What one automaker builds today
General Motors builds its electric vehicles today mostly on a nickel heavy cathode chemistry called NMCA, nickel cobalt manganese aluminium, the mix of metals inside a battery cell that stores its charge. Since June 2026, the automaker plant in Spring Hill, Tennessee, has also produced a 2nd, cheaper chemistry, lithium iron phosphate, called LFP, according to electrive.com. The Chevrolet Bolt, General Motors cheapest electric vehicle, instead runs on LFP cells bought from the Chinese battery maker CATL. CATL, the company supplying those Bolt cells, launched its own fast charging LFP product, called Shenxing, in August 2023, according to CATL own product timeline. Kurt Kelty, General Motors head of battery development, still describes the future of LFP at the company as open rather than settled.
There is a possibility where LFP does not earn its way into our portfolio.
Kurt Kelty, General Motors head of battery development. Source 4.
What the 2 chemistries cost
The price gap between the cheaper and pricier lithium ion chemistries is large. LFP battery packs averaged 81 dollars for every kilowatt hour of energy they can hold in 2025, against 128 dollars for NMC packs, the nickel manganese cobalt chemistry used across much of the rest of the industry, according to BloombergNEF, a market analysis firm. The market wide average across every chemistry sold that year was 108 dollars per kilowatt hour, sitting between the 2. BloombergNEF also states that factories in China now supply nearly all global LFP demand.
Show the numbers
| LFP | 81 |
| Market average | 108 |
| NMC | 128 |
What separates them by metal
The price gap traces back to what each cathode is made of. Cobalt is a metal mined mostly in the Democratic Republic of Congo that raises both the cost and the ethical sourcing risk of a battery. A European Commission technical report gives the cobalt content of 5 cathode chemistries by weight. Lithium cobalt oxide, LCO, carries the most, 60%. NMC ranges from 10% to 30%, depending on the exact metal mix a maker chooses that year, and NCA, nickel cobalt aluminium, ranges from 10% to 15%. Lithium manganese oxide, LMO, and LFP both carry none.
Lithium cobalt oxide, lithium manganese oxide and lithium iron phosphate are single figures reported by the source, shown here as a zero width range. Nickel manganese cobalt and nickel cobalt aluminium are ranges exactly as the source gives them, because the exact metal ratio changes each cathode formula.
Show the numbers
| Lithium cobalt oxide | 60% |
| Nickel manganese cobalt | 10% to 30% |
| Nickel cobalt aluminium | 10% to 15% |
| Lithium manganese oxide | 0% |
| Lithium iron phosphate | 0% |
A 3rd chemistry, already delivered once
A 3rd chemistry has already left the demonstration stage for at least 1 real vehicle. Sodium ion batteries replace lithium with sodium, a far more common element, inside the same basic cell design. Hina Battery and Tonly Heavy Industries handed a mining company, Sanyou Mining, an electric dump truck built with a sodium ion battery in July 2026, according to electrive.com. Its pack holds 676 kilowatt hours, charges fully in 20 to 25 minutes, and is designed to last more than 8,000 charge cycles, meaning full charges and discharges, before it needs replacing. The idea itself is not new. CATL held a launch event for its own sodium ion battery back in July 2021, according to CATL own product timeline. A single truck handed to a single mining company is still a far smaller step than a national plant such as Spring Hill or a whole vehicle lineup.
The chemistry that still is not real
A 4th chemistry, lithium manganese rich, called LMR, is not yet built anywhere. General Motors and its battery partner LG Energy Solution say a market ready LMR cell will not arrive until 2028, according to electrive.com. Naming that absence matters because it is easy to miss next to 3 chemistries a producer can already point to on a factory floor or inside a delivered truck.