The project: 27 GWh, $3.5 billion and a long delay
GM and Samsung SDI first announced the New Carlisle plant in April 2023. The plan was a $3.5 billion investment on a 275-hectare site, with initial capacity of 27 GWh, later expandable to 36 GWh, and more than 1,600 jobs. Production was originally due in 2026, then pushed to 2027. The joint venture, SynergyCells, never entered operation.
Put simply, the capital cost of the original plan works out to roughly $130 per kWh of annual capacity — about €119 per kWh at current exchange rates. That is the factory itself, before a single cell is made. When a project of that scale pivots from automotive cells to stationary storage, it says a lot about how quickly the US EV demand outlook has cooled.
A second GM battery exit in 18 months
This is not GM's first retreat. In December 2024, the company said it would sell its stake in the unfinished Lansing, Michigan cell plant it was building with LG Energy Solution. Then in January 2026, GM announced a $6 billion write-down in its EV business, following $1.6 billion in October 2025. The trigger for much of that was the expiry of the $7,500 US federal EV tax credit on 30 September 2025.
GM is not alone. Ford dissolved its BlueOval SK joint venture with SK On in December 2025 and, in April 2026, restructured its loss-making Model e division. We saw the current product in our Ford Mustang Mach-E test: the hardware is credible, but the US business case is not keeping up with the original cell-investment plans.
What Samsung SDI actually gets
Samsung SDI is acquiring GM's stake in SynergyCells and taking full ownership of the New Carlisle site — its first fully owned cell factory in North America. The immediate plan is to produce battery cells for energy storage systems, not electric vehicles. Samsung SDI's statement is deliberately open on the EV question: the plant could later make prismatic cells for EVs developed jointly with GM, but regular production is not finalised.
"While reflecting recent market changes, this acquisition decision is to continue the strategic partnership with GM," a Samsung SDI spokesperson said. That is a different demand curve: stationary storage is growing on its own economics, while US EV sales are not expanding fast enough to justify every planned automotive cell line.
The US market is splitting from the global one
The contrast with other markets is stark. In China, NEV market share hit a record 65.1% in July 2026, with BEV sales up 6% while ICE sales collapsed 44%, as we reported in our China market update. Meanwhile, the affordable end of the battery market is moving toward LFP chemistry. Our EV catalog tracks 67 models with full specifications, and the pattern is hard to miss: compact, price-sensitive cars now use LFP packs in the 35–60 kWh class. The Smart #2 we covered earlier is a good example — 35.7 kWh LFP, 300 km WLTP, under €25,000.
That is a very different investment logic from a $3.5 billion prismatic-cell plant whose first output will go into stationary storage. The US legacy automaker JVs were built for a high-growth EV curve that has not materialised on schedule.
What owners and buyers should watch
For existing GM EV owners, this does not change battery warranty obligations or supply of service cells today. The practical question is which chemistry and supplier actually lands in the next generation of GM models. GM and Samsung SDI are still jointly developing high-energy-density, fast-charging prismatic cells, but there is no confirmed series production date. If you are deciding between a GM EV and a competitor, the key figure to track is not a press-release capacity number, but the real-world range and charging speed of the final pack — something we watch closely in our real-world range calculator.
Source: https://www.electrive.com/2026/08/11/gm-exits-samsung-sdi-battery-cell-joint-venture/
