My finance view

DETROIT — General Motors Corp., a wounded company living on cash borrowed from the government, didn’t behave like one on Monday as it unveiled ambitious plans to research and assemble lithium-ion batteries in Michigan and picked a Korean company to supply the cells to power the Chevrolet Volt electric car.

But a top executive raised the prospect that GM will need more federal loans later in the year if the U.S. auto market doesn’t improve, saying the company presented a worst-case scenario to the government last year that would require $18 billion in loans, $4.6 billion more than the amount granted.

The battery factory, to be opened somewhere near Detroit, will employ more than 100 people and be highly automated as it takes cutting-edge lithium-ion cells imported from LG Chem Ltd. of South Korea and welds them into battery packs for the Volt and other next-generation vehicles from GM.

GM also announced the creation of a 31,000-square-foot battery lab, the largest in the country run by an automaker, at its Warren technical center.

An existing facility that straddles the border between Detroit and the tiny enclave of Hamtramck will assemble the Volt, so southeastern Michigan is the likely front-runner to land the battery factory as well.

The Volt is designed to plug into a standard wall outlet and travel 40 miles on battery power alone. After that, a small internal-combustion engine kicks in to generate power for the car. The car is set to go on sale late next year at a price expected from $30,000 to $40,000.

Monday’s announcement at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit was fresh evidence that GM expects to survive the recession and thrive, even as Chief Operating Officer Fritz Henderson raised the prospect of federal loans beyond the $13 payday loans.4 billion already granted to the company.

Henderson wouldn’t speculate on what would cause GM to seek more money, but he said GM submitted a "downside scenario" in December that would require a total of $18 billion.

The battery announcement was among the biggest news from the Detroit show Monday, where Toyota Motor Corp. ramped up the competition in hybrid gas-electric vehicles by showing off the next generation Prius, the top-selling hybrid in the U.S.

The 2010 Prius gets an average of 50 miles to the gallon, four more than the current model, which is the most fuel-efficient vehicle ranked by the Environmental Protection Agency.

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 Gallery: See a photo gallery of new cars from Detroit.

Honda Motor Co. on Sunday unveiled a new version of the Insight to compete with the Prius, and Ford Motor Co. has a hybrid Fusion due out in spring.

Also Monday, California startup Fisker Automotive debuted a production version of its $80,000 plug-in Fisker Karma. The company also unveiled a convertible version, the Karma S, which it expects to build in 2011.

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