General Motors is bringing advanced battery technology forged in the crucible of space exploration back down to Earth—and into consumer vehicles by 2028. The company's LMR (lithium manganese-rich) battery formula represents a decade-long collaboration between GM and LG Energy Solution to overcome one of the most stubborn obstacles in EV development: making manganese behave as a reliable, long-lasting power source.
For years, manganese's potential seemed tantalizing but out of reach. As an element, it boasts a powerful advantage: it's the fifth most abundant element on Earth, which means dramatically lower costs than the materials that currently dominate EV batteries. Yet "historically, LMR has been hampered by technical barriers, in particular short battery life and voltage decay, which made them a tantalizing but impractical option," according to GM's director of advanced EV battery cell engineering, Kushal Narayanaswamy. After a decade of refinement, GM says it has cracked the code.
The breakthrough matters because cost and range remain the two biggest barriers to EV adoption in the United States. A battery that delivers both lower prices and longer driving distances could reshape the calculus for millions of potential buyers. Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory confirmed in 2024 that manganese-based materials "have tremendous potential to become the next-generation lithium-ion cathode as they are Earth abundant, low cost and stable."
GM's LMR batteries will debut in a novel form: prismatic cells, which are square or rectangular rather than the cylindrical or pouch shapes currently dominating the market. This architecture packs more power density and allows manufacturers to scale up to the kind of heavy-duty vehicles that have proven most difficult to electrify. GM is betting big on this approach, aiming to leapfrog smaller applications and deploy LMR prismatic batteries directly in full-scale SUVs and trucks—some of the most demanding vehicles on the road.
The timeline is aggressive. Last fall, GM's LMR battery won the Battery Innovation of the Year award at the 15th annual Battery Show North America, and earned a spot on Fast Company's Next Big Things in Tech 2025 list. A GM-LG Energy Solution joint venture is already moving toward volume production in 2028. This year, small-batch assessments will begin at GM's Wallace Battery Cell Innovation Center.
Beyond Earth, GM Defense is collaborating with Lunar Outpost to supply advanced battery technology for the Pegasus rover under NASA's Artemis mission—demonstrating that the company is serious about pushing electrification to its extreme limits. The move also signals GM's commitment to proving its electrification credentials after recent pullbacks in EV production strategy.
The broader context underscores why this matters: as countries worldwide tighten emissions standards and consumer interest in zero-emission vehicles continues climbing, the first automaker to successfully deploy a cheaper, longer-range battery at scale could capture enormous market share. GM is positioning itself to be that company. By harnessing one of Earth's most abundant metals and solving problems that have vexed researchers for years, the automaker is placing a substantial bet that the future of driving will run on manganese—and that bet could reshape the entire EV landscape by the end of this decade.