GM plans to create its own fleet of delivery trucks to keep a strong flow of finished vehicles shipping to its dealerships in 2023, The move is prompted by significant improvements in vehicle production.
Leading personnel from the Chevrolet brand and from Chevy’s dealer council said The General expects to almost regain its full production capacity this year. The company is working to eliminate the last supply chain obstacles, rapidly get parts for partially-completed vehicles, and efficiently get the freshly finished vehicles onto dealer lots.
Restoring production to the near 100 percent capacity typical before the supply chain disruption is critically important, but it’s not the only action GM is taking.
According to a report by Automotive News, GM plans to buy 400 heavy-duty trucks its employees will directly operate to bring vehicles to dealerships. It announced these plans at a meeting with dealer representatives on January 28th, 2023.
The Chevrolet National Dealer Council’s chairman, Keith McCluskey, said “GM people on GM-owned vehicles are delivering our product to us” and that GM is “not going to sit back and just be a victim of the transportation industry” any longer.
McCluskey said GM produced about 500,000 vehicles that only needed a few more parts for completion, with supply chain improvements reducing the number of unfinished vehicles to just 1,000 by late January 2023. He added that “the bad weather, the storm is behind us” and predicted “a very bright future.”
While GM’s new truck fleet will help bypass third-party transportation problems in the United States, there are still more potential bottlenecks to overcome. For example, shipping shortages repeatedly prevented GM from bringing new Buick Envision units into the U.S. from the GMC-SAIC Jinqiao plant in China during 2022.
Still, having 400 of its own trucks ready to move finished vehicles to lots should help GM increase the available inventory back toward the 60 days supply considered optimal pre-pandemic in the U.S. automotive industry. As just one example, 11,000 finished, ready-to-ship Chevy Silverado HD trucks were left parked with no available transport at the Canadian GM Oshawa plant in May 2022.
Clearing the backlog was particularly slow because the size of the HD trucks made it possible to fit only a few on each rail car. GM’s truck fleet will likely lessen reliance on railways and provide more flexible highway-based transportation options for all the company’s brands.
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Comments
In other words expect delivery fees to skyrocket!
If you are going to pay 60 to 80. Good luck on getting some decent drivers. I wouldn’t haul for that. At that pay. Lots of damage
There is lot of damage with current transport for all makes as reported across forums for many brands. The trucking firms are hiring newbies and putting them on the road as well. Whatever they get paid has not ensured any care and handling.
That said hiring hundreds of new drivers will be a challenge. I think past few years have proven controlling your supply chain end to end is important
True, car hauler make more than freight haulers. In 1977 I drove for Anchor Motor Freight the exclusive hauler for GM at the time. We made 49cent a mile while freight haulers made 21-22 cents. It is also hard to find guys that can do it. I was hired in a group of 16 guys. 3 or 4 quit the first day when them learned them had to load and unlock the cars. 3 months later I was the only one of the group. Walmart is starting guys out at 110k GM will never get reliable drivers for 60-80 k
***CAN EARN*** They don’t just get a 110k base salary, that is what they could possibly earn if driving the max amount of miles and meeting any goals and other contract stipulations. It is a misleading title/amount.
Yeah, after most of those claimed pay structures are analyzed you find that they have to pay their own fuel and maintenance out of that pay. When they’re done they would have been better off working fast food with a predictable schedule and sleeping in their own beds, spending time with their families, etc. There are a lot of issues in the transportation industry, and pay is a big one. It’s almost never what they claim anymore.
Good God, are you serious? You need to go back and read the article again, and this time pay attention!
No where in the article does it say GM will be paying $60K to $80K a year for drivers. The $60K-$80K is an ad for what this website, GM Authority, is willing to pay new writers on the website. What GM will pay drivers is not mentioned anywhere in the article, but you can count on it being a competitive rate, because as a union company, GM will be required to hire union drivers, and pay a union rate.
Something tells me GM wouldn’t want you driving for them.
GBVETTE:
Thanks for pointing that out. I went back – after reading the $60-80K driver salary comment – and couldn’t find the $60-80K anywhere in the article or in the hot links.
Alternative facts.
But they’re going to start out on a reduced rate just like the workers do and for five years or they can keep them for casuals
you read wrong driver We are currently looking for experienced automotive journalists and editors to join our team. Make $60k-$80k per year doing what you love. We are also looking for an experienced web developer
I work for ford good thing bad think whatever l i just a new f150 there was a 1900.oo charge for delivery charge i have a idea for big 3 i live 40 mins from where the truck was built how about give buyers a option to pick it up by plant for 500.oo
The problems aren’t “third party transportation” problems. There’s been a lack of work, low rates and rapid inflation over the last few years as far as the truck side goes. Automotive hauling is a specialized freight which pay has plummeted. I would be interested in knowing what has gone on with the railroad contracts recently. A lot of contracts here on the east coast have been switched between Norfolk Southern and CSX.
That’s already been happening, across a lot of major Automakers since the end of the Pandemic when it came to the Parts Supply vs. Consumer Demand issues, some Delivery Fees ranging between $1,100.00 to nearly $1,500.00 or more depending upon location when it comes to Dealership Mark Ups.
You didn’t read nor comprehend it properly.
The Oshawa and Flint HD transport delays, along with Ft Wayne and Lansing, continue to this day. Hopefully this will start to make a dent
Hopefully, no pun intended…
A lot of the delays come from the fact that supply chain problems and GM storing cars and trucks till parts arrived and ending up with thousands of vehicles on the ground waiting for a single part. Carriers can’t move that many after Gm releases them all at once. Can they magically ship them all in one day?
Transportation has been a problem for years before the parts shortages of last couple years. Most of the current shipping backlog is NOT due to “build shy” units, but with completed, ready to ship vehicles simply
waiting in a storage lot to get on a truck.
No Gm keeps building units with missing parts. That forces the carhaulers to shuttle unfinished vehicles to storage yards so
Gm will have room to make more unfinished units. 36000 stored units in Wentzville. 45000 in Arlington. 60000 vehicles in Flint. Gm has created a lot of the problem not the transportation companies. Bad management
Great news. I’m hoping GM gets these cars delivered ASAP and prices come back down.
Oh I can’t wait to see what happens to the destination charge!! 3k for delivery. Oh and don’t forget there’s 400 Kenworths with transport trailers that need to be purchased. As far as that BUICK from China, I hope every last one of them fall off a ship and land at the bottom of the Pacific !!!! Shame on GM, FKN China….
Wouldn’t break my heart to see all of GM and China ventures go belly up! put thumbs down all you want on that!
Cus you’re jealous!!!!!!
you a slant eye?
Wasn’t that the conversion Trump had with Mary Barra when he called her on the phone when he was in office?
He wanted Mary to truck his China made Maga hats around the country to his trailer park rallies for free.
Salty are we? You do realize the more vehicles that are made here the more expensive they are right? So complain about the price then complain about the location they are built, but it would cost more. The blame is almost solely on the unions and the amount of money they get for work that is in no way deserving and that price is passed on to the consumers who then complain. Then they try to keep prices reasonable to do so need to go where labor costs and less and the consumes complain again, they can’t win. I don’t give a damn where it is built as long as the quality is there (over seas built vehicles seem to have a slight edge in quality) and the price is reasonable, I am not some start spangled nut swinger, I just look at the entire glass before making statements…
Many of the trucks and SUVs are built-in Mexico or Canada.
i agree, but not China! Have bought several trucks that I Knew were built in Mexico.
I’ve been waiting a year for the chips for my truck last gm product I’ll own . When I bought it it was said it would be only 2 months
Growing up near the GM Boxwood plant when I was a kid I remember GM had its own fleet of shipping trucks. Anchore Motor Freight was the name of the company, of course they were all GMC and Chevrolet tractors . One of my friends father drove for them back in the sixties. Looks like it may have been a mistake doing away with their in house shipping co.
GM dropped anchor in more ways than one.
That’s great! I’ve personally lost two deals in January. Both customers gave up after five months and no answers. They bought other brands. Both were long term GM owners. I don’t blame them. When you ask reasonable questions and no one can give you an answer. It’s time to move on. I would have done the same thing. I sure do miss those union drivers.
The lack of response was really maddening. Wife & I retired 2020 & had saved for us each brand new retirement vehicles for each. Wife choice was 2SS Camaro & I wanted a Tahoe. The virus screwed up everyones plans, but we ordered her a 2022 2SS NOV2021. I eventually gave up on getting a Tahoe due to the info or lack thereof, but we didn’t get her 2SS until AUG 2022, 9 MONTHS, & still waiting on a chip the dealer will install. I placed an order for 2022 4Runner in place of the Tahoe & less than 2 months the 4Runner arrived & without needed anymore chips. I know it wasn’t the dealer or salesman, as they were great, but GM/Chevy completely lost me, & since they are letting the Camaro line die out, they’ve probably lost my wife as well.
This is a good thing, I inspect every unit that arrives at my caddy gmc dealer, aswell as do all the pdi’s including installation of all LPO’S and repair most of the transit damage unless it needs our paintshop. I can say that the amount of transit damage is pretty bad, 1 out of 5 units has either a bashed in front bumper, broken mirror, a few have even come with a crushed roof rail…. those are fun to change… bottom line is once it leaves the factory no one cares about the units. Railway has a emergency braking problem and since they don’t strap the units down they all pile into one another in the train car. Getting 3 escalades with front and rear bumpers broken is not good, and the customers who have ordered them and been waiting for them are rightly so pissed! One carrier driver brought a ct5 blackwing for us and ct4 blackwing had to be unloaded then reloaded as the ct4 was bound for another province. The guy got the ct4 stuck in the snow… guy was banging it off the Rev limiter for I dunno how long trying to get it back on his trailer bound for another province.
I can see you know nothing about the transport process. They don’t just drive units on to the rail car and not secure them I can say this because I was in the business for 40 years
Opportunity for GMC to get back into the heavy truck market, Bring back the Brigidier
When I read the headline, Brigadier popped into my head immediately.
Big front end trucks, menacing in the rear view mirror.
All of this sounds so good on paper. The reality is that GM has lost its ability to run a true manufacturing operation in and post pandemic. GM/Chevy can’t make C 8 corvettes and the two variants that they are offering today, and they keep announcing more and more variants and they have NO clue how they plan to get this integrated into Bowling Green plant. It was just a few months ago that they had over 50,000 C 8 corvettes on order, and they can’t even build a 1000 cars a week. This is a single focus facility and they can’t figure it out.
Hmmm… I don’t see any mention of the new GM delivery vehicles being zero emissions. I thought that was a thing they are concerned about.
I remember when GM had enough clout and market share to be able to carry one single brand per trailerload, no mixing brands up. Today you see 1 or 2 GM autos and the rest are Hyundais and Toyotas.
I forgot to mention that GM made the truck that delivered them AND the locomotive that transported them from the factory !
Shortages and delays on class 8 tractors and trailers right now. Certain directors probably want electric fleet for political and woke reasons, driving the costs up for all of us.
Most ironic that GM has to purchase competitive trucks in order to ship their vehicles, since they abandoned the Class 8 (heavy-duty) segment when they sold the GM heavy truck business to White Volvo back in the 1980s
I think they will actually go down for delivery prices.
currently A new truck is over 1,300 for delivery
Ill bet it will be a little more than half that if GM does it’s own delivery
Most people are floored with delivery prices and GM knows it , they might actually sell moe units with a lower destination charge
Hopefully there all electric to save the planet
Last we checked, Planet did not need saving. You on the other hand…….
Was a total joke my friends
A cyanide pill is a good way to save the planet.
Take one today!
GM couldn’t manage anything. Another stupid idea from the company that brings us 4 cylinder full sized p/u trucks. GM management is about as stupid as The Boeing company. GM’s days are numbered…and it’s really ashamed they were once an industrial powerhouse. Trying to start a trucking company from the ground up is about as smart as outsourcing all of your parts supply chain. They do not have a clue. RIP GM.
What’s stupid is that GM had all the transportation in-house, from the locomotives to the trucks that moved everything from the factories to the dealerships. But, GM mismanaged everything. Sold it off. And here we are today with GM trying to get back into what they should not have mismanaged and lost in the first place.
Hopefully that will mean that folks that have had to pay $1k to have their new Corvettes trucked across the street to the National Corvette Museum, may get a reduction in delivery fees. They already pay another $1k for the privilege of the Museum delivery over a local dealers fee.
People don’t realize that the transportation charge on the Window contains the cost of shipping every part nut bolt anything plus transportation to the dealer. The reason for this is the Big 3 wanted to start their own transfer Company’s in the 50’s. Congress decided this was most likely a Taft-Hartley violation. The companies and the governments came to the agreement that they could charge for all there transportation cost if they didn’t try to do it themselves. That’s the rest of the story as to why it costs a1000buck to supposedly ship a car 60mi.
It’s the same destination charge if the dealership is across the street from assembly or cross country
Little known fact is that if you are close to Flint your dealer can go pick up the truck for you and bypass the delivery system and fee. They may have their own fee but totally doable. Most dealers are too lazy to try.
As usual blame transport. A lot of drivers left carhauling during the lock downs and never came back.
Part of the problem is the heavy-duty trucks they are tall and heavy. Gm thinks we should be able to put 9 on a truck and go, you can’t. We sit and wait for units then they sent 3000 and say why is taking so long. We have run legally, we can run 24hrs a day. Everything and everyone plays a roll. Rather then excepting some of the blame, just take easy way out and blame the drivers.
As usual blame transport. A lot of drivers left carhauling during the lock downs and never came back.
Part of the problem is the heavy-duty trucks they are tall and heavy. Gm thinks we should be able to put 9 on a truck and go, you can’t. We sit and wait for units then they sent 3000 and say why is taking so long. We have run legally, we can run 24hrs a day. Everything and everyone plays a roll. Rather then excepting some of the blame, just take easy way out and blame the drivers.
There is very little actual damage from the carriers. It is the dealers claiming the quality control problems as carrier damage. This problem has gotten steadily worse in the past few years. The good news is that dealers won’t be able to claim this with their own carriers.
car hauler they show is not a U S power tractor this is a U K pic. also they would not make money hauling just 7 units.
Looking at Suburban and Yukons the delivery fee is already $1495 or higher.Willl this lower costs?
Let’s see them hire drivers at their UAW starting pay rate.
uaw or teamsters ? where do i apply
a lot of drivers (union) care, in 32 years never had any time off for damages disliked most management but loved carhauling always gave my best and was always a top producer. when ryder had us my points were in the 90s.
I work for ford good thing bad think whatever l i just a new f150 there was a 1900.oo charge for delivery charge i have a idea for big 3 i live 40 mins from where the truck was built how about give buyers a option to pick it up by plant for 500.oo
Truck driving, the only job I ever had that I lied about how many hours I worked!
I work in Service and it is hard to tell a customer that we don’t have the parts and we don’t know when we will get them.
Sadly they think and have proven they are not good at logistics. They started this last year. And keeps getting worse
THIS IS A GOOD IDEA
SOME PEOPLE HATE EVERYTHING GM DOES
Really!!!! Another profound decision by
G enerally M arginal C ompany…
Wow. So many people with absolutely no clue how car hauling works, including people affiliated with GM. Amazing.
Will these drivers be UAW employees? I’m curious as to how GM will handle this. Also, will it be a union outfit
This is such a bad idea, the problem with shipping might be with the contracted carriers you’re using. there are thousand of other carrier trucks that would handle the freight with pride and dedication, or even Owner Operators.
We all know one of the big reasons they’re doing this is because now they can get even more money on the vehicles on the lots.
This is typical corporate stupidity, they think they release a vehicle, it’s shipped, let me explain the life of a car hauler to you GM, first your crying victim to transportation costs? We professional car haulers deal with all your stupidity as well, hear me out in this one.
You release vehicles, have no understanding of hours of service, fuel costs, insurance. Then we get your freight, that’s only allowing us to haul 5,6,7 units depending on truck and trailer, walk all over your property to find a specified unit, have 3-6 stops all over gods country, that takes a full day or 2 to get off after in such state of deliveries.
Then we get to your precious dealers, we are treated with the same respect as a piece of roadkill, the dealers have no safe spots for unloading, then they want us to park em in back of lot, while my trucks in middle of 4 lane busy street. Let me ask you something? When you order a pizza for delivery what happens? The guy knocks on your door, signs delivery receipt, hands you pizza and he leaves, he doesn’t go inside your house, open pizza box, and put it on plates and pick pepperoni off of it because little Suzy hates it!! Delivery of vehicles is same way, I’m at your door, it’s on your property, you are required to have porters, lot attendants or sales people that come out and get vehicle inspected in driveway, (we are not porters!!!) then sign for them and park it, that way if he hits something it’s not our responsibility. We professional car haulers get told where to park vehicle, wait as they check for books, keys, antennas and then wait forever to get a signature, the whole time our truck and trailer are in middle of a 4 lane busy highway! If vehicle is released all the $hit should be in said vehicle, we aren’t inventory people, we car haulers!
You want to deliver to a place that treats you with same respect a dead dog gets in the road?
How about tell your dealers, when a transport truck arrives, they are to take vehicle deliveries seriously, we wait 20-30 mins sometimes because person is nowhere to be found or just too lazy to want to inspect em.
We are car haulers, not lot attendants, porters or salesmen. Start respecting and paying the delivery drivers you have and maybe this wouldn’t be a problem.
Union or non union, it’s all about safety and everyone getting home the same way they left in the morning.
Non union drivers are treated worse also in your lots, let’s take ft Wayne plant into example here, I have to wait in street for a union employee to bring me such vehicle you so said is hot for delivery, they bring 4-7 out to me and say inspect em real quick we got $hit to do, meanwhile I’m dodging traffic like the frog in the video game frogger!! I don’t care if it’s the president or pope, I’m not telling em to leave until I do a thorough inspection!!
I’m not paying for a damage I missed!!
Until you manufacturers realize your the problem, your not going to find safe, reliable, professional transporters in a timely manner!!
If you’re an active car hauler, you should know that a missed damage is the exact same as a damage you did
There were 20000 car haulers in this country in the 80’s. You had a dedicated carrier back then. Then you decided to go with the lowest bidder. Through the years, GM created their own problem. Since the 80’s, thousands of driver lost their jobs or retired.
Wait till you try shipping 11,000 units 4 at a time. Hope your calling them 2024’s.
As usual blame transport. A lot of drivers left carhauling during the lock downs and never came back.
Part of the problem is the heavy-duty trucks they are tall and heavy. Gm thinks we should be able to put 9 on a truck and go, you can’t. We sit and wait for units then they sent 3000 and say why is taking so long. We have run legally, we can run 24hrs a day. Everything and everyone plays a roll. Rather then excepting some of the blame, just take easy way out and blame the drivers.
March 29th, still waiting on my truck. Have been told each week for the past 3 weeks that it is waiting for transport. I don’t know how long is usual to wait for transport but 3 weeks seems like a lot.
You would be surprised of the ones coming in damaged,
Probably not surprised, I worked 10 years building them. Not a whole lot would surprise me. But I really hope that they don’t mess up my truck… I’ve been waiting a very long time to get one
When is GM going to be hiring drivers? I have 21 years experience hauling cars and I might be interested in driving for GM.