General Motors has selected the lithium-ion battery manufacturer LG Chem as GM 2015 Supplier of the Year, according to recent reports.
The award was given out at the company’s recent 24th annual Supplier of the Year awards ceremony at the Cobo Center in Detroit, Michigan — which saw the company recognize 110 of its best suppliers (spread across 17 different countries). The suppliers that “have consistently exceeded GM’s expectations, created outstanding value, or brought new innovations to the company.”
This is apparently the 6th consecutive time that LG Chem has been chosen by GM for the award.
The President and CEO of LG Chem Power, Denise Gray, commented: “LG Chem has had a long-standing partnership with GM, supplying the company with batteries for GM’s first generation Volt in 2010, as well as the 2014 Spark EV and the all new Bolt EV introduced in 2016. This partnership has been solidified with GM again selecting LG Chem as Supplier of the Year for the sixth consecutive year.”
Note that Denise Gray was formerly the Director of Global Battery Systems Engineering at General Motors.
Green Car Congress provides further details:
LG Chem’s close partnership with GM was highlighted in 2010 when LG was honored by GM with the title: Corporation of the Year. GM’s 2015 supplier recognition represents a nearly 40% increase in the number of suppliers honored compared to 79% in 2014. More than half of the suppliers are repeat winners from 2014.
Winning suppliers were chosen by a global team of GM purchasing, engineering, quality, manufacturing, and logistics executives, and selected based on performance criteria in Product Purchasing, Indirect Purchasing, Customer Care and Aftersales, and Logistics.
One could suppose that the GM/Chevrolet and LG Chem partnership is likely to continue into the foreseeable future, going by this news item and other recent ones. I suppose that LG Chem has forgiven GM for spilling the beans on the price point for the batteries being used in the upcoming Chevy Bolt.