniel Okafor

General Motors says it simulated more than 300,000 designs for its next EV battery before building a single physical cell. The run consumed 300 million CPU hours, equivalent by GM’s math to one computer running around the clock for 34,000 years.

Can GM cut vehicle development to two years?

At its Wednesday GM Forward event, General Motors said the battery work supports a plan to cut the traditional four-to-five-year vehicle development process to about two years.

For the battery, GM said the team moved from its first pack concept to formal program approval in one month.

GM said its self-driving software logs more than 3 billion simulated miles a day, against about 1 million real-world miles a month. GM also said factory teams rehearse assembly in digital models.

Fortune reported Tuesday that GM, the top American auto seller, now rewards engineers for missed stretch targets. A GM battery chief said, “I want to see red.”

Sterling Anderson, whom GM hired as chief product officer in 2025 after he led Tesla Autopilot, told Fortune the method was “effectively the third phase in the evolution of product development for humanity.” He described it as built on “probabilistic, large data-requiring methods.”

Fortune reported that the battery will not reach volume production until 2028.

Can LMR overcome cycle-life and voltage decay?

GM says its cells use lithium manganese-rich chemistry, or LMR, with 33% more energy density than lithium iron phosphate, or LFP, at comparable cost. GM describes LFP as the low-cost chemistry China dominates.

Battery engineer Andy Oury told Fortune the cells use roughly 30% to 40% nickel, against about 85% in today’s high-nickel cells. GM plans to build them with LG Energy Solution at the Ultium Cells joint venture in Spring Hill, Tennessee.

Kurt Kelty, GM’s vice president of battery and sustainability, told Fortune: “We’re not licensing this from China.”

Kelty said most of the industry considered LMR a long shot, yet GM made the decision when it had perhaps 60% to 70% of the data.

GM believes its design addresses LMR’s historical problems with short cycle life and voltage decay, although the factory ramp will establish whether that claim holds.

GM says proof will come from its $900 million Battery Cell complex in Warren, Michigan. The plant is due to become fully operational later this year and ramp toward a couple thousand cells a day.

How does simulation reach the factory floor?

During a Fortune visit to Warren, Jason Fischer, a 28-year GM veteran who leads AI in engineering, demonstrated a digital car sliding through a cone course before simulation corrected it.

Fischer said the same tuning with a physical car would take months. GM holds weekly “tall pole” reviews of whatever slows each job.

Fischer said: “I’m convinced that we’re going to be able to do things just as fast as China.”

At GM Forward, GM said its fourth-generation EV platform should deliver:

• About 20% more range per kilowatt-hour.
• A body that is 25% more aerodynamic and 15% lighter.
• A pack that is 20% more compact.
• Drive units with 40% fewer parts.

GM said its PlantBrAIn platform has moved battery packs through assembly 30% faster. The company said Gen 4 vehicles will check their own wiring on the line, and the platform will carry an updated version of Super Cruise.

What changes for customers in 2027 and 2028?

GM says its new central computer has 40 times today’s processing power and 30% less wiring. It debuts in 2028 on the Cadillac Escalade IQ, then moves to GM’s highest-volume gas SUVs and trucks, three-row crossovers and Gen 4 EVs.

GM announced that autonomous highway driving, previously announced for the Escalade IQ, will reach gas-powered full-size SUVs and light-duty pickups. Pre-production vehicles are testing the system on closed courses.

GM says its driving software trains largely through self-play, using versions of itself to represent the merging car and surrounding traffic. GM says much of the method came from Cruise, the robotaxi unit it absorbed in 2024.

Rashed Haq, GM’s vice president of autonomous vehicles, told Fortune that GM kept “a lot of the methodologies” for the next-generation Super Cruise. GM says current Super Cruise customers have logged more than 1.2 billion hands-free miles.

GM says the real-world mileage comes from hundreds of data-collection vehicles and retail customers who opted to share data. The company says an improvement spotted in the software can now reach the road within one day.

GM says an OnStar AI assistant will arrive on the 2027 Cadillac Lyriq through an over-the-air update in the coming months. Anderson told Fortune that a four-person team had a voice prototype running in a Lyriq about 30 days after he requested one.

Starting in 2027, GM says one OnStar app will replace OnStar Guardian and the separate Buick, Cadillac, Chevrolet and GMC apps. It will add cameras that automatically record incidents, which GM says the company cannot access.

GM says GM Fleet, which represents about 20% of annual sales, will receive its own AI assistant. GM says OnStar Fleet has more than 2.4 million subscribers, twice the total of its nearest competitor.

GM says it is investing more than $16 billion in U.S. research and development and manufacturing this year, after about $7.6 billion in EV-related charges last year.

GM’s 2028 volume-production schedule makes the test concrete: LMR must move from simulation to durable, high-rate production in Warren and Spring Hill.