GM Says Its New EV Platform Squeezes Out Twenty Percent More Range

Range anxiety is still the top reason people hesitate to buy an electric car, and General Motors thinks it has part of the answer. At its second annual Forward event in New York, the automaker detailed a New EV Platform it says delivers twenty percent more range than today's hardware — built around a battery chemistry the company describes as a production first.

The centerpiece is a lithium manganese-rich cell, shortened to LMR, that GM calls the world's first production version of the chemistry. According to MobileSyrup's report on the event, the cells come from GM's Ultium Cells joint venture and will go into the company's highest-volume electric models, where the automaker is betting on range, durability, and affordability. The new family of motors and electronics also cuts the part count inside each drive unit by forty percent, a simplification GM says will free up interior space and lower production costs.

Why should a buyer care about parts inside a motor they will never see? Because simpler usually means cheaper to build, and build cost is what stands between today's EV prices and the affordable electrics shoppers keep asking for. Range, meanwhile, is the number most first-time EV buyers compare first — the difference between a car that comfortably covers a road trip and one that has you hunting for chargers. A genuine twenty-percent jump on the same footprint would move several GM models from "fine for commuting" into "weekend-trip" territory without a bigger, heavier battery.

OnStar Gets an AI Assistant

The hardware was only half the story. GM also announced it is turning OnStar — long known for its human advisors and emergency response — into a conversational AI assistant. The new OnStar AI Assistant will combine conversation with an understanding of the vehicle itself, according to MobileSyrup, letting drivers adjust car settings, open some hatches, compartments, and charging ports by voice, and get real-time updates and answers specific to their own car through the OnStar app.

Crucially, the humans are not going away. GM says that when the assistant cannot resolve something, it can connect the driver with a live OnStar advisor — a hybrid approach that keeps a safety net under the automation. The feature debuts on the 2027 Cadillac Lyriq through over-the-air updates in the coming months, with other GM vehicles following afterward. As cars start listening more closely, the security habits of young drivers matter more than ever — an always-on assistant is only as safe as the account guarding it.

Highway Autonomy Heads for the Mainstream

GM's third announcement was its roadmap for hands-off driving. The company plans to expand autonomous highway driving beyond its premium models to its top-selling vehicles, including full-size SUVs and light-duty pickups — the workhorses of the American market. Starnews Korea reported that the broader mobility blueprint also promises highway autonomous driving in the Cadillac Escalade IQ starting in 2028, with the technology then spreading across the lineup.

Underpinning all of it is a new centralized computing and electrical architecture that is liquid-cooled and designed to roll out across both gas and electric models. By routing key vehicle functions through one integrated computing base and pushing regular software updates over the air, GM wants its cars to get smarter the longer you own them — closer to the gadget-style upgrade cycle buyers already expect from their phones than the frozen-in-time cars of the past. It is the same playbook behind AI agents handling payments: software, not hardware, becomes the product.

The usual caveats apply. These are the automaker's own claims from its own stage, not independent test results, and a brand-new battery chemistry still has to prove its durability at real-world scale over years of charging cycles. GM's past EV timelines have slipped before, so the 2028 autonomy target deserves a raised eyebrow until hardware ships. But the direction is unmistakable: more range from smarter chemistry rather than bigger batteries, an assistant riding shotgun in every car, and autonomy filtering down from flagship to family hauler. For anyone car-shopping in the next few years, the New EV Platform is the hardware to watch — because the affordable long-range electric car may finally be arriving as a software update as much as a machine.