GM Pitches New LMR EV Battery On Earth, New EV On The Moon

GM has been making a big deal about its investment in new EV battery technology, and it looks like all that hard work is going to pay off. The company’s forthcoming LMR (lithium manganese-rich) formula is heading for the consumer market in 2028, just in time for the automaker to ride a fresh wave of interest in zero-emission mobility in the US.

Separately, the company’s GM Defense branch has contributed advanced battery technology to the forthcoming Pegasus lunar rover engineered by the group Lunar Outpost for the NASA Artemis mission. The high tech association should help GM re-burnish its vehicle electrification cred after a pullback in recent months.

What Is This LMR Battery Of Which You Speak?

The LMR battery formula crossed the CleanTechnica radar last May, when GM portrayed it as “a leap forward that will offer consumers EVs with an attractive combination of long range and low cost.”

Part of the cost-cutting comes from manganese’s status as the fifth most abundant element on Earth. Battery researchers have also been exploring the potential for manganese to enhance performance.

“Manganese-based materials have tremendous potential to become the next-generation lithium-ion cathode as they are Earth abundant, low cost and stable,” Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory reported in 2024, in which it described improvements in electrochemical properties.

There being no such thing as a free lunch, getting manganese to behave has been a next-level challenge. In an explainer posted last May, GM’s director of advanced EV battery cell engineering, Kushal Narayanaswamy noted that GM has been hammering away at the problem for 10 years in collaboration with LG Energy Solution.

“Historically, LMR has been hampered by technical barriers, in particular short battery life and voltage decay, which made them a tantalizing but impractical option,” Narayanaswamy explained.

Here Comes The LMR Battery Of The Future

In the same article, Narayanaswamy indicated that solutions to those problems were well under way, with an eye on beating other automakers to the punch. “GM aims to be the first automaker to deploy LMR prismatic batteries in EVs.,” he stated, noting that a GM -LG Energy Solution joint venture was already in motion towards volume production in 2028.

Narayanaswamy and his team have not been letting the LMR grass grow under their feet. Last fall, GM let word drop that its new LMR EV battery won the Battery Innovation of the Year award at the 15th annual Battery Show North America, and it also earned a slot in Fast Company’s Next Big Things in Tech 2025 list. In an update last week, GM revealed that the new battery will be ready for small-batch assessments at the company’s Wallace Battery Cell Innovation Center sometime this year.

The Prismatic EV Battery Cell Connection

If you caught that thing about deploying LMR prismatic batteries in EVs, therein lies a tale. By now, everyone is familiar with cylindrical and pouch-type EV battery architecture. Prismatic cells are a relatively new development, sporting a square or rectangular shape like a D battery, only bigger.

Battery manufacturers (here’s one example) are beginning to include prismatic cells in their lineups, though the primary focus is on small-scale applications. Based on Narayanaswamy’s comments in 2024, GM intends to leapfrog over  small scale applications and light-duty vehicles in favor of more power-hungry markets including full scale SUVs as well as trucks.

That puts GM a bit closer to the league of Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, which has just launched a new production line for advanced prismatic battery testing at its Grid Scale Launchpad. As the name indicates, the facility is designed for grid-scale applications, so don’t hold your breath for EV batteries to make an appearance. Still, lessons learned at the new facility will help inform industry-wide efforts to commercialize prismatic architecture.

“With the new prismatic line, we can create, test and demonstrate real-world prismatic cells at an industrially relevant scale. This helps our researchers bridge the gap between science and industry,” Launchpad operations manager Adam Jivelekas explains.

“Now that the prismatic line is up and running, the team at the Grid Storage Launchpad hopes to start working with private battery companies who want to test their own chemistries in a prismatic cell format,” the lab adds..

A Moon-Worthy EV Battery Is On Its Way To The Moon

GM’s Defense branch is also lending support to the automaker’s electrification journey with a focus on advanced, rechargeable batteries for electric lunar rovers.  As part of a team called Lunar Outpost, last year GM Defense competed for a NASA contract against two other teams. In May of 2025, GM provided some details about its contribution to the Lunar Outpost project, including an NCMA (nickel cobalt manganese aluminum oxide) battery cathode.

In the same announcement, GM also teased its LMR battery. “In recent months, we’ve announced plans for commercial production of lithium manganese rich, or LMR batteries – and also LFP batteries, short for lithium iron phosphate – for use in future GM EVs. The new additions to the GM battery portfolio will provide more flexibility for creating affordable, long-range electric vehicles,” the company added.

Hmmm…curious! The juxtaposition of GM’s LMR work and the Lunar Outpost project doesn’t necessarily mean an LMR battery is going to appear in the rover, but so far all is going to plan. Last month, GM announced that Lunar Outpost’s Pegasus rover beat the competition to win a crewed “High Achievability Task Order” under contract with NASA. “GM is part of the team developing the vehicle for future Artemis missions to the Moon,” GM explained, referring to a 2028 goal for putting astronauts in the driver’s seat on the moon under the Lunar Outpost banner in partnership with Goodyear and the defense contractor Leidos.

“GM is producing battery technology for a lunar environment characterized by extreme temperature swings. Long-term reliability and fault tolerance are critical here,” GM added, noting that Pegasus will rove around the South Pole of the Moon, putting its batteries through the acid test.

GM Defense president Stephen duMont also chipped his two cents into the announcement. “GM’s electrification technology was built to perform in some of Earth’s toughest driving conditions, and adapting it for the Moon with space-rated batteries is an extraordinary technical challenge,” duMont said.

No word on whether or not GM is modding out its LMR technology for Moon applications. I’ll reach out to the company to see if any information is available. In the meantime, add your best guess to the discussion thread.

Image (cropped): GM is collaborating on advanced batteries for the Pegasus rover on the Moon, while prepping for a fresh round of lower-costing, higher-performing EV battery technology here on Earth (courtesy of Lunar Outpost).