From Mine to Magnet to Motor: How GM Is Building Critical Supply Chains for the Long Term

General Motors outlines its long-term supply chain strategy for electric vehicle permanent magnets, detailing its partnership with MP Materials. In the early 1980s, GM researchers helped pioneer neodymium-based permanent magnets, followed by decades of electric motor development across vehicles such as the Chevrolet Volt, its successor with a dual-V magnet arrangement, and the first-generation Chevrolet Bolt EV. Most current GM EV motors use interior permanent magnets featuring segmented designs to reduce heat and energy loss. In 2021, GM entered into a long-term agreement with MP Materials, becoming the foundational automotive customer for MP’s Independence manufacturing facility in Fort Worth, Texas. MP Materials operates the Mountain Pass rare earth mining and refining site in California. Five years after the agreement began, MP Materials is producing automotive magnets at the Independence facility, while GM tests and validates them in electric motors at its labs in Pontiac, Michigan, connecting operations in California, Texas, and Michigan.