General Motors makes Silverado EVs. In the third quarter of this year, it gave them an astounding 18. It planned to temporarily increase output beyond its “Factory Zero” site in Detroit-Hamtramck to Orion Assembly, where the Bolt EV is made, by 2024. GM says that the choice to push back the plan until late 2025 was not made because of issues with supplies or even the United Auto Workers strike that was going on at the time. It could mean that people are losing interest in buying all-electric cars. The company said the delay was due to “evolving EV demand” and changes they made to the vehicle’s design. The Detroit Free Press later heard from a GM spokesman who said that “the trendline for EVs is stabilizing” and that demand is “not rising as fast as originally expected to occur. This is not a good sign for a company whose whole product line will be electrified by the year 2035. Of course, there are other companies with similar goals. There are many ways to cut this pie, but the reasons for saying there need to be more parts are getting old. More and more GMC Hummer EVs, Cadillac Lyriqs, and other electric cars are being made by GM. Still, there have been some big problems at the Ohio site, where the company has started making many battery packs. The main point is that the company was too hopeful when it thought it could sell many electric cars and trucks. To be clear, Factory Zero can make up to a million cars a year if the automaker’s claims are valid. GM says it will be able to sell a million electric vehicles (EVs) and still make money. Both claims have a long history behind them. Factory Zero could make a million cars yearly, but it doesn’t just make Silverado EVs. It is assembling the Cruise Origin self-driving bus, the Hummer EV pickup and SUV, and the Cruise Origin. We are still determining when Cruise’s self-driving taxis built on the Bolt will start leaving the factory; they already have many problems. It was also hard to get the Hummer EV into production at first. In some early models, whole battery packs had to be replaced. Only in the third quarter of 2017 did many trucks come out. The number of cars being made is still in the thousands, not the tens of thousands. GM’s vehicles based on the Ultium platform have been rushed into production to meet what the company thought would be a huge demand for electric cars. The only one that might be an exception is the very luxurious Cadillac Celestiq. One great example of this is the work that was done to get rid of the Lyriq. The Detroit Free Press reported earlier this year that some of the first SUVs that buyers got had several small and big problems. These problems significantly affect the start of production, and to make things even worse, demand looks like it will be stronger than GM thought it would be. So, 18 Silverado EVs and 19 Blazer EVs are on the Q3 sales sheet. GM can make them, but it will be complex. It’s clear that the switch to NACS across the whole industry couldn’t have helped EV demand and may have even made these delays worse. People might wait to buy until EVs can connect to Tesla’s Supercharger network automatically. Most car companies need to be driving cars that can be used. Even though things look bad for them across the Atlantic, they are still making cars with CCS ports right now. All of this comes down to the time for early adopters of electric vehicles has ended. Customers who were motivated enough to buy EVs even though they have some problems have almost certainly already done so. Legacy automakers now have to deal with regular people who buy cars. These people often say bad things about EVs, like how poorly they charge and how badly they work in cold weather. They also say they are expensive. The range is a problem, but that’s primarily because of how unevenly it charges. If the infrastructure were improved, people would care less about going the farthest on a single charge. Regarding the sheer number of electric cars it wants to make, GM is the American carmaker leading the way. But if it can’t sell electric pickup trucks, it won’t be able to sell many other cars, not even famous SUVs and crossovers. The new Chevy Trax is an excellent example of how much people want cheap gas-powered cars. It’s possible to see this as a warning.
