Yeah this isn't really "groundbreaking", it's just more chemistry tweaking at the margins of the technology. The fact that they're only planning on putting them in their largest (ie most expensive) vehicles leads me to wonder if they're really as cheap as LFP.
Is this a real breakthrough? No.
Companies are always tweaking battery chemistry and optimizing things. We'll see if GM's new cells actually deliver on the promised energy density and cost.
Also it's weird how the article talks about prismatic cells like they're something new. Those type of cells have been around forever. Heck the Nissan Leaf has been using prismatic cells since 2011! It's just a different form factor - that's it. Cells can be prismatic, pouch, or cylindrical. It doesn't really matter what they are though, there are advantages and disadvantages to each form factor.
Having read the full article it sounds to me like this is GM just looking for ways of boosting its margins, which is fine. The hype is unwarranted. The new batteries will likely just give GM healthier margins for a given vehicle but for consumers the prices probably won't decrease and the range won't be dramatically more than what we see today.
If they really were cheaper than LFP and offered better density than LFP then GM would ditch LFP altogether because why stick with an inferior tech that costs the same - which they aren't doing - so that tells me these new cells are probably more expensive than LFP but cheaper than NCM and sit somewhere in between the two for energy density as well.
Speaking of the Leaf, pretty sure this is similar to the original Leaf chemistry... and with some light googling I found that it in fact is! (Nissan called it something different - lithium-manganese-oxide with nickel oxide (LiMn2O4 with LiNiO2). Same basic idea, nickel replaces the cobalt = slightly cheaper battery cells.
