{"id":155946,"date":"2020-11-19T17:13:43","date_gmt":"2020-11-19T22:13:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thedetroitbureau.com\/?p=155946"},"modified":"2020-11-19T17:20:41","modified_gmt":"2020-11-19T22:20:41","slug":"ceo-barra-wants-gm-to-be-dominant-global-ev-maker","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/2020\/11\/ceo-barra-wants-gm-to-be-dominant-global-ev-maker\/","title":{"rendered":"CEO Barra Wants GM to be Dominant Global EV Maker"},"content":{"rendered":"
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GM Chairman and CEO Mary Barra is hoping that investing $27 billion in EV and AV development will make it the global EV leader.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

General Motors is putting serious financial and intellectual resources behind its electrification and efforts to reach the goal of being world leader in electric vehicles.<\/p>\n

Chairman and CEO Mary Barra said the financial commitment \u2013 up to $27 billion \u00ad\u2013 is designed to accelerate the company\u2019s \u201call out pursuit of global EV leadership.\u201d This means wresting the crown from the current leader and most valuable automaker: Tesla Inc.<\/p>\n

Barra showed the company\u2019s cards during a virtual appearance at an investor conference sponsored by Barclays. During her presentation, she highlighted the company\u2019s product and sales plans for its electric vehicles.<\/p>\n

(GM turns to its own Ultium drive system for future EVs.)<\/strong><\/span><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

She noted that the company\u2019s investment, which is up from $20 billion, is in EVs and autonomous vehicles through 2025. During that time, the company expects to launch 30 all-electric vehicles, which will account for 40% of the company\u2019s entire line-up. More than 65% of those new launches will be available in North America.<\/p>\n

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GM revealed that the Cadillac Lyriq will hit dealerships in Q1 2022 \u2014 nine months earlier than previously announced.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Barra\u2019s taken on the challenge of leading the company to EV supremacy \u2013 despite the lead it\u2019s spotted Tesla and potentially others \u2013 and vowed regularly to ensure GM would be at the forefront of battery-electric and autonomous vehicle development.<\/p>\n

In fact, the company said that more than half of its capital spending and product development team will be dedicated to those programs.<\/p>\n

\u201cClimate change is real, and we want to be part of the solution by putting everyone in an electric vehicle,\u201d said Barra. \u201cWe are transitioning to an all-electric portfolio from a position of strength and we\u2019re focused on growth.<\/p>\n

“We can accelerate our EV plans because we are rapidly building a competitive advantage in batteries, software, vehicle integration, manufacturing and customer experience.\u201d<\/p>\n

Part of those plans, she said, was to offer a wide price range of vehicles \u2014 one of the criticisms of EVs is the price. She said the company will have EVs ranging from below $30,000 to more than $100,000, which they\u2019ve already shown: the GMC Hummer EV.<\/p>\n

(GM adding 3,000 tech jobs to accelerate vehicle development.)<\/strong><\/span><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

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GM\u2019s wireless battery management system is expected to drive the company\u2019s Ultium-powered EVs to market faster, the Lyriq being the first example.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Zero-emissions vehicles are critical for a variety of reasons, such as federal mandates, but Barra points out that the company can grow its sales by as much as nearly 300,000 units annually, appealing to buyers in markets where the company\u2019s sales have been week: the coasts. But overall her goal is pretty straightforward.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe want to be No. 1 in EVs in North America,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Her push to be the top player in the EV segment at some point in the future has spawned a push by the investment community to spin off the company\u2019s electrification operations, unlocking its value to investors. The company\u2019s stock price lags Tesla\u2019s by more than by more than $420 per share, and some think it\u2019s because the company\u2019s not-so-exciting conventional auto business weighs it down.<\/p>\n

She pushed that aside, saying, \u201cWe don\u2019t think it has to be separated,\u201d later noting that the internal combustion and electric vehicle businesses are complimentary as the vehicles share as much as 70% of the same componentry and those economies of scale are hard to ignore.<\/p>\n

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GM is looking to accelerate development of its autonomous and electric vehicles and advanced platforms like the Ultium battery system.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In the interim, she noted that GM is looking to exceed its goal of selling more than 1 million EVs annually between the U.S. and China by 2025. Barra added that the company\u2019s pace of innovation is already providing returns as its new Ultium batteries, which will be used to power its first-ever all-electric Cadillac, the Lyriq, can now travel 450 miles on a single charge, up from the 400 miles the company reported at the reveal in March.<\/p>\n

Because of the progress made within the Ultium program, the aforementioned Lyriq will launch in the first quarter of 2022, which is nine months earlier than previously announced.<\/p>\n

(GM highlights innovation in new battery technology.)<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cUltium is already changing the way customers \u2013 and investors \u2013 view our company,\u201d Barra said. \u201cWe are resolved as a management team to move even faster to expedite the transition to EVs. The all-electric future we are building integrates all the things we do better than anybody else \u2014 so we can put everyone in an EV, generate profitable growth and create shareholder value.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

General Motors is putting serious financial and intellectual resources behind its electrification and efforts to reach the goal of being world leader in electric vehicles. CEO Mary Barra said the financial commitment \u2013 up to $27 billion \u00ad\u2013 is designed to accelerate the company\u2019s \u201call out pursuit of global EV leadership.\u201d TheDetroitBureau outlines what that means.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4389,"featured_media":151555,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7,8,5,12,9],"tags":[],"make":[58],"post-state":[],"category_old":[118,286,150,151,123,287,131,319,289,155,299,243,169,132,130,284,125,124,139,148,290,128,291,288],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/155946"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4389"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=155946"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/155946\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/151555"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=155946"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=155946"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=155946"},{"taxonomy":"make","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/make?post=155946"},{"taxonomy":"post-state","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/post-state?post=155946"},{"taxonomy":"category_old","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/category_old?post=155946"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}