GM believes ‘production hell’ is behind it with plans to build 20X more Ultium EVs in 2024
General Motors (GM) looks to get back on track this year as executives believe EV “production hell” is behind it. After missing EV sales targets for the past two years, will 2024 be the year of execution, as GM says it will?
Is GM putting production hell behind it?
After delivering 75,883 EVs last year, GM (again) missed its target of selling 100,000 alone in the second half of 2023.
The automaker encountered freight delays, software glitches, and other issues that delayed timelines. After almost three months, GM lifted the Blazer EV stop-sale earlier this month. GM issued the stop-sale in December, four months after opening orders.
GM confirmed it was pausing sales to fix a software glitch. Chevy said the measure was non-safety-related and impacted a limited number of Blazer EV owners.
To make matters worse, GM ended production of its best-selling Chevy Bolt EV at the end of 2023, which accounted for 62,045 or over 81% of EV sales last year.
GM aims to build 200,000 to 300,000 Ultium-based EVs, or about 20 times more than it did in 2023. The goal is still well short of its previous target of making 400,000 EVs through mid-2024.
CEO Mary Barra said 2024 is the “year of execution” as GM looks to get back on track. “Getting vehicles out there right and getting the software” straight is at the top of the to-do list.
Regarding ramping up Ultium battery production, CFO Paul Jacobson said at a recent speech, “We’ve had some challenges scaling it,” but he added, “I think most of those are behind us.”
GM sold fewer than 14,000 Ultium-based EVs in 2023, including the Cadillac Lyriq (9,154) and GMC Hummer (3,244). The Blazer EV and Silverado EV WT began rolling out in late 2023, with 482 and 461 models sold in 2023, respectively.
Rivian sold more R1S models alone than GM did Ultium EVs last year. With 24,783 R1S models handed over, Rivian’s electric SUV was the seventh best-selling EV in the US. Chevy’s Bolt EV was third.
Overcoming hurdles at Factory Zero
GM says it has doubled battery production at its Factory Zero plant since Q4, according to a new Bloomberg report, but more still needs to be done.
The report says GM rushed its own best practices with Ultium production to get batteries out. GM skipped the typical assembly-line setup to test production before getting started.
Instead, the company installed fully automated battery assembly lines at the plant right away rather than testing elsewhere, according to Mike Anderson, vice president of global electrification and battery systems.
Battery cells must be pressed and packed precisely, so with a robot stacking six battery cell pouches at a time, mistakes can happen.
If the cells don’t line up exactly, the unit will bend, and the cell won’t link with the others. The Detroit Fire Department has been called nine times to Factory Zero since August.
GM aims to overcome the issues after hiring battery experts, consultants, and others, including former Tesla battery expert Kurt Kelty, to fix assembly.
Anderson said he thinks the company has “turned the corner” at its battery factory as it aims to hit GM’s production target this year.
GM isn’t the only automaker with software issues delaying EV targets. Porsche finally released its all-electric Macan EV earlier this year after a nearly two-year delay. Ford also issued a stop-ship order on the F-150 Lightning in February.
GM will introduce the new Ultium-based Chevy Bolt next year, which will save the company “billions” with LFP batteries.
What do you guys think? GM has broken several promises in the past. Will 2024 be any different? Let us know what you think in the comments.
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EV sales kept up their momentum in December 2024, with incentives playing a big role, according to the latest Cox Automotive’s Kelley Blue Book report.
December’s strong EV sales saw an average transaction price (ATP) of $55,544, which helped push the industry-wide ATP higher, according to Kelley Blue Book. The December ATP for an EV was higher year-over-year by 0.8%, slightly below the industry average, and higher month-over-month by 1.1%. Tesla ATPs were higher year-over-year by 10.5%.
Incentives for EVs remained elevated in December, although they were slightly lower month-over-month at 14.3% of ATP, down from 14.7% in November.
EV incentives were higher by an impressive 41% year-over-year and have been above 12% of ATP for six consecutive months. Strong sales incentives, which averaged more than $6,700 per sale in 2024, were one reason EV sales surpassed 1.3 million units last year, according to Cox Automotive, a new record for volume and share.
(My colleague Jameson Dow reported yesterday, “In 2024, the world sold 3.5 million more EVs than it did in the previous year … This increase is larger than the 3.2 million increase in EV sales from the previous year – meaning that EV sales aren’t just up, but that the rate of growth is itself increasing.”)
Kelley Blue Book estimated that in December, approximately 84,000 vehicles – or 5.6% of total sales – transacted at prices higher than $80,000 – the highest volume ever. KBB lumps gas cars and EVs together into this luxury vehicle category, so this is where Tesla Cybertruck is slotted.
However, Tesla bundles sales figures of Cybertruck with Model S, Model X, and Tesla Semi(!) into a category it calls “other models,” so we don’t know for sure exactly how many Cybertrucks Tesla sold in Q4, much less in December. However, Electrek‘s Fred Lambert estimates between 9,000 and 12,000 Cybertrucks were sold in Q4, and that’s not a stellar sales figure.
What will January bring when it comes to EV ATPs? What about tax credits? Check back in a month and I’ll fill you in.
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Tesla is now claiming that Cybertruck was the ‘best-selling electric pickup in US’ last year despite not even reporting the number of deliveries.
There’s a lot of context needed here.
As we often highlighted, Tesla is sadly one of, if not the most, opaque automakers regarding sales reports.
Tesla doesn’t break down sales per model or even region.
For comparison, here’s Ford’s Q4 2024 sales report compared to Tesla’s:
You could argue that Tesla has fewer models than Ford, and that’s true, but Tesla’s report literally has two lines despite having six different models.
There’s no reason not to offer a complete breakdown like all other automakers other than trying to make it hard to verify the health of each vehicle program.
This has been the case with the Cybertruck. Tesla is bundling its Cybertruck deliveries with Model S, Model X, and Tesla Semi deliveries.
Despite this lack of disclosure, Tesla has been able to claim that the Cybertruck has become “the best-selling electric pickup truck” in the US in 2024:
It very well might be true. Ford disclosed 33,510 F-150 Lightning truck deliveries in the US in 2024 while most estimates are putting Cybertruck deliveries at around 40,000 units.
Those are global deliveries, but Tesla only delivered the Cybertruck in the US, Canada, and Mexico in 2024, and most of the deliveries are believed to be in the US.
However, there’s essential context needed here, as we highlighted in our recent ‘Tesla Cybertruck sales are disastrous‘ article.
First off, Tesla had a backlog of over 1 million reservations for the Cybertruck that it has been building since 2019. This led many to believe Tesla already had years of demand baked in for the truck and that production would be the constraint.
However, based on estimates, again, because Tesla refuses to disclose the data, Cybertruck deliveries were either flat or down in Q4 versus Q3 despite Tesla introducing cheaper versions of the vehicle and ramping up production.
Again, that’s after just about 40,000 deliveries.
Furthermore, with almost 11,000 deliveries in Q4 in the US, Ford more likely than not outsold Cybertruck with the F-150 Lightning in Q4.
Electrek’s Take
Tesla is in damage control here. There’s no doubt that it is having issues selling the Cybertruck.
Inventory is full of Cybertrucks and Tesla is now discounting them and offering free lifetime Supercharging.
Tesla is great at ramping up production, and it’s clear the Cybertruck is not production-constrained anymore. It is demand-constrained despite having over 1 million reservations.
Again, those reservations were made before Tesla unveiled the production version, which happened to have less range and cost significantly more.
The upcoming cheaper single motor version should help with demand, but I have serious doubts Tesla can ramp this program up to more than 100,000 units in the US.
As a reminder, Tesla installed a production capacity of 250,000 units annually and Musk said he could see Tesla selling 500,000 Cybertrucks per year.
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