GM Five Year Plan to Be Four Years Behind Tesla

GM is promoting a plan to spend $27 billion on all-electric and autonomous vehicles through 2025. This is an increase from $20 billion from initial plans announced in March. GMs goal is be only four years behind Tesla in 2025. GM will do this by spend less than Tesla will spend over the next five years.

GM’s plans to release 30 new EVs globally by 2025. 20 of the vehicles will be in North America. They are targeting 1 million in global EV sales by 2025.

GM and Ford and all other EV makers are underdogs compared to Tesla in electric cars.

GM sells 10% of the volume of electric cars in the USA compared to Tesla.

What is the current electric car from GM? …

The main model is the Chevy Bolt.

The Chevy Bolt has a list price of $35,000 to $40,000 but you can buy them new from dealers at $12000 below MSRP.

GMs plan for thirty EV models is for each model to have double the current Chevy Bolt sales volume.

GM currently has 10% of the Tesla unit volume and 5% of the electric car revenue.

GM has a joint venture with SAIC that is building and selling cars in China. SAIC-GM-Wuling Automobile is global number 11 with 3% market share. Tesla is currently ranked the number 1 globally with 18% global market share.

Tesla should exceed 1 million global EV sales in 2021.

Tesla spent $1 billion in the third quarter on capital expenditures and $1.5 billion per year on research and development. Tesla’s plan is to increase capital expenditures from $2.5 to $3.5 billion in 2020 to $4.5 to $6 billion in each of the next two years. Tesla is growing sales by over 50% per year. Capital expenditures (aka building factories) will increase. If we assume the mid-point the Tesla will have $5.25 billion in average capital expenditures in 2021 and 2022. If Tesla capital expenditures remained flat, then Tesla would spend $26.25 billion on from 2021-2025. There would be another $9 billion on research.

GM is making their own battery cells which are called Ultium. The GMC Hummer EV pickup is expected in the fall of 2021 and it will use the Ultium batteries. GM battery cells in 2020 are $145 per kWh. GM expects to bring the cost of a battery cell down to $100 per kWh in 2023.

SOURCES- CNBC, Tesla
Written By Brian Wang, Nextbigfuture.com

20 thoughts on “GM Five Year Plan to Be Four Years Behind Tesla”

  1. Sears had huge brand loyalty. As did Radio Shack.
    As did Nokia.

    The big car companies wasted their chance to get ahead of Tesla. Now that they're hyperscaling, the others will never catch up.

    I could see Tesla buying out maybe Ford of Buick, as those are high quality companies. Keep making the cars people want, but with Tesla guts. Especially Ford though, with its F-series trucks. That could make a nice entry-level truck for people who aren't willing to go the whole way to the cybertruck.

    Not sure if you can drive the F-series cost down enough to make it workable. Why buy a Teslafied F-150 for $60K when you can get a cybertruck for $40K?

    There might be a model in there that makes sense. If so, it could be a sweet addition to the Tesla line.

  2. I would think if there's a battery crunch, Tesla will sell any excess it has to its competitors. Elon is mainly interested in electrifying the fleet, not making money.
    This is why he's making so much money.

  3. All the old car companies were suppose to go bankrupt years ago, but they still struggle on. When large companies go bankrupt they don't go out of business. All that happens is the stockholders get wiped out. And new stock is issued to pay down the debt. Ford and GM will survive. I wouldn't buy their stock.

  4. I do expect Tesla to improve fit and finish. Style not so much. Efficiency of production will limit the number of styles.

  5. It's a shame to have evidence that proves corruption and consequences at this scale and the justice system doesn't do a thing, equality and democracy are nothing but an illusion.

  6. They have the wrong kind of fame. Fame for stinky vehicles that rust out, have poor resale value, and the vehicles are sold by dealers whoes only motive is to squeeze you for every dollar.

    And GM (with DuPont) deserves infamy for its role in lead dispursal all over the country, contributing to crime, major ecconomic damage and the premature death of millions and millions.
    https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/secret-history-lead/

    https://www.motherjones.com/environment/2016/02/lead-exposure-gasoline-crime-increase-children-health/

    https://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2018/02/an-updated-lead-crime-roundup-for-2018/

    https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/03/180312201739.htm

    And there is more to cars than "fit, finish, and style". There is performance, safety, durability, and satisfaction. I can't say I like the style of anything being sold today by these makers except the new Corvette C8 Convertible. Though it is not a very practical car. I almost like the Ford Transit Van. Looks fine for a van. The Jeep Gladiator looks interesting, but I'd much rather have a Cybertruck because I like the durability it, at least, seems like it will have. I am fine with driving the same vehicle for a million miles, if it continues to serve its function well.

  7. Consumer Reports also named Tesla next to last in quality (ahead of Lincoln, behind VW- lol).

    At a certain point in time the economic calculus no longer favors decreased battery cost and starts looking at the cost to replace parts and how frequently they will be replaced.

    Here at chateau Combinatorics we are beginning to consider buying a new car for Mrs. Combinatorics. Probably will go with an Acura but i'm keeping the ID 4 on the list. Seeing consumer reports update on Tesla quality has scratched the model Y off the list of options which is sad because I do like the look.

  8. if the car companies are 4 years behind Tesla, next year they will be five years behind. That is how fast Tesla moves. They build in new developments nearly every quarter when they see a reason. GM and Ford take years- if ever. Ask Sandy Munro.

  9. I fully trust the parameters they have chosen to measure for present capabilities. They are significant. GM autonomy price also seems cheaper. For the future, Tesla uses a visual system only, while the rest of the industry is fixating on Visual + small and cheap LIDAR. With all respect to their computational power it doesn't seem that Tesla will not be able to fully make up for this lack of sensory Data.

  10. I will be keeping close track of this competition. I predict GM and Ford will go bankrupt or get bought out for pennies on the dollar. GM and Ford each have huge debt. GM Debt https://stockdividendscreener.com/auto-manufacturers/gm-total-debt-and-liabilities/#:~:text=General%20Motors%27%20Total%20Debt%20Breakdown&text=As%20of%201Q%202020%2C%20GM,of%20the%20company%20total%20debt.
    GM Auto and Financial Debt was $191 billion in Q3 2020.
    https://media.gm.com/content/dam/Media/gmcom/investor/2020/nov/gm-q3-2020-earnings-press-release.pdf

    Ford has 43% chance of financial distress within 2 years
    https://www.macroaxis.com/financials/F/Ford-Motor
    GM has 30% chance of financial distress within 2 years
    Tesla has 2% chance of financial distress.
    I think Li Auto, Xpeng, Nio are more interesting EV competition.
    the old automakers could not fight off Japan's entry, then Korea's etc…

  11. GM’s system is a driver assist feature. Tesla’s is just a version of an iteratively evolving system designed to produce networked robo taxis – that happens at the moment to function as a driver assist feature or at least need supervision and training by human drivers.

    They only seem comparable. Consumer Reports is reviewing them as Driver Assist features so Tesla gets marked down. Reviewed as systems to develop Full Autonomy, GM’s isn’t even in the running.

  12. I just wrote details on the comparison of GM autonomy versus Tesla. Consumer reports rated Tesla Autopilot ahead on performance, capability and ease of use. Consumer reports created several more categories about the training wheel aspect of current self driving systems. Preventing a driver from using it in some situations or monitoring driver attention. Those are not related to systems that will be better at full self driving. Closeness to full self driving, I think relates to more performance, capability and ease of use.
    https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2020/11/state-of-self-driving-and-driver-assistance.html

  13. You know what? I think that Tesla will add more car produced in 2021 than the combined sum of GM, Ford, WV and Toyota. Tesla will add more than 500 000 units per year and I believe that is more than the sum of the rest.

    I foresee a battery crunch in the mid term, say 2021-2023 where all automakers except for Tesla are battery constrained. I.e. Tesla will increase it's global market share, not decrease it….

  14. True, Tesla is getting better at fit and finish. Plus they are reducing the capex continuously. I wonder just how low they will get in terms of USD per car per year capacity? 10 000 USD per car-year-capacity now? 5 000 USD per car-year-capacity in the future…?

  15. A come on, Kimhi! Even your source says that they could get the cost of the cell in the ultium battery down to 100 USD per kWh some time in the future. That would mean about 120 USD per kWh at the pack level.

    Teslas batteries are about 100 USD per kWh at the pack level now and when they get the 4680 cells going plus the pack-to-structure we are talking about 60 USD per kWh at the pack level.

    I.e. Tesla has twice cheaper battery packs now than GM, and that ratio will stay roughly the same in the future. How do you figure that the ultium battery is "leading"? Makes no sense what so over.

  16. Don't underestimate the other car companies. They may not have a lot of experience making EVs but they have a lot of experience making cars. They can beat TESLA on fit, finish, and style. They also have brand recognition and loyalty.

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