surging<\/a> in much of the rest of the world because of rising fuel prices caused by the war in Iran.<\/p>\n\u201cWe believe that E.V.s are the future,\u201d Mary Barra, the chief executive of G.M., said in an interview last week with \u201cNBC Nightly News,\u201d adding that car buyers would set the pace of change.<\/p>\n
G.M. plans to develop battery cells in which sodium is the main active ingredient, a different approach from Ford or Tesla. Sodium, often derived from soda ash, is much cheaper and easier to process than lithium, the main ingredient in most storage and electric vehicle batteries. Sodium-ion batteries also do not require elaborate cooling and heating systems to operate safely and efficiently.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn this market, it\u2019s all about cost,\u201d Kurt Kelty, a G.M. vice president who oversees its battery business, said in an interview.<\/p>\n
But the technology needs to be refined and will not be ready for mass production until 2028, Mr. Kelty said.<\/p>\n
Sodium-ion batteries are too large and heavy for use in most vehicles, but that could change in four or five years as the technology improves, Mr. Kelty said. \u201cWe\u2019re at the very beginning stages of sodium ion, like how much it can drop in cost and how much the performance can improve.\u201d<\/p>\n
G.M. also said it would issue software updates to allow some of its electric vehicles to be used to send power to electric grids. Owners of electric Chevrolets, including the Silverado pickup and Equinox and Blazer sport utility vehicles, as well as several Cadillac models, would be able to earn money by allowing electric utilities to draw power from the cars and trucks when they were plugged into home chargers.<\/p>\n
G.M. has already sold about 250,000 vehicles capable of that feature, the company said.<\/p>\n
The technology \u201cultimately, over time, will put money in the back of the pockets of our customers,\u201d Wade Sheffer, vice president of G.M. Energy, said. On Tuesday he called on utility companies to take advantage of the growing number of vehicles that energy providers can use to balance the supply and demand of electricity.<\/p>\n
Tesla also offers a vehicle-to-grid feature on its Cybertruck pickup, and Ford\u2019s F-150 Lightning pickup has similar capabilities. But U.S. electric utilities, which tend to be slow to embrace new technology, have run only small pilot projects to test the use of electric vehicles in this way.<\/p>\n
G.M. also said Tuesday that it was updating its electric vehicle software to make it easier for drivers to use public charging stations. Drivers should no longer need to use apps on their phones to start a charging session at many stations, including those operated by Tesla. They can simply plug their cars into compatible stations and walk away.<\/p>\n
The overall goal is to make electric vehicle ownership more affordable and more convenient, Mr. Kelty said. Range, cost and charging \u201care the big three things that are always issues with E.V.s,\u201d he said. \u201cThat\u2019s really what we\u2019re going after.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"General Motors plans to begin making components for large storage batteries, the company said Tuesday, joining Tesla, Ford…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":694663,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[301105,301103,46121,28,7258,147241,147244,172975,36290,4530,301104],"class_list":["post-694662","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-automobile-service-and-charging-stations","tag-barra","tag-batteries","tag-business","tag-data-centers","tag-electric-and-hybrid-vehicles","tag-electric-light-and-power","tag-factories-and-manufacturing","tag-general-motors","tag-innovation","tag-mary-t"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/694662","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=694662"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/694662\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/694663"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=694662"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=694662"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=694662"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}