Back in 2021, GM initially announced its goal of producing 400,000 EVs annually by the end of 2023, and a year later, the automaker pushed back that target to early 2024. In January 2024, the electric vehicle sales and production target was reduced to between 200,000 and 300,000 units during the 2024 calendar year, and now, General Motors seemingly revised its objective once again.
According to a report from CNBC, GM Chief Financial Officer Paul Jacobson now expects the company to produce between 200,000 and 250,000 EVs this year, due to slower-than-expected demand. This despite CEO Mary Barra recently stating that 2024 was the “Year of Execution” for the company regarding the rollout of its Ultium-based EV portfolio alongside its lineup of ICE vehicles.
General Motors also said its EV production will match consumer demand, and has the ability to do so with flexible assembly lines at its GM Spring Hill plant in Tennessee and its GM Ramos Arizpe plant in Mexico. The Spring Hill facility manufactures the gas-powered Cadillac XT5 and the Cadillac XT6 crossovers as well as the fully electric Cadillac Lyriq and Acura ZDX, while the Ramos Arizpe complex currently builds the ICE Chevy Equinox and Chevy Blazer crossovers alongside the Chevy Equinox EV, Chevy Blazer EV and Honda Prologue electric vehicles.
“So at the lower end of that, and I think it reflects the momentum that we have in the business,” Jacobson stated this week during a Deutsche Bank investor event. GM previously stated its growing EV lineup would be profitable starting in mid-2024, although that target might be pushed back in light of the revised EV sales forecast.
In addition to Chevy Equinox EV, Chevy Blazer EV, Chevy Silverado EV, Cadillac Lyriq, Cadillac Celestiq, GMC Hummer EV and BrightDrop Zevo already in production, the automaker will continue launching more Ultium-based electric vehicles in the North American market this year, including the Cadillac Optiq, the Cadillac Escalade IQ, the GMC Sierra EV Denali. The 2026 Cadillac Vistiq and 2026 Chevy Bolt EV are also scheduled for a 2025 calendar-year launch.
In other financial news, The General just announced a new $6 billion share repurchase program freshly approved by its Board of Directors, which follows a $10 billion repurchase program announced in the fall of 2023.
“The investments GM made in its brands and product portfolio over the last several years, and the company’s operating discipline, are delivering consistently strong revenue growth, margins and free cash flow,” said Jacobson in a recent press release. “We are very focused on the profitability of our ICE business, we’re growing and improving the profitability of our EV business and deploying our capital efficiently. This allows us to continue returning cash to shareholders.”
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Comments
The EV and ICE debate aside, what is more important is they should be focusing on actually delivering a QUALITY vehicle. Higher QC on assembly and parts to reduce warranty claims and customer returns for issues on such low mileage vehicles. If they actually care about the “customers” then they’d be focusing on that instead of rush jobbing a bunch of products.
What folks don’t notice b/c of all the legacy GM baggage is that is exactly what GM has been delivering over the last 5 years. Upper tier in JD Power 3 year ownership quality. Upper tier in vendor relationship survey results (usually a good indicator that you are getting quality parts), lower half of industry warranty repair claims (contrasted to Ford, which is a dumpster fire on that front). They are also likely the lowest hour per vehicle assembler in North America, ahead of Toyota (they have slightly higher assembly costs but b/c they are union, have higher wages and it probably means they are actually the most efficient of the legacy makers on build efficiency). GM gets crapped on a lot. They have made a ton of progress over the years.
Aka a bunch of paid for shrill surveys to try and prop off the failing brand of GM.
Fortunately the house of cards always eventually falls.
Many people are butthurt about the bailout still but they fail to see GM paid it back and is now actually competitive. As much as I also love the Japanese brands Toyotas quality is not as good as they used to be. The cars are still more reliable than the rest and my 2016 Rav has mostly been solid but she has her quirks (nothing major but little things associated with the infotainment system and idling). The gap between the Japanese and American brands (maybe except for ChryCo cars) have gotten smaller and smaller over the years.
You are bang on !! As a GM owner for 50 plus years and 40 new GM cars, I can attest build quality has never been better. I have had experience with a new 24 Trax RS and a new 24 Colorado Z71 . These are great new products that we are proud to own and a pleasure to drive.
After checking with the best minds, we have determined that the numbers 200,000-250,000 are within the range of between 200,000 and 300,000. Such a silly statement from GM.
As they should. Their actuaries and analysts have done their forecasts and EVs are not on the menu for most buyers.
LOL
This ends with GM selling 10 EVs despite throwing in a free guppy.
Does Buick still intend to introduce one or two Ultium-based Electra EVs in the U.S. in 2024? Maybe it would be better if they held off, and when those vehicles finally do come here, hopefully they’ll have been refreshed instead of being the exact same EVs that they’ve been talking about and showing since 2022.
Buick focus is mostly China. They already have 2 EVs selling there.
More like 150k
Moving on from my 2017 Bolt which we love. Test drove the Equinox EV and it’s a nice car and was offered $11000 in discounts none from the dealer. We would have made a purchase except we heard the Cadillac Optiq based on the same platform is coming out in about six months and decided to wait for it. I am sticking with GM because they have continued with all the stuff I liked in the Bolt EV one pedal driving paddles on the steering wheel, lots of buttons etc. And we aren’t considering ever going back to an ICE car.
Until you end up stranded in your EV.
Ironically all EVs offer 1 pedal driving but hey your ignorance of cars is noted.
So much for ZeRo CrAsHeS, zErO EMiSsIoNs, and ZErO FAtaLiTiEs Mary Barra’s empty delusional promises.
No Mary, the demand is exactly as expected.
Here is my quote from the article about the 200k-300k forecast 6 months ago “lol doubtful, and do we all understand how stupid of a forecast spread 200,000 to 300,000 vehicles is?”
No. Crap!
Most EV naysayers are forgetting the big OPEC “elephant” that controls oil prices worldwide, and our domestic oil producers follow OPEC. So if the Israel-Gaza war gets worse, oil prices will rise, gasoline prices rise, and EV sales increase. Many EV customers can charge for free (myself included) with home based photovoltaic energy systems.
lol you’re talking about EV naysayers as if the EV humpers are worse. They are. This isn’t a hill worth dying on as a fool.
Let’s be honest GM will never sell a 100,000 EVs annually. GMs foray into EVs and autonomous vehicles probably constitutes the biggest money losing operation since the Convair jetliners of the early 60’s.
They sold 70k Bolts a year before discontinuing it. They’ll sell 40k Lyriqs this year without lifting a finger. They’ve executed horribly on EVs for sure, but let’s not let some bias color reality here. They should break high 100s pretty easily this year. And although EV demand isn’t what folks expected last year, that’s more a function of over-optimism than actually bad news. If you asked anyone in the auto industry whether they wanted to get into a segment that would grow 20-30% per annum, no one would have declined that opportunity. 20-30% growth is amazing in autos. And that’s exactly what we are seeing right now in a “down” EV market. We were never going to see 50% growth in perpetuity.
As the weather heats up… who is going to get the electricity?? BTW do they pay a surcharge yearly for roads that they don’t buy gas to pay for??
These are bizarrely random arguments against EVs. The electric utility industry is the second largest industry in the entire US economy. All we need to do is build more power plants. The argument is what is going to be the plant. Nattygas, solar, wind, etc. But regardless, it’s not rocket science to build more plants. And EVs aren’t going to add some crazy amount of demand year over year – people don’t realize how much electricity the US economy uses. Add on top of that, most EV charging happens at night when we sleep, which means you don’t need any incremental supply and actually puts DOWNWARD marginal electricity costs because the utility can utilize stranded capacity that is dormant in the evening. 2mm EVs a year of electricity demand growth is a pimple on the ass of electricity demand – about 7mm mwh (even assuming all that demand is marginal and none is nighttime). US generating capacity is 1.3mm megawatts. In other words, the US power plant capacity could generate all the energy needed for all incremental EV electricity demand for 2mm EVs for an entire YEAR in 5.4 hours of production. And road maintenance issues are an easy policy tweak. You can solve in many thousands of different ways. Most states have started upping registration fees. This is just blocking and tackling policy work. Again, to be clear, all these alarmists calls on how EV demand will destroy our grids have no, none, zero, understanding of the scale of the US electrical fleet and how massive overall demand is. Could you imagine the country going nuts over an electric arc furnace being built??? Lol