GM Reveals Its Secret Weapon To Fix Drivers’ Two Big Electric Car Frustrations

Unlike rival heat-pump systems, which begin to lose effectiveness at lower ambient temperatures, Ultium’s promises to keep on going even down to -30 degrees Centigrade (-22 degrees Fahrenheit). Because of the way it’s interlinked, in fact, GM can even give the system a little internal heat bump to make it more efficient in extreme cold temperatures. The result isn’t just impressive in EV terms, but for vehicles overall. “We can heat the cabin of our EVs more quickly in cold weather than our comparable internal combustion vehicles,” Ziehr says.

Equally important is the fact that GM isn’t making this energy recovery system an expensive option. Instead, it’ll be standard on every Ultium-based vehicle and, down the line, potentially outside of EVs too. After all, the automaker is looking at other ways it could apply its Ultium technologies beyond cars and trucks, and the heat system will go with that.

Although drivers will be able to manually choose to precondition the battery, for the most part all this heat management happens automatically and in the background. The upshot is more range than pure battery pack size might suggest: 329 miles for the Hummer EV, and 300+ miles for the Cadillac Lyriq. Deliveries of the former have already begun, while Cadillac will start taking Lyriq reservations from May 19, 2022.