GM is canceling and delaying EV Factories and battery factories. GM was going to make several Ultium pouch battery factories with Korean battery maker LG Chem. The LG Chem factory will instead make 4680 cylindrical cell batteries which are the EV batteries used by Tesla.
GM is delaying new electric SUV and trucks. GM is canceling a sub-$30000 EV factory deal with Honda.
Toyota is making new battery factory partnerships.
Tesla and Toyota are stepping into replace the cancelled GM EV and battery deals.
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Too many Companies ran to one side of the canoe and nearly swamped it.
Tesla has delays and people call Elon a liar. Mary Berra talks big about the huge EV rollout GM will do, makes a half-hearted effort and then just abandons the plan entirely, and nobody cares.
For years, GM and Toyota predictions about their inhouse EV bateries have sounded somewhat hollow. So have predictions for GM Ultium batteries been overblown?
GM continues to circle the drain.
I can proudly say I never ever purchased a Detroit automobile. I attended an engineering school. I spoke with mechanical engineers who were hired by GM. They are not allowed to change anything that would cost one cent more. No improvements are allowed. That is why Japanese introduced overhead cams, fuel injection, V6, turbo, precision engineering, balance shafts, 7,000 rpm red line, tachometers, etc to the US market.
Overhead cams, turbo and v6 were not ‘introduced by Japan’. Overhead cams engines predate WW2; GM had turbo cars since the 1960s and the Buick V6 was introduced in 1962 and remained in production until 2008. Just stop.
I have two body-on-frame rear wheel drive GM cars with modern, computer controlled EFI pushrod V8s – absolutely lovely cars.
Not a car guy I see. Let me gave you a historical run down. High revving DOHC engines? The conclusion is still up in the air. Two patent drawings are in contention, one from Fiat dated 1912 and another from Peugeot dated 1913. Don’t bother with Wikipedia, they only show one at the moment. Balance shafts? A cheap fix for the need to use high displacement engines to make power, because they couldn’t figure out how to squeeze power efficiently from a small displacement engine. Fuel injection? Pre WW2, American manufacturers were still using utterly primitive carbs that leaked like damaged toilets. Precision engineering? Hardly. Measure the tolerances of a mass produced , boring, pedestrian European engine from the 1960s and compare to a Chevy v8. The tolerances are twice as tight and more in some components.
ArsTechnica had a great analysis on this. Bluntly put, it’s GM business as usual getting in the way, with a half-hearted blame directed at ‘manufacturing issues’.
Honda and Acura use Ultium batteries so this seems like bad news for them as well.