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Kurt Kelty Reveals GM's Future Battery Strategies for EVs and Infrastructure

Jun 17, 2026 · 52 min · Ep 5

What happens to your EV's battery when it's no longer powerful enough to drive? Is there more life left in it than you'd expect? Those are just two of the questions Craig Cole and co-host Sam Abuelsamid put to Kurt Kelty, VP of Battery and Sustainability at General Motors, who spent over a decade leading battery engineering at Tesla before bringing that expertise to GM. The conversation covers second-life battery programs already operating at scale, GM's decision to leapfrog lithium iron phosphate and pursue sodium-ion chemistry for stationary energy storage, next-generation battery architectures designed to slash cost and complexity, and a candid take on where solid-state batteries actually stand today.


Chapters

0:00 - Introduction

6:13 - Kurt Kelty's Career & GM's Battery Strategy

14:46 - Sodium-Ion: The Chemistry GM Is Betting On

19:23 - Vehicle-to-Grid & China's EV Market

25:43 - Next-Gen Battery Architecture

35:01 - LMR, Silicon & Solid-State Batteries

39:12 - Three for the Road

43:05 - Conclusions


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