Samsung SDI will acquire GM's entire 49.99% stake in their joint venture, Synergy Cells. With the joint venture structure dissolved due to GM's scaling back of its electric vehicle business and slowing demand in North America, the plant under construction in New Carlisle, Indiana, will be converted into Samsung SDI's first standalone battery production base in North America.

Samsung SDI announced in a regulatory filing on the 11th that it has decided to acquire all of GM's shares in Synergy Cells and take over ownership. Synergy Cells is an EV battery venture established in 2024 with a total investment of 3.5 billion USD (approximately 4.95 trillion KRW), targeting an annual production capacity of 27GWh, and is set to begin mass production next year.

GM's adjustment of its EV business served as the direct catalyst for the stake sale. GM announced that its U.S. EV sales fell 33% year-over-year in the second quarter of this year, and reflecting its EV business downsizing, it booked approximately 6 billion USD (8.5 trillion KRW) in impairment losses as special charges in the fourth quarter of last year. Ultium Cells, a joint venture plant with LG Energy Solution, was also temporarily idled for about six months. Samsung SDI and GM established Synergy Cells to cooperate on an EV business based on prismatic batteries, but the market environment shifted dramatically after the U.S. EV purchase subsidy was eliminated last October, leading to a sharp decline in sales of high-priced EV models equipped with high-performance batteries.

Nevertheless, strategic cooperation between the two companies will be maintained. Samsung SDI announced on the same day that it signed an agreement with GM for a joint advanced development project for next-generation EV prismatic batteries. Under this agreement, the two companies will jointly conduct R&D on prismatic batteries incorporating Samsung SDI's high energy density and fast-charging technologies, which will be installed in GM's next-generation EV models upon completion of development.

Samsung SDI plans to produce not only the next-generation prismatic batteries jointly developed with GM at this plant, but also advanced batteries for various applications and batteries for ESS. Since last year, Samsung SDI has been expanding its local presence by successively signing large-scale ESS battery supply agreements with major energy companies in the United States.

A Samsung SDI official explained, "This decision was made to respond to market changes while continuing strategic cooperation with GM." The company emphasized, "While continuing our joint efforts for the future EV era at this plant, we plan to actively respond to the growth of the North American ESS market."