GM explains slow EV production and vows to speed it up in 2nd half

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General Motors vows to pick up the pace of production of its newer electric vehicles in the second half of the year as it works to get more battery modules needed to make those vehicles.

The GMC Hummer EV pickup and SUV as well as the Cadillac Lyriqs, all of which use GM’s new Ultium propulsion system, have been trickling out of the factories despite GM saying their order banks were full.

For the first-half of this year, GM delivered 49 Hummer EV pickups, which are made at Factory Zero located on the border of Detroit and Hamtramck. That’s down from 371 Hummer pickups delivered in the first-half of 2022.

Description: Production of the 2023 Cadillac LYRIQ begins at GM’s Spring Hill, Tennessee, assembly plant.

GM delivered 2,316 Lyriqs in the first half. The Lyriq has a starting price of $61,795, lower than the $98,400 starting price of the 2023 Hummer, so the Lyriq is meant to be a higher volume vehicle. The Lyriq is assembled in Spring Hill Assembly plant in Tennessee. There’s no year-ago comparison because GM started building the Lyriq in the third quarter last year.

On Monday, GM President of North America Rory Harvey said he held a call that morning with other executives about the new EV launches. Harvey, who spoke to the media at GM’s unveiling of its 2024 Chevrolet Traverse in Lansing, said that GM is coming “up to speed on battery capacity and building momentum and I anticipate a lot more EVs being built in the second half of this year than the first half of this year.”

Supply challenges continue to stall production

GM started building the SUV version of the 2023 Hummer EV at Factory Zero this spring. Some of them have shipped, but “some need updates on the software. It’s moving very slow,” a source at Factory Zero told the Detroit Free Press. The person asked to not be identified because they are not authorized to speak publicly.

“We’ve had supply issues — anything in the supply chain — could be the drive units, anything … you get one part and suddenly it’s a different one that’s needed,” the person said.

Harvey admitted to a slow ramp up of the Lyriq and Hummer, but points to battery module availability as the only supply part hiccup. GM gets the battery cells from Ultium Cells LLC in northeast Ohio, a battery plant it just opened last year as part of a joint venture with LG Energy Solution.

“What we’ve been looking at is building the momentum and capability in terms of getting the battery modules,” Harvey said. “That has always been a ramp up. If you look at supply challenges outside of that, there is nothing that leaps off the page in terms of it. If you look at the semiconductor challenges we’ve had, yes, we get intermittent supply challenges, I am not going to say that’s behind us. But it’s a significantly lower level than it has been.”

Logistics are another problem

Last month, CEO Mary Barra confirmed that battery supply was an issue in the slow EV rollout.

“We’re ramping and we have some growing pains because it’s not only once you make the battery cells, then you gotta put it in modules and then you gotta make the pack for the cars,” Barra said. “It’s all new manufacturing, we’re working with different suppliers and I have people in suppliers trying to get it up and running.”

Another challenge GM has faced, Barra said, has been logistics. As the Free Press first reported last month, a shortage of railcars is plaguing the entire auto industry as some 70,000 built new cars were waiting to be shipped from factories to dealerships. Chevrolet Vice President Scott Bell said Monday it remains the biggest challenge.

“The supply chain is not quite the topic it was six months ago, but it’s still out there,” Bell told reporters at the launch of the Traverse. “Logistics is where we’ve spent a lot of time recently with the rails. Getting them from the plant to the customers is the problem.”

Keeping customers informed as production speeds up

Harvey said GM also intended for both vehicles to have a slow production start to ensure quality. The production of the Lyriq, for example, was delayed by nine months so that GM could do a limited start of production.

“So it was always going to be a low volume in the early months,” Harvey said. “All of the debut edition vehicles there are all built. If you look at our sales volume last month and the month before – they continue to increase. This month they will continue to increase. So we’ve got good, positive momentum now.”

In the first quarter, GM delivered 968 Lyriqs, which inched up to 1,348 Lyriqs delivered in the second quarter. It is an improvement over 2022, when GM delivered only 122 Lyriqs. Earlier this year, the Free Press reported that thousands of Lyriqs were parked near the Spring Hill Assembly plant waiting to be completed and shipped.

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