General Motors Chairman and CEO Mary Barra speaks during the unveiling of the Cadillac Celestiq electric sedan on October 17, 2022 in Los Angeles.
Frederic J. Brown | Frederic J. Brown AFP | Getty Images
WARREN, MI – If all goes according to plan General Motors After spending the past three years, the Detroit automaker is quickly catching up Tesla in the sales of electric vehicles.
In October 2021, General Motors Chief Executive Mary Barra declared that the automaker would “absolutely” catch up with the U.S. electric vehicle leader by 2025. The company remains well behind Elon Musk’s automakers and Hyundai Motor Co. Ford Motors.
Although General Motors has withdrawn most of its previously announced EV targets, the automaker believes its EV sales are finally starting to gain momentum thanks to an expanding lineup of all-electric vehicles — with prices ranging from about $35,000 to more than $300,000. Dollar.
“We’re definitely growing faster than the industry when it comes to electric vehicles,” Rory Harvey, GM’s president of global markets, including North America, told CNBC. “Right now, we have every manufacturer in the industry in the U.S. The most comprehensive electric vehicle product lineup in China.”
General Motors’ electric vehicle sales grew significantly through August, according to electric vehicle sales data provided to CNBC by the Detroit automaker. General Motors sold nearly 21,000 electric vehicles in the United States in July and August, nearly equal to all of its electric vehicle sales in the second quarter. As of August, GM’s electric vehicle sales were up about 70% year-on-year.
“This is a step change in terms of our EV performance,” Harvey said in an interview this month at GM’s Cadillac headquarters in suburban Detroit.
After two consecutive record-setting months for GM’s electric vehicles, it was about 2,000 units behind Ford as of August. As of last month, its electric car sales were still more than 20,000 units lower than Hyundai/Kia’s electric car sales. Ford and Hyundai/Kia both report sales each month.
Traditional automakers are still vying for a distant second place behind Tesla, which Motor Intelligence estimates sold more than 164,000 electric vehicles in the second quarter — about as much as General Motors, Hyundai/Kia and Ford combined during the same period. twice.
Harvey declined to speculate on when or if GM expects to surpass rivals in electric vehicle sales, but the automaker expects strong results by the end of the year.
“We have momentum here,” Harvey said. “We expect EV adoption to be strong in the fourth quarter. So we’re looking forward to the results and expecting to capture a disproportionate share of the upside.”
Expanding electric vehicle lineup
GM currently offers eight “Ultium-based” electric vehicles to consumers – referring to its electric vehicle architecture and battery technology.
Their range includes mainstream models such as The Chevrolet Equinox and Blazer crossovers join Cadillac’s three large pickup trucks and luxury models, including a $300,000 customized Celestiq. Two more Cadillac vehicles – the electric Escalade and the entry-level Optiq crossover – are expected to join the lineup before the end of the year, bringing the total number of Cadillac vehicles to an industry-leading 10 vehicles.
“They’re doing what they say they’re going to do,” said Stephanie Brinley, chief automotive analyst at S&P Global. “Their plan is to have Ultium and get it into a lot of cars relatively quickly. “It’s not coming online as quickly as it should. As fast as they want. But that’s the plan. “
2025 Cadillac Escalade IQ
Michael Weiland/CNBC
By comparison, Tesla’s five models range from the Model 3 sedan, which costs about $39,000, to the Cybertruck, which costs more than $100,000. Hyundai, which includes its luxury brands Genesis and Kia brothers, has a lineup of nine cars and crossovers ranging in price from about $34,000 for the Hyundai Kona electric car to $80,000 for the Genesis G80.
With GM having so many models, expectations are high for increased sales. Brinley said the automaker spent billions of dollars developing the vehicles and now “is under pressure to sell them.”
“The pressure is to be able to navigate consumer demand and meet it,” she said. “But it will take 10 to 15 years before electric vehicles become more dominant than (internal combustion engines), and consumers still need time to warm up.”
Cox Automotive expects electric vehicles to account for about 10% of total U.S. auto sales by the end of the year, up from 7.3% in the first quarter.
Chevrolet’s all-electric Blazer EV.
Scott Mullin | CNBC
Selling more EVs is still somewhat counterintuitive for GM: They remain far less profitable than other gas-powered models, but the automaker expects EVs to be profitable on a production, or contribution-margin basis, once it reaches output of 200,000 units by the fourth One quarter.
Electric vehicles, which also help the company meet increasingly stringent federal fuel economy standards, have been a major growth area under Barra. The CEO has yet to fully backtrack on a goal announced in January 2021 that the automaker would offer all-electric vehicles exclusively to consumers. By 2035 consumers.
Harvey told CNBC that the automaker is “doing a really good job right now of doing road shows, getting customers into our vehicles, making sure we have the right level of electric vehicles in our dealership fleet.”
“In the US you say ‘butt in the seat sells the car’, in the UK we say ‘feel on the wheel and seal the deal’,” says Briton Harvey. “But it’s the same thing.”
Electric vehicle goals
The withdrawn 2025 targets include North American electric vehicle production capacity reaching 1 million units and electric vehicle profits being equivalent to gasoline models. The status of other goals, such as $50 billion in pure electric vehicle revenue next year, is unclear.
GM maintained its near-term goal of producing 200,000 to 250,000 electric vehicles this year, down from the previously announced target of 200,000 to 300,000 vehicles.
Harvey said the company will continue to be guided by customer demand for electric vehicles.
“You have to plan what you’re going to do years in advance,” Harvey said. “If there are some spikes and dips as we go through that, then we have the ability to increase production or adjust production a little bit so that we can meet customer demand. . ” I don’t think we’re overinvesting in electric vehicles.”
About The Author
