GM simulated 300,000 EV battery designs—using 34,000 years of computer time—before building a single cell. Now comes the physical part
Source: Fortune ·
At GM Forward, the automaker showed how much of its next generation of vehicles is now designed and tested in simulation. The real cells come later.
From the source
General Motors says it simulated more than 300,000 designs for its next EV battery before building a single physical cell. The run took 300 million CPU hours, or one computer running around the clock for 34,000 years, by GM’s math. GM pitched the number Wednesday at its GM Forward event as proof it can halve the traditional four-to-five-year vehicle development process, to about two years. With the battery, the team went from first pack concept to formal program approval in one month. Nearly every announcement ran on the same logic. GM’s self-driving software logs more than 3 billion simulated miles a day, against about 1 million real-world miles a month. Factory teams rehearse assembly in digital models. Fortune reported Tuesday on the culture change gripping the top American auto-seller: engineers rewarded for missed stretch targets and a battery chief who says, “I want to see red.” Sterling Anderson, the former Tesla Autopilot chief GM hired as chief product officer in 2025,…