General Motors is investing $625 million in a lithium mine project in Nevada that could see the critical EV battery metal produced in the U.S. as early as 2027.
The Detroit automaker will provide the Canada-based Lithium Americas Corp. with additional cash and credit to finance its mining operations at Nevada’s lithium-rich Thacker Pass.
The announcement sent Lithium Americas shares up by more than 20 percent in Wednesday’s trading session.
GM is already an equity investor in the Thacker Pass project. The new agreement increases GM’s investment by an additional $625 million and boosts its stake in the company from just under 10 percent to 38 percent through a joint venture structure. It also locks GM into a 20-year lithium supply agreement with Lithium Americas, aligning with the automaker’s long-term EV production strategy.
While EV sales have underperformed this year, GM expects its electric vehicles to turn profitable as early as the end of 2024.
GM has partnered with South Korea’s LG Energy Solution to make batteries at several U.S. plants and has plans to expand capacity with a new battery cell manufacturing plant, a joint venture with Samsung. Production is expected to begin in 2027.
Lithium Americas president and CEO Jonathan Evans told Fox Business this week that the GM investment will allow the company to “accelerate” its efforts to meet its timeline for full production by the end of 2027.
The company is also receiving substantial support from the U.S. government as part of the Biden administration’s critical materials industrial policy. In March, the Department of Energy announced a commitment to lend the Lithium Americas subsidiary, Lithium Nevada Corp., $2.26 billion to help finance its lithium carbonate processing plant.
The Thacker Pass hosts the third-largest lithium deposits globally and the largest in North America.
Presently, the world’s largest active lithium mines are in Chile and Australia, with Chinese companies as equity players in many of these projects. China is the world’s largest processor and refiner of lithium, as well as the largest manufacturer of EVs and EV batteries.
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