Happy Friday, and welcome to Critical Materials, your source for the biggest stories shaping the future of the auto industry.

Every Friday, we break down the week’s biggest EV news, keep you up to speed on the cars we’re testing, and recap must-read stories from around the web on driverless cars, batteries, charging, and more.

– Today’s email was written by Suvrat Kothari, Rob Stumpf, and me, Tim Levin.

In addition to being America’s largest automaker by sales, General Motors is becoming a burgeoning energy company. 

At an event in San Francisco I attended on Tuesday, GM said it's developing sodium-ion batteries for energy storage systems (ESS). It also wants to connect 52,000 EVs to the grid by the end of the decade and make EV charging dramatically simpler for owners with a new tool called Energy Pass, which consolidates charging and payments across major networks into a single app.

But first, let’s talk about sodium-ion. GM's broader battery strategy has branched out under Kurt Kelty, a Tesla veteran who serves as the automaker’s vice president of battery and sustainability.

It has lithium iron phosphate (LFP) for affordable EVs like the Chevy Bolt and near-term energy storage projects, traditional high-nickel (NMC) cells for most current models, and the upcoming lithium-manganese-rich (LMR) chemistry to bring down costs on big electric trucks and SUVs. Sodium-ion is the newest addition to that lineup.

“We believe that you have to have the right battery for the right application,” Kelty told me in an interview. 

Why it matters: EV sales have cooled in the U.S. now that federal tax credits have expired, and automakers that poured billions into domestic EV battery production are looking for somewhere else to put that capacity to work. Grid-scale energy storage is the obvious answer. Demand is enormous, driven largely by power-hungry AI data centers.

ESS batteries can store surplus renewable energy and release that energy when demand spikes. In this market, the race is on to deliver the best battery at the lowest cost, with minimal maintenance and a long service life. 

Sodium-ion battery basics: 

The big picture: My conversation with Kelty revealed something bigger. The automaker wants to kill North America's dependence on Chinese battery supply chains.

“We happen to have fabulous reserves here,” Kelty said of the raw materials required for sodium-ion batteries. “Ultimately, this should be a North American battery.” He’s got a point. Research shows sodium is 1,000 times more abundant than lithium and carries a far smaller environmental footprint. 

The automaker has committed $900 million to battery research alone. "We've got to bring that supply chain back to North America," Kelty said, arguing it's both a hedge against geopolitical shocks and a smart long-term investment in its own right.

GM’s broader energy push: Sodium-ion isn't the only way GM is thinking about helping the grid. The automaker also wants its EVs to double as rolling power banks. 

GM EVs already support vehicle-to-home bidirectional charging, which owners can activate with specialized equipment GM will install in your home for an added cost. With an upcoming firmware update, those EVs will also be able to send power back to the grid.

The automaker is now working with Pacific Gas & Electric to bring 52,000 of its EVs online for exactly that purpose. Cars spend most of their time parked in driveways doing nothing. That idle energy capacity could help owners lower their energy bills and give utilities a new weapon against power outages and the increasing demands of AI data centers. 

GM also wants to make charging less of a headache. This week it introduced Energy Pass, which integrates all charging functions directly into the myChevrolet, myCadillac, and myGMC apps. That will let owners charge seamlessly across Electrify America, ChargePoint, Ionna, EVgo, and the Tesla Supercharger networks. Model year 2027 GM EVs will all also come with a native NACS charging port. 

It isn’t alone. For years, Tesla has sold Powerwall and Megapack batteries to residential and commercial customers, respectively. Ford is spinning up its own energy storage business too.

The bottom line: GM booked $7.1 billion last year in charges linked to the pullback of its EV ambitions. Now in a down year for EV sales, the automaker is positioning itself as an energy company as well. Whether that turns into a meaningful new revenue stream or just a smart hedge against a slowing EV market is something we’ll find out with time.

-Suvrat Kothari

Get up to speed on the news that caught our eye this week:

BMW revealed a new concept car (pictured above) that previews what an electric M3 will look like.

The BMW iX3 has been selling like hotcakes. But one hidden secret is how much real-world range the car can pack, as shown by a recent grueling test where the EV managed to deliver more than 500 miles on a single charge.

BYD’s lightning-fast Flash chargers are coming to Canada. The 1.5 Megawatt chargers are planned for The Great White North just as BYD plans its grand entrance under the country’s new import rules.

The top engineer at Lucid Motors has left the EV startup as a new CEO takes the reins, TechCrunch first reported. Emad Dlala worked at Lucid for over a decade and was one of its longest-serving executives.

In related news, the Lucid Gravity just got a bunch of upgrades through a software update. That includes hands-free driving and adaptive high beams.

Donut Lab, a company that claims to have made the first production-ready solid state battery, has been tight-lipped about its tech and has been met with no shortage of skepticism from industry experts. A YouTuber claims to have debunked the company’s claims in a new video, but Donut Lab is pushing back.

Speaking of solid-state batteries, there’s a Dodge Charger EV test mule running around with one stuffed inside right now—well, kind of. Stellantis is using Dodge’s electric muscle car to test out semi-solid-state batteries built by Factorial Energy.

Ford’s new $30,000 EV pickup has been apparently spotted in the wild for the first time ever. Check out a camo-clad version of the truck driving on city streets.

We drove the new Rivian R2, and it blew our socks off. While many automakers have been aiming to build a Model Y killer, Rivian’s example may come the closest to actually being the king slayer, and we can tell you why.

Tesla continues to grow its footprint for Full Self-Driving across the world. Another European country has given Tesla the green light to activate FSD on its streets.

A new(ish) cheap EV is coming. Mitsubishi revealed the Eclipse Sportback, a small EV crossover based on the budget Nissan Leaf that’s hitting the U.S. later this year.

PepsiCo is now moving soda and snacks using autonomous trucks provided by Gatik. The companies have over 40 self-driving big rigs in operation, with plans to expand.

Owning a Volvo EX30 for a year has been rough for Edmunds’ testing team. Read why it calls the EV "a very frustrating car to live with." 

-Rob Stumpf

The Rivian R2 is finally here. And I can't recall a recent EV that's gotten such widespread, glowing reviews. 

MotorTrend called it “annoyingly good.” Ars Technica said it “entirely changes the EV game.” “It is not the fastest-charging, the cheapest, nor the quickest electric SUV ever made. But for my money, it’s absolutely the best,” our very own Mack Hogan wrote in his review.

On this week's Plugged-In Podcast, we talk all about the R2 and whether it can be the hit Rivian needs with the help of Jason Fenske, who runs the Engineering Explained YouTube channel. Like Mack, Jason came away impressed. He thought it was notable how many reviewers at the event weren't just judging the R2—but deciding whether they want to buy one. 

"I am one of those people that was assessing, do I want to own this thing? And my answer is yes, I do want to own that thing," he told us. 

He liked the size. And he liked how it smoothed over some of the shortcomings of the R1S, like its fussy, motorized charge-port door and lack of glove boxes. 

"I was really impressed by it," he said. "There's a lot of things that I'm not that stoked about on R1S, which I recently did a long road trip in. And I found R2 corrected almost all of those, and was just in a package that I like more, meaning it's smaller. So I really enjoyed it."

Jason compared it to the 2016 Subaru Crosstrek he owned for about eight years and loved. The R2, he says, is "super capable" despite having a much more basic suspension setup than the R1S and R1T. 

"It feels very smart and very practical," he said. "And it's like, this is a a bit of a price increase over Subaru, but very practical, very well thought out for the person who wants to do things outdoors."

But both Mack and Jason had a few gripes—especially with the new scroll-wheels Rivian introduced to the steering wheel. Those, it seems, could use some ironing out. 

Rivian needs the R2 to sell well if it wants to graduate into the big leagues of the car industry. And so far, it looks like this company nailed the assignment. Now comes the hard part: scaling up manufacturing and making sure all those new R2s can get serviced too. 

-Tim Levin

Check out Jason and Mack’s initial impressions of the R2 above! Or check out the show on audio platforms.

Thanks for reading Critical Materials. See you next week!

-Tim Levin