G.M. announcement shakes up U.S. automakers’ transition to electric cars
nytimes.com
nytimes.com
To secure supply they would have had to make a major deal with China, where most of the world's lithium gets processed. GM also sells more cars in China than the US (though less revenue). That also likely factored in the decision since China has announced aggressive EV targets. Given GM's integrated global production they would lose advantages of scale by having a split lineup of EVs and ICEs.
GM has announced that they're moving away from fossil fuels, not that they were going all-electric. Granted, electric is most feasible, but they could also be hedging their bets with alternate sources like hydrogen.
At most, GM will purchase someone else’s electric car design to use their battery supply. Then they’ll hire a contractor to build and design the factory. Then all of the staff that build it will be part time contractors from a temporary workforce company. The end result will be a piece of faulty garbage that barely drives, with nobody in the company to blame for its failure.
Most likely, GM will sell these contracts to someone who can actually execute, and they’ll make a tidy 2% profit to continue their mediocrity into the next decade.
Someone tell me what I'm missing here.
Edit: someone down thread pointed out charging station build out.
Now were they GOOD drivetrains, I don't know. There are a lot of tradeoffs there I don't understand, like is AC induction what we want, or should permanent magnets be a part of the design.
and to this day they cant make a truck dash that doesnt crack after 5 years in Nebraska sun.
GM is very very far behind, but they are now deadly serious about owning a majority of the EV market.
With the limited maintenance, regular servicing and less things to break where dealers have historically made their margins. EVs are a threat in this regard and you've already seen this play out with the Bolt/Volt to a degree.
Heck, they wanted ~$300 to run a DPF regen on our truck when it went into limp mode(yay for open-ish OBD protocols so we could do it ourself).
I just don't see them wanting to sell them and without a channel it doesn't matter how good of a product you make.
Of course, the Bolt is neither a particularly (universally) attractive car, nor is it produced and distributed to dealerships in quantities sufficient to make a difference.
The charging network is obviously Tesla's cup of tea.
So GM will (almost certainly) make a bunch of appealing electric cars, and they'll get them to dealerships. That alone will make waves, but the charging network will likely need work so that reviews of their cars aren't littered with experience complaints.
It's also easy to debate items like software, updates and driver aids. GM is probably average with software (good enough) and average with updates (terrible). They have plenty of good investments with driver aids though they promise a lot less than Tesla (for now).
It’s like a blackberry vs an iPhone X right now.
Can they catch up? Sure maybe? But no signs of it yet.
Bluetooth is unreliable and balky. Speech recognition doesn’t work. The touchscreen is unresponsive - it can take a minute to type in an address. And sometimes the main touchscreen computer freezes and I have to manually reboot it, which means no A/C or radio or navigation for 5 minutes.
I understand that the computer in my Model S isn’t as good as their newer ones. But I have to say the overall experience is terrible. My Volt had a more functional and reliable computer. I’m tempted to buy a new Model S just to upgrade the computer.
All of this is to say that Tesla may have great technology but it is unevenly applied and they are terrible at support.
Buy another $140k car?
It's a shame the "Volt" was discontinued because it was a great concept and the car works well. Unlike the fake "Plug-in Prius" -- which can't go faster than about 30 MPH without the gas engine kicking in -- the Volt is 100% electric on its ~ 50 mile range before the ICE will turn on. I got it for the occasional long drive I need to do.
Their technology however, is mind blowing.
Great, I wish them well in that endeavour though I doubt they will ever get a majority of the Market share at this point given all the horrible mistakes they've made since the 70s, but they have a lot of catching up to do to get even close to its main US competitor (Tesla) and Hyundai, who also partnered up with LG and has a national interest in seeing each other succeed, has made a lot of progress in EV market. Perhaps a possible partnership with Apple could give them a much needed jump start since Apple thinks it wants to get into the Auto Industry.
But if Toyota's miracle battery comes to fruition and meets expectations then that could be the real dark horse and make all but maybe Tesla the only real competitor anymore.
It's very clear to see that other than some mainstays like the Charger/Hellcat variants, a high end Cadillac SUV and Corvette GM don't seem to be doing much in the ICE department worth staying in that game long term to keep the brand(s) alive and even the Hummer is being offered as an EV.
I've only been in a late model volt during a lyft and to be honest it all felt incredibly cheap, like a base model Jetta assembled in Mexico cheap. Nothing seemed to be remarkably good about it and the driver said he got under a 100 miles of range so he hung around the local college bars and charged on campus until the next hail, and while Teslas aren't exactly amazing when it comes to interiors either, the Model 3 I drove months earlier was far superior.
I'd decry there bailout in 2008, but if they're really taking EV seriously and the Biden administration is pushing for EV then maybe it was all worth it in the end for this perfect storm situation, as so much of GM's lineup were mainly disposable cars that ended up in the scrap heap after 7-10 years due to unreliability. I will say their LTX V8s engines were being swapped in every imaginable chassis up until a few years ago, so they probably could just keep making crate engines and parts with existing infrastructure and still make a profit. Otherwise its game over for a ton of people who will need to buy multiple engines/chassis just to keep one running until they pull a Cuba and create their own backyard OEM parts supplier alternative.
Edit: Mopar stuff is not Chrysler.
This company was just created and listed on the NYSE on Jan. 19th, 2021.
They may go out of business by 2035 which would also meet their goal of zero tailpipe emissions.
Very quick search finds a 2017 WSJ article when they were selling European assets-
“The company has European pension liabilities of $9.8 billion on its balance sheet, of which $6.5 billion is underfunded, Mr. Stevens said during an analyst call Monday. There will be an annual cash requirement of about $300 million to fund the U.K. and German pensions that remain with GM, he said.“
And that’s just the European unit..
“In the U.S., GM’s pension plan at the end of the fourth quarter 2016 had a deficit of $7.2 billion, a decrease of $3.2 billion compared with the previous quarter, according to a company transcript.”
Reader view shows only the page title and nothing else.
I installed Hush last week, but even disabling content blockers doesn’t fix it.
I won't be happy paying $2 per litre, but it probably won't break the bank.
Who knows what COVID will do to inflation overall, though?
The thing about gasoline that people aren't thinking about is that
- refining the fuel and getting it to where you can physically buy it, and
- the complicated engine gubbins inside (compared to much simpler battery EVs),
...are both long logistical tails that absolutely depend on volume of custom to make their current form affordable, by hiding the large fixed costs of infrastructure.
Which means that there will be a crossover point some time in the next 30 years, and probably earlier than you'd think, when running a gasoline fuel station, a gasoline refinery, making the complicated parts, and training to install them, will no longer be commercially viable as anything other than a private hobby (like running a 1920s car, you can do it, but YOU are going to have to do all of it, there is no 1920s car mechanic in the phone book).
At this crossover point the value of a gasoline car will be either
- its value as a basis for a BEV conversion kit, probably not a whole lot as they'll be expensive and poorly suited, or
- it's value as scrap parts.
Sorry.
I wonder what saltwater infiltration will do to electric cars over time in Canada. Especially once they’re not garage-queens.
Buying old technology that might not be as well supported, the same reason I'm holding off replacing my Intel iMac right now (waiting for an Apple Silicon iMac but a second generation that might be supported better/longer).
These are long timelines but appropriate for the type of pivot proposed.
https://www.freep.com/story/money/cars/general-motors/2020/1...
Interesting graf. The implication seems to be ICE fuel economy regs may be/have been sucking R&D money away from the electric switchover. We absolutely need to avoid writing fuel economy regulations in a way that disincentivizes electric investment.
Later: I wonder to what extent electric vehicles are already part of the plan to meet the CA deal. I've looked for a minute and not found anything informative.
I can see 55mpg in a plug-in hybrid as long as the battery has charge to assist. But by the time you’re getting 55mpg out of a gas engine without any battery assist, I would imagine it’s a pretty utilitarian driving experience.
Certainly an EV driving experience versus a 55mpg ICE is going to be absolutely no comparison.
US consumers generally don’t buy those, particularly these days. VW doesn’t even sell diesels in the US anymore.
The gas engine 2020 Passat gets 24/36 mpg city/highway.
What are the vehicles getting more than 55 such that passenger vehicles can get less?
5 speed properly jetted and carb tuned Honda CRX for MPG or a Geo Metro come to mind to get those numbers and were made in the last century, other than only a K car or 3 cylinder exotic can come close. Did a Smart, which always looked like more like a toy than a car, actually get that?
I had an 1st generation CRX in university and that thing was a coffin with 4 wheels as nothing but 2 bodies fit inside. It's nothing I would say was ever comfortable by any stretch of the imagination.
I got in a bad accident in that thing due to a mechanical failure on the freeway and I'm surprised I'm still able to walk to this day as I felt every inch of that metal bend and fold upon impact. Ended up with bad hyper extension injuries to my ankle/feet (2 feet in rule in a spin) and vertebrae damage that persist to this day that made me realize MPG is not worth bodily injury.
My prius only gets 44 mph with mainly street driving, and its ok but feels like joke when its windy due to how light weight it is.