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THE transition to electrified vehicles across the US has hit dozens of unforeseen snags – but GM’s CEO has doubled down on the company’s electric shift.
Mary Barra, GM’s CEO, reaffirmed her confidence that the company’s fleet will be all-electric. She said it may just take more time than she initially thought.
Several GM brands are set to launch newly electrified vehicles in 2024.
Cadillac is debuting the Celestiq sedan and Escalade EV SUV; Chevy will launch the Silverado EV pickup; and GMC is set to unveil the Sierra EV pickup.
The EVs will join a lineup that already includes the GMC Hummer and the Cadillac Lyriq.
“We still believe in an all-electric future,” Barra said in an interview with Yahoo Finance.
“Our mission is to create a world with zero crashes, zero emissions, and zero congestion.”
However, the transition to an entirely electrified GM fleet of vehicles has hit several snags.
High EV ownership costs and increased interest rates have cooled American consumers’ willingness to buy new electrified cars.
The shift made GM hit the pause button on major investments – the company said in December it would release the Silverado RST EV pickup months later than expected and delayed a $760 million investment to revamp factories for EV production, according to Electrek.
Dan Ives, an analyst at Wedbush, a wealth management company, said overall EV “execution has been choppy.”
“This has been like pushing a boulder uphill, but the tide is starting to turn for GM in our view,” he added.
Still, the company believes its Ultium platform – pairing giant cells of stacked battery packs and gearboxes mounted near the axel – is the optimal electric drivetrain.
“We clearly have to demonstrate that the Ultium platform allows us to have a portfolio of profitable EVs that customers want to buy,” Barra said.
“I’m working hard to make sure we’re leading in electric vehicles in the countries that we operate.”
Barra told Yahoo she expects the company to have “variable” profitability in its EV fleet by the end of 2024.
The shift toward EV profitability would be massive for the big three American car brand.
Several popular EV startups – including Rivian, Polestar, Lucid, and Fisker – lose money on each vehicle they sell as they ramp up production.
Even Tesla took until 2020 to gain yearly profitability – the EV giant was founded in 2003.
The company is now the highest-valued car manufacturer on the planet, with a valuation higher than GM, Ford, and Stellantis combined and doubled.
Industry analysts are confident in GM’s shifts into the electrified space.
“They are going to be successful in EVs, I am fairly confident in that,” Cox Automotive’s senior news editor, Sean Tucker, said.
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