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GM hires ex-Tesla battery guru Kurt Kelty to beef up its battery efforts


GM has hired ex-Tesla exec Kurt Kelty as its new vice president of batteries. Kelty will be tasked with helping advance GM's Ultium project.

Kelty will join GM at a time when the company has struggled to increase the output of the battery packs for its new Ultium platform, which is supposed to power its next-generation electric vehicles. “The foundation that GM has established coupled with Kurt’s exceptional battery expertise in leading battery chemistry development, establishing partnerships, building out supply chains and partnering closely with teams that have developed leading battery systems will help us achieve our electrification goals and position GM as a leader in EV technology,” GM president Mark Reuss said in a statement. More recently, he was the vice president of commercialization at Sila Nanotechnologies, a company founded by early Tesla employee Gene Berdichevsky that has been developing a silicon-based anode that can dramatically increase the energy density of lithium-ion batteries.

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