Asger Risom
General Motors publicly cheered when the Trump administration gutted federal fuel economy standards to protect gas-guzzling trucks. But follow the capital, and the cynicism is glaring: GM is pouring massive resources into a Tennessee battery plant to future-proof its EV business, proving the regulatory rollback was just a stalling tactic.
Just days ago, legacy automakers were popping champagne.
When the Trump administration aggressively rolled back federal fuel economy standards—slashing efficiency targets to protect the domestic production of heavy, gas-guzzling trucks—General Motors publicly applauded the move. They claimed the regulatory surrender was a necessary step to align with “market realities” and protect consumer choice.
Behind closed doors, GM’s actual market reality looks very different. They know the combustion engine is a global dead end.
According to reporting from InsideEVs, General Motors is funneling massive resources into its Spring Hill, Tennessee battery plant to mass-produce a new generation of electric vehicle cells by 2028.
They aren’t betting the company’s survival on V-8 engines; they are scrambling to build an EV supply chain that can compete with China.
The public pivot vs. the private panic
This is a corporate double-play. Publicly, GM lobbied for regulatory relief so they could continue printing short-term profits off of inefficient trucks shielded by American tariffs.
They sold the public a story about the EV transition moving too fast.
Privately, GM is terrified of falling behind. The rest of the world is rapidly electrifying, with Chinese automakers flooding global markets with advanced, cheap EVs.
GM knows that if they don’t secure a localized, low-cost battery supply, they will be entirely boxed out of the international mobility market within a decade.
The Tennessee fortress
To survive, GM is retooling the Tennessee facility—an Ultium Cells joint venture with LG Energy Solution—to become the world’s first plant to mass-produce a new “lithium-manganese-rich” (LMR) battery.
The goal of this chemistry is simple: build a battery that matches the low prices of Chinese supply chains while delivering enough energy density to push a heavy American SUV past 400 miles of range.
By swapping out expensive, volatile materials for cheap, abundant manganese, GM is trying to build a domestic fortress against foreign battery monopolies.
It is a massive engineering gamble designed to save the company’s future. It also exposes the utter cynicism of their political lobbying.
GM isn’t slowing down its EV transition because the technology is failing; they just wanted the federal government to grant them a few more years of easy gas-powered profits while they figure out how to catch up.
