General Motors has set out its GM sodium-ion battery plans in detail, targeting the delivery of first mass-production-grade cells by early 2028 as the Trump administration ramps up pressure on rival Ford over its ties to China’s battery industry.
Sodium-ion is a battery chemistry that uses sodium rather than lithium as its core material. It is cheaper and more abundant than lithium, and GM believes it could ultimately outperform the lithium-based technologies that currently dominate the global battery market.
Warren, Michigan: where GM’s sodium-ion ambitions begin
According to ESS News, GM will develop the sodium-ion batteries at its battery research and development centre in Warren, Michigan. The Detroit automaker is spending $900 million on new battery lab facilities at its global technology campus in suburban Detroit, including a more-than-500,000-square-foot facility for prototyping manufacturing of cells that is set to begin operations later this year.
The target application is ESS, or energy storage systems, the large-scale battery installations used to store electricity on the grid. Kurt Kelty, who leads GM’s battery strategy and is a former battery executive with U.S. EV leader Tesla, said sodium-ion is well suited to that role because its chemistry and temperature tolerance allow cells to operate without active cooling, a major source of cost and complexity in grid-scale storage. Removing that cooling requirement, he said, lowers the overall cost of ownership for energy storage.
Battery Tech Online reports that GM plans to deliver the first mass-production-grade sodium-ion cells from its new battery cell development centre by early 2028, giving the company a concrete milestone to work towards as it builds out its domestic supply chain.
GM sodium-ion battery plans and the push to leapfrog China
The ambition behind GM’s sodium-ion battery plans goes beyond simply replacing one chemistry with another. Kelty said repeatedly that the company wants to “leapfrog” China’s battery technologies rather than compete directly with Chinese supply chains or replicate what that market has already established. “The better thing to do is try to leapfrog, come up with a different technology that’s actually better that we can actually source here,” he said.
The scale of the challenge is clear from the numbers. The International Energy Agency reports that China produces about 85% of the world’s EV battery cathode active material and more than 90% of anode active material, giving it roughly 80% control of global battery production. China also largely controls the sourcing and production of LFP, or lithium iron phosphate, batteries through its supply chains.
GM currently manufactures LFP cells with its partner LG Energy Solution in the U.S. for ESS purposes. Ford, by contrast, has licensed LFP battery cell technology from China’s CATL (Contemporary Amperex Technology Co. Limited) for its EVs and ESS plans, an arrangement that has drawn direct criticism from the Trump administration. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy expressed “profound concern” over Ford’s China ties, specifically citing the CATL licensing, despite Ford being the top-producing automaker of vehicles in the U.S.
Kelty, speaking days before Duffy’s comments, was pointed without being combative. Of Ford’s approach, he said simply: “they’re following a different path.” He added: “We think it’s more valuable to develop this all domestically, take advantage of domestic supply chains, and develop a technology that’s actually better than the incumbent technology.”
Ford is not stepping back from grid-scale storage, however. ESS News also reports that Ford and EDF announced a gigawatt-scale BESS (battery energy storage system) agreement in May 2026, with deliveries expected to begin in 2028, underlining that both American automakers are pushing into the energy storage market even as they pursue very different supply chain strategies.
Industry caution: building a domestic supply chain takes time
Not everyone shares GM’s optimism about the speed of change. Sam Abuelsamid, a battery expert and vice president of market research at Telemetry, said it will likely take years to domesticate a battery supply chain. He pointed out that LFP materials could, in principle, also be produced in the U.S. “There’s no reason why the LFP materials couldn’t also be produced here,” he said. “There’s ways to do that, but … the sodium-ion would be even cheaper and easier to do.”
The broader ecosystem is also beginning to take shape. Utility Dive reports that Peak Energy plans to build a 4-GWh sodium-ion manufacturing plant in Sacramento, California, a sign that GM is not alone in betting on the technology.
Kelty acknowledged that $900 million, while substantial, is small compared with what would be needed to substantially reduce China’s grip on the industry. But he framed the direction of travel clearly: “We are purposely going down the path of having American-developed technology. Batteries are really critical for a lot of different areas of our economy here.”
With first mass-production-grade cells targeted for early 2028, GM’s next concrete test of that commitment is now firmly on the calendar.
