For more than a decade, one of the most promising battery chemistries in electric vehicles has remained stuck on the lab bench, blocked by a stubborn technical flaw. This month, researchers may have finally cracked it — and the fix didn’t require inventing a new material at all, just a smarter way of using the one that already exists.
The battery chemistry everyone wants to work
Lithium manganese-rich, or LMR, batteries have long been seen as a promising next step for EVs because of what they leave out: cobalt. By relying primarily on manganese — a far cheaper and more widely available material — instead of cobalt, LMR batteries have the potential to meaningfully lower the cost of EV battery packs while still delivering strong energy density, since they store energy through both the transition metals in the cathode and the oxygen within the material itself.
The catch has always been stability. When the oxygen that gets oxidized during charging doesn’t fully return to its original state during discharge, it can damage the battery’s internal structure and generate gas — a problem that’s manageable in small lab cells but becomes a serious obstacle in the large-format cells needed for actual EVs, where there’s little internal space to accommodate that kind of pressure buildup.
How researchers solved it — without new materials
In a joint study published this month in Nature Communications, researchers from LG Energy Solution and Seoul National University identified, for the first time, that gas evolution in LMR cells is controlled simultaneously by both the upper charging voltage and the lower discharge cutoff — not just charging conditions alone, as earlier research had assumed. “This study identified the causes of degradation in LMR batteries from the perspective of oxygen reversibility and demonstrated that cell stability can be improved through electrochemical protocol design alone,” said Professor Jongwoo Lim of Seoul National University’s Department of Chemistry, who led the academic side of the research. “We confirmed that achieving long-term stability in LMR batteries requires comprehensive consideration of not only charging conditions but also discharge conditions.”
That’s a notable result because it means the fix doesn’t require a new material or an expensive manufacturing overhaul — just a redesigned operating voltage range and a lower-temperature formation process during cell activation. Applying those optimized conditions, LG Energy Solution’s researchers built 40 Ah-class large-format LMR cells — the same scale used in commercial EV batteries — and found the cells retained 92.2 percent of their initial energy capacity after 883 full charge-discharge cycles, a level of durability that puts LMR technology within realistic range of what automakers need for a production vehicle.
Why this matters for the next generation of EVs
General Motors and LG Energy Solution are already targeting commercial production of LMR prismatic cells through their Ultium Cells joint venture in the US, with a goal of reaching production by 2028 and pre-production beginning as early as late 2027. GM has described LMR as a “workhorse” long-term battery chemistry for its future EV lineup, with the technology initially planned for full-size platforms like the Chevrolet Silverado EV and Cadillac Escalade IQ — vehicles where a lower-cost, high-durability battery could meaningfully improve affordability without shrinking range.
If LMR technology continues progressing on this timeline, it could become an important option for automakers looking for a battery chemistry that keeps energy density high while easing dependence on cobalt, a material whose mining has long raised cost and supply chain concerns. Lower material costs at the cell level, passed through a full supply chain, have the potential to bring meaningful savings to the sticker price of future EVs — precisely the kind of cost reduction the industry needs as it works to make electric vehicles competitive with gas-powered alternatives without relying on tax incentives to close the gap.
A reminder that not every breakthrough needs a new material
There’s a broader lesson in how this particular problem got solved. Rather than searching for an entirely new cathode material or an exotic manufacturing process, LG Energy Solution and Seoul National University’s researchers found that the existing LMR chemistry could be made durable enough for commercial use simply by rethinking how the cell is charged and discharged — a reminder that some of the most valuable progress in battery technology comes not from flashy new materials, but from a more precise understanding of how the materials already in hand actually behave.
For EV shoppers, the timeline here is still a few years out — LMR cells aren’t going into vehicles on dealer lots this year, or even next. But with a major battery maker and a leading research university now aligned on a specific, workable fix, and a real automaker already building a production plan around it, the path from laboratory result to showroom-ready battery pack looks considerably shorter than it did just a few weeks ago.
