DETROIT — General Motors, a wounded company living on cash borrowed from the government, didn’t behave like one Monday as it unveiled ambitious plans to research and assemble lithium-ion batteries in Michigan and picked a South Korean company to supply the cells to power the Chevrolet Volt electric car.
But a top executive raised the prospect that GM will need more federal loans if the U.S. auto market doesn’t improve, saying that the company presented a worst-case scenario to the government last year that would require $18 billion in loans, $4.6 billion more than the Bush administration has granted.
The battery factory, to be opened somewhere near Detroit, will employ more than 100 people and be highly automated as it takes cutting-edge lithium-ion cells imported from LG Chem Ltd. of South Korea and welds them into battery packs for the Volt and other next-generation vehicles from GM.
GM also announced the creation of a 31,000-square-foot battery lab, the largest in the country run by an automaker, at its Warren technical center. It also said it has joined with the University of Michigan to test batteries at the Ann Arbor campus and train future engineers to design components for electric cars.
The announcement Monday at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit was fresh evidence that GM expects to survive the recession and thrive, even as chief operating officer Fritz Henderson raised the prospect of federal loans beyond the $13.4 billion already granted to the company.
The battery announcement was among the biggest news from the Detroit show Monday, where Toyota ramped up the competition in hybrid gas-electric vehicles by showing off the next generation Prius.
The 2010 Prius gets an average of 50 miles to the gallon, four more than the current model, which already is the most fuel-efficient vehicle ranked by the Environmental Protection Agency. Honda on Sunday unveiled a new version of the Insight to compete with the Prius, and Ford has a hybrid Fusion also due out this spring.
AutoNation chief executive Mike Jackson said the company reduced vehicle orders this month by 60 percent, but orders for trucks are up as gas prices decline from their 2008 highs.
