During a General Motors third quarter earnings conference call Tuesday, GM CEO Mary Barra told investors that Lordstown Ultium Cells EV battery production facility will "fully ramped" by the end of the year, along with completing and starting operations at the Spring Hill, Tennessee, and Lansing, Michigan EV battery facilities which are under construction. The battery operations are a joint effort between GM and LG Energy Solution.

Fully ramped means that the facility will be producing at full capacity of 35 gigawatt-hours. Barra said that 2024 will have Lordstown running at full capacity for the first time since it opened in September 2022, with Spring Hill coming on board early next year and a planned fourth EV battery partnered with Samsung plant opening by 2026.

With some UAW employees on strike for up to six weeks against the Big Three automakers, GM made a recent offer to add the battery workers to GM's master agreement.

When asked about the Ultium Cells and the recent offer by GM to bring Ultiun Cells under the automaker's maker master contract, Barra said that the Lordstown Local 1112 is currently negotiating its own contract.

Barra said it was important to note for this to happen, that GM must also have benchmark economics and operating flexibility due to the differences between the battery plants and the traditional auto manufacturing jobs. Barr said the offer "remains open," but the focus is on Ultium getting its own agreement.

On October 6, UAW President Shaun Fain said that GM's offer was a step in the future of the autoworkers moving forward.

But on Monday, Fain told the Detroit News the offer was “dead in the water.”

Michael Wayland, a digital reporter who covers the global auto industry told 21 News that the battery plants have been a complex issue, as they are not a mandatory topic of bargaining, being under joint ventures.

Wayland, who was with Fain at the time of the statement, said he didn't want to talk about the battery plants, only about the economics and the negotiations.

Wayland said the GM made a "hail Mary" offer to "put them under the scope" and stated that in order to stop GM's Ellington plant - which is one of the more profitable plants - from being taken out on strike by Fain; however, this morning, the Arlington, Texas factory joined other striking UAW as nearly 5,000 workers that make SUVs walked off the job Tuesday.

To hear the entire conversation with Wayland and more on Ultium Cells, listen to the 21 News podcast.

Ultium Cells Communications Katie Burdette told 21 News the the Lordstown facility has more than 1,750 employees currently and will grow to as many as 2,000 by the end of the year.

Barra spoke about improvements to the EV Ultium batteries which the company learned from the first round produced that went into the Chevy EV Bolt, from designing, producing, and sourcing of the products.

Barra told a reporter that the Ultium platform is "chemistry agnostic" and will be able to make efficiency modifications and adjustments, but perhaps in a decade may need to look to an "Ultium 2.0" update by 2030.

Barro spoke about how the simplification process of EV vehicles will benefit GM moving forward. She said that GM is going to a "responsive demand" to its new building platform, to build vehicles by demand, to keep from overproducing those slower in sales.

Barra said the company remains "very committed to an all EV future" and growing and expanding its EV line.