It was not so long ago that Ford (F) announced that it had some “game-changing” battery technology coming to its electric vehicle lineup. Not to be outdone, legacy automaker General Motors (GM) announced its own “groundbreaking” battery technology. Oddly, the “groundbreaking” new battery technology seems to be fairly close to the “game-changing” technology Ford rolled out about three weeks ago. But the groundbreaking was good enough for GM shareholders, who sent shares up fractionally in Tuesday afternoon’s trading.
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The new technology—lithium manganese-rich (LMR) technology, as it is known—is set to come to full-size GM electric vehicles starting in 2028. More specifically, GM looks to get LMR batteries into the Escalade IQ and the Silverado. This will have a critical advantage, as Ford is looking to get its LMR technology in play by the end of the decade, while GM plans to have it in play in just a couple years. The difference is not exactly huge, but will apparently be sufficient to give GM first-mover advantage for a while.
The GM version of LMR calls more on manganese than cobalt and nickel, both of which are comparatively hard to come by. Plus, as GM’s vice president of battery, propulsion and sustainability Kurt Kelty noted, “LMR unlocks the premium range and performance at an affordable cost.”
A Big New Move in Autopilot
Meanwhile, the dream of a self-driving car is still alive and well, and GM made a big new hire in pursuit of that dream. GM hired the former head of autopilot at Tesla (TSLA), Sterling Anderson, as its new Chief Product Officer. This puts control of the complete lifecycle of both electric vehicles and gas-powered hardware in his hands.
It certainly does not hurt matters that Anderson also founded Aurora, an autonomous trucking operation, with several other names in the autonomous vehicle space. And with GM officially abandoning its Cruise robotaxi plans, this may be a sign that it wants to bring them back under a different banner after all.
Is GM a Good Stock to Buy Now?
Turning to Wall Street, analysts have a Moderate Buy consensus rating on GM stock based on nine Buys, seven Holds and two Sells assigned in the past three months, as indicated by the graphic below. After a 10.17% rally in its share price over the past year, the average GM price target of $52.62 per share implies 5.07% upside potential.
