In April of 1966, a shiny white Chevrolet Impala became the first car off the assembly line of a new General Motors plant in Lordstown, Ohio. It was the glorious start of what became a checkered history for the area. This blue-collar town survived an infamous labor strike in 1972, the Chapter 11 bankruptcy of GM in 2009, and a string of unmemorable small cars—including the Chevy Vega and Cavalier—before emerging as a symbol of industrial rebirth with the production of the Chevy Cruze in 2010. □ But things soon went to hell again, and GM shuttered the plant in 2019. Even then, the pain wasn't over. The plant became a political football for President Trump, who urged local residents not to sell their homes, because of jobs he promised to restore. He later rebuked GM for not building COVID-19 ventilators in a factory it no longer owned. (By that time, GM had sold the mothballed plant to Lordstown Motors Corp., a long-shot electric-truck startup.) □ Now, nine-lives Lordstown is getting another chance to play a significant role in the automotive future. Whether it succeeds hinges on the biggest multibillion-dollar question in the global auto industry: Can GM, or any legacy automaker for that matter, transform itself into a true rival to Tesla, whose electric cars—and sky-high stock price—dominate the EV space? To do that, it'll need better, stronger, more-affordable batteries. That's where GM's Ultium project comes in.

中文翻译：

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通用汽车在电池上押下重注：一家耗资 23 亿美元的新工厂生产 Ultium 电池，为未来的电动汽车系列提供动力

1966 年 4 月，一辆闪亮的白色雪佛兰 Impala 成为第一辆从通用汽车公司位于俄亥俄州洛兹敦的新工厂下线的汽车。这是该地区一段曲折历史的辉煌开始。这个蓝领小镇在 1972 年臭名昭著的劳工罢工、2009 年通用汽车第 11 章破产以及一系列令人难忘的小型汽车（包括雪佛兰维加和骑士）中幸存下来，然后随着生产2010 年的雪佛兰科鲁兹。 □ 但事情很快又陷入困境，通用汽车在 2019 年关闭了工厂。即便如此，痛苦还没有结束。该工厂成为特朗普总统的政治足球，他敦促当地居民不要出售他们的房屋，因为他承诺要恢复工作。他后来指责通用汽车没有在其不再拥有的工厂中制造 COVID-19 呼吸机。（到那时，通用汽车已将封存的工厂卖给了长期发展的电动卡车初创公司洛兹敦汽车公司。） □ 现在，九命洛兹敦又获得了在汽车未来发挥重要作用的机会。它能否成功取决于全球汽车行业最大的价值数十亿美元的问题：通用汽车或任何与此相关的传统汽车制造商能否将自己转变为特斯拉的真正竞争对手，特斯拉的电动汽车和高昂的股价主导着整个汽车行业？电动车空间？为此，它需要更好、更强大、更实惠的电池。这就是通用汽车的 Ultium 项目的用武之地。它能否成功取决于全球汽车行业最大的价值数十亿美元的问题：通用汽车或任何与此相关的传统汽车制造商能否将自己转变为特斯拉的真正竞争对手，特斯拉的电动汽车和高昂的股价主导着整个汽车行业？电动车空间？为此，它需要更好、更强大、更实惠的电池。这就是通用汽车的 Ultium 项目的用武之地。它能否成功取决于全球汽车行业最大的价值数十亿美元的问题：通用汽车或任何与此相关的传统汽车制造商能否将自己转变为特斯拉的真正竞争对手，特斯拉的电动汽车和高昂的股价主导着整个汽车行业？电动车空间？为此，它需要更好、更强大、更实惠的电池。这就是通用汽车的 Ultium 项目的用武之地。