[ad_1]
General Motors is losing a software executive amid reorganizing its software division after issues with vehicle software prompted stop-sales of some new vehicles in the past few months.
On Tuesday, GM said Chief Digital Officer Edward Kummer is leaving the company. The move comes just two weeks after software boss Mike Abbott left for health reasons.
In a company memo obtained by the Detroit Free Press, GM wrote: “The Digital Services & Experiences team, currently part of the Software & Services organization, is being reorganized within other areas of GM. The goal is more consistency with revenue-generating, software and marketing functions to make the groups work more efficiently, while keeping customer experience and quality a top priority.”
The memo said Kummer and Donald Chesnut, vice president of customer experience, have elected to leave GM and “we are grateful for their contributions.”
When asked about the moves, GM spokesman Kevin Kelly sent this statement to the Free Press: “We wish Edward Kummer well and thank him for his years of contribution to GM. We have reorganized some of our teams supporting digital services and experiences to ensure the business continues to run efficiently. We have no further details to share at this time.”
Kummer’s brief legacy
GM hired Kummer in October 2021 to head what was then a new Digital Business team. His job was to build a digital business and accelerate software investments to offer consumers more software. Kummer had been president of Nordstrom Rack’s online business and Nordstrom’s HauteLook brand before joining GM.
One of his more controversial moves came in March of last year when GM said its future electric vehicles will not offer Apple CarPlay and Android Auto. Those technologies allow drivers to bypass the infotainment system to view their smartphone screens on the instrument panel’s display. Kummer said a built-in infotainment system will help GM optimize the routing and charging experience for EV customers.
But that decision met wide criticism across social media with some people saying they will not buy a vehicle that doesn’t offer CarPlay or Android Auto.
A month of GM reorganization
Two weeks ago GM announced a management shake-up. It said Executive Vice President of Global of Manufacturing and Sustainability Gerald Johnson, 61, is retiring after 44 years with GM. He is being replaced by former Tesla executive Jens Peter (JP) Clausen, 52.
Also leaving GM was Abbott, 51, executive vice president of Software and Services. Abbott, the former vice president of engineering for Apple’s Cloud Services division, joined GM in May 2023 to take over managing GM’s entire software systems. In February, CEO Mary Barra raved about Abbott, saying he “has brought in an incredible team. We’ve already revamped the software development process and more importantly the validation process.”
Barra had dubbed 2024 as the “year of execution” vowing to fix the slow launches of GM’s new electric vehicles, relaunch Cruise — GM’s self-driving robotaxi business that was halted after a self-driving car hit a pedestrian in San Francisco — and get GM’s software right. GM had to pause sales of its newly launched Chevrolet Blazer EV in December and its gasoline-powered midsize pickups earlier this year due to software glitches. Both have been fixed.
GM CFO Paul Jacobson said Tuesday during the Bank of America 2024 Global Auto Summit that software architecture is “hard” and many businesses other than GM have had challenges with it. He commended GM’s software team in how they have handled the problems.
“We’ve invested pretty heavily into incremental validation work,” Jacobson said. “The teams that we’ve brought in are really focused on doing this at scale. With the stop-sale that we had on the Blazer and things like that, I’d rather get it fixed before we put it into customers’ hands even if that costs us a little bit in working capital because we’ve got to make sure that the customer’s impressed with the capabilities of what we deliver.”
More:Detroit automakers work to reroute exports and parts after Baltimore bridge collapse
More:Analysts: And just like that, the pressure on GM CEO Mary Barra to execute, just escalated
Contact Jamie L. LaReau: jlareau@freepress.com. Follow her on Twitter @jlareauan. Read more on General Motors and sign up for our autos newsletter. Become a subscriber.
[ad_2]
Source link