Time’s running out for GM to get its EVs right — and billions of dollars are on the line
General Motors’ highly touted, multibillion-dollar move into electric vehicles would be a comedy of errors, if it were funny.
Announcements recently that GM is pushing back the launch of one key EV, delaying the overhaul of a key plant and ending a joint development program with Honda may represent an acknowledgment of the problems, but not a solution.
“Legacy automakers are finding the transition to electric vehicles difficult, and none more than GM,” said analyst Sam Fiorani of AutoForecast Solutions.
A full two years after launching the first in its ballyhooed line of Ultium-powered EVs — the flamboyant 2022 GMC Hummer EV pickup — GM is still struggling to build more than a handful of the pricey trucks, and the Hummer and Cadillac Lyriq electric SUVs that followed it into production.
Jeff Steiner, a longtime auto industry insider who now owns multiple Five Guys burger franchises in the Carolinas, was an early Lyriq fan. He plunked down $200 for reservations with two different dealers June 14, 2022, describing himself as “excited and giddy” about the sleek and advanced luxury SUV.
The feeling waned. Nearly 18 months later, Steiner describes salespeople and customer service reps who have no idea when his car may be built, or how to find out.
“So I sit in waiting, questioning if there really is such a thing as a Lyriq or if it’s just some kind of a fantasy animal that lives only in the 'Wizard of Oz,' ” Steiner told, me, adding that he wonders how many of GM’s other promised EVs are “Lyriqs in disguise (that will) become fantasy vehicles in the minds of interested consumers.”
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Delaying production of a new vehicle to correct a problem isn’t a disaster. It’s often the right thing to do, preventing a recall that would inconvenience or even endanger owners.
Repeatedly delaying vehicles without identifying the cause or cure is more worrisome, and GM shows no evidence it has solved the issues that slowed Hummer and Lyriq deliveries to a trickle.
Adding insult to injury, GM left some of its most passionate EV owners waiting years for replacement parts for the excellent, underappreciated Chevrolet Bolt EV.
Jenny Correia and her husband, Bill Bulger, of Canton, leased a 2020 Chevy Bolt EV — winner of the 2017 Free Press and North American Car of the Year awards and many other honors — in April 2021.
They were delighted by the EV’s convenience and efficiency.
Then they got an urgent message from GM: Park your car outside, away from the house. It could spontaneously combust. In December 2021, another message. They could park in the garage again, but the battery’s range had been reduced 20%. They were on the list for a new battery.
They’re still waiting.
A sample of responses from their dealer and GM’s “priority customer” EV concierge representatives include:
Your battery’s been ordered, but the dealership only gets one a month.
The dealership can only repair one Bolt at a time; each car takes a week.
Your battery was never ordered, you‘re at the bottom of the list.
“Our lease would’ve been up by the time the battery arrived,” Bulger said.
Despite it all, they still love their Bolt.
“I want to keep it, to be honest,” Correia said. “But we only use it for daily runaround trips. Our son is at Central Michigan University. We might’ve been able to go see him and come back with the full charge, but 80% isn’t enough to do it without stopping.”
Despite all that, they recently asked GM if they could turn their car in early — so they could lease a new Bolt.
At this point, it probably won't surprise you that GM refused, but Correia loved her Bolt so much — and wanted one that works as advertised so badly — the couple paid off the remainder of the lease and Bulger drove 300 miles roundtrip to Hudsonville and back to pick up a 2023 Bolt.
"I know at this point you think we are nuts to buy another one," Correia told me, "but we like the size and look and price of the Bolt! And my husband just wanted to wash his hands of the other one."
I don't think that's crazy at all.
GM, you've got good products, but ...
I’ve driven several of GM’s new EVs, sat in and received detailed briefings on others. They range from promising to outstanding, but the automaker’s inability to deliver the vehicles it promises, and maintain the ones it’s sold, raises fundamental questions about GM’s transition from internal combustion to electric power — the core of its strategy for the future.
When I first drove the Lyriq in mid-2022, GM execs boasted that the launch edition was sold out. They never said how many that was — a cheap trick, I know, but common in the auto industry — but implied it was a darned sight more than the 122 they managed to deliver by Dec. 31, 2022.
Cadillac leadership continued to dodge the issue this year, insisting there was no problem, just a slow, careful ramp-up of production.
Nobody believed it, and GM Chair and CEO Mary Barra eventually gave up the game, this summer revealing problems so severe the automaker had resorted to building batteries by hand — a process more time consuming and less precise than a properly functioning automated assembly line would be.
“GM has absolutely had a lot of manufacturing issues, mostly related to batteries,” Guidehouse Insights analyst Sam Abuelsamid said. “They are still having issues assembling battery modules.”
The Lyriq continues to dribble onto the market — to the tune of just 5,334 more sales so far this year. That’s a stunning shortfall for a vehicle designed, engineered and priced to compete with the best luxury EVs and be one of Cadillac’s core models.
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At least they announced this delay
After admitting the battery snafu, GM promised they’d make up for it this fall with three Chevy EVs priced to play in the heart of the market: the Silverado pickup, Blazer midsize SUV and Equinox compact SUV.
GM sold 19 Blazer EVs and 18 electric Silverados in the third quarter.
Barra also recently announced production of the Equinox EV will be pushed back to sometime in 2024, and high-volume production of electric Silverado and GMC Sierra pickups at GM’s Orion plant will be postponed from early 2025 to late that year. GM will keep building smaller numbers of the Silverado EV at its Detroit/Hamtramck assembly plant, adding Sierras sometime in 2024.
GM attributed the delay to "better manage capital investment while aligning with evolving EV demand," and “engineering improvements ... to increase the profitability of our products.”
At this point, cynicism isn’t just warranted, it’s demanded.
GM’s implication that it’s delaying production because EV demand fell doesn’t match reality: U.S. EV sales rose 49.8% in the third quarter, according to Cox Automotive. They’re on track to top a million for the first time this year.
Increasing availability of North American-made batteries and vehicles that qualify for generous tax credits should accelerate the trend.
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Can GM get back on track?
The air isn’t about to go out of this balloon.
The Blazer, Equinox and Silverado were developed to sell in the heart of the market, making GM’s mainstream Chevrolet brand a leader in taking EVs to the next level.
But there’s no point having the second assembly plant ready to go before GM knows it can build batteries at full speed, and that’s still a work in progress.
“Not acquiring the proper machinery to produce battery cells and packs in the volumes they planned to produce is an unexpected stumble for a manufacturer with more than a century of experience,” Fiorani said.
In that atmosphere, it’s not surprising GM and Honda just ended joint development of new EVs targeted to sell below $30,000.
Barra’s welcome announcement a few weeks ago that the company will build a new version of the Bolt — it's best-selling EV by a wide margin — may fill that role, at a lower cost than an entirely new vehicle and with the benefit of a name buyers associate with a fine EV, battery replacement follies notwithstanding.
For years, GM executives justified their deliberate approach to EVs by saying the company’s ace in the hole was more than a century’s experience building huge numbers of complicated things quickly and well. GM might be late, they admitted, but it wouldn't be last for long.
It’s time to keep that promise.
Contact Mark Phelan: 313-222-6731 or mmphelan@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @mark_phelan. Read more on autos and sign up for our autos newsletter. Become a subscriber.
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: GM's running out of time to get its EVs right
