2024 is turning out to be a bit of a “put up or shut up” year for General Motors’ ability to produce and profit from its electric vehicles, and that’s not just us saying it. GM CEO Mary Barra said 2024 would be “the year of execution” for the automaker and its Ultium platform, according to Automotive News.
GM has laid out plans for several new EVs this year, including the Chevy Equinox EV crossover that is supposed to be aimed at mass-market buyers – more so than its troubled Blazer EV. However, GM’s ability – or should I say inability – to ramp up production in 2023 – was hammered by EV battery module issues, AutoNews reports. The automaker has since taken steps to resolve the issue, and it has added some manual assembly points and increased module capacity at some plants.
This year, GM plans to build 200,000 to 300,000 Ultium-based EVs in North America from Chevy, GMC and Cadillac, as well as its BrightDrop commercial electric van spinoff, AutoNews says. GM also says it won’t be losing money for long. It says it’ll achieve “positive variable profit,” excluding fixed costs, on EVs in the second half of 2024, and it’ll even have “mid-single-digit” EV margins in 2025. Good for GM.
Here’s a little of what Barra had to say about where GM stands right now at the Wolfe Research investor conference, according to Automotive News:
“We’ve got to demonstrate that we can build Ultium-based products and the market wants them and we can achieve our profitability goals,” she said, adding that success is within the company’s control. “Even though we’ve said by 2035 our light-duty portfolio will be all-EV, we’ll be guided by the consumer.”
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She reiterated GM’s commitment to EVs and said adoption will increase, though at a slower pace. The plodding pace of EV adoption in the U.S. has prompted some automakers to delay production and spending plans. GM has pushed back the start of electric pickup production at its Orion Assembly plant near Detroit until 2025 and delayed the launch of several models, including the Equinox EV and the GMC Sierra EV pickup, by a few months.
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“We’ll have much better pricing, and this year we’re going to have the Blazer and the Equinox that get into that range of where the biggest affordability is, and charging infrastructure will be better,” Barra said Thursday.
GM has shown it knows how to build a decent EV, but now it’s time for them to manufacture more than just a handful.