General Motors Co.and GM Ventures, the automaker’s investment arm, has made a strategic investment in Lithion Recycling’s Series A financing round, “supporting a new GM-Lithion strategic partnership agreement to pursue a circular battery ecosystem.” The investment is intended to advance Lithion’s advanced battery recycling technology.
“Working with GM marks a key step in Lithion’s commercial development and pioneers a needed breakthrough in the electrification of transportation by enabling a cost-effective and sustainable circularity in the EV battery industry,” said Benoit Couture, president and CEO of Lithion. “This partnership underscores our commitment to enable the transition to a low-carbon economy amidst the fight against climate change.”
This collaboration between GM and Lithion will focus on “Validation of Lithion’s recovered battery materials for use in the production of new batteries, and potential to acquire battery materials” and “Joint investment in research and development for both recycling processes and recyclability of future battery design.”
With a recovery rate of over 95 per cent and using Quebec’s green energy, Lithion’s technology and operations are intended to “reduce greenhouse gas emissions by over 75 per cent and water usage by over 90 per cent compared to mining battery materials, as demonstrated by a third-party lifecycle analysis.”
“GM is aggressively scaling battery cell and EV production in North America to reach our target of more than 1 million units of annual capacity by 2025, and we plan to eliminate tailpipe emissions from all our new light-duty vehicles by 2035 – so we are building a supply chain and recycling strategy that can grow with us,” said Jeff Morrison, GM vice president, Global Purchasing and Supply Chain. “In Lithion’s technology, we see the opportunity to recover and reuse raw material in our Ultium battery packs, making the EVs we produce even more sustainable and helping drive down costs.”
In 2023, Lithion will launch its first commercial recycling operations, and the company has multiple facilities in the pipeline for the U.S., Europe and Korea, in line with its vision “to support rapid deployment and enhanced battery end-of-life management globally.”
