Iconic American automakers Ford and General Motors (GM) have both suffered setbacks to their electric car ambitions, with GM again postponing production of two planned electric pickups, and Ford seeing huge financial losses and declining sales for its EV division.
General Motors initially postponed production of the all-electric Chevrolet Silverado EV and the GMC Sierra EV pickup trucks/utes back in October 2023 due to sluggish demand for electric vehicles.
Originally planned to be assembled at the company’s Orion Township assembly plant in Michigan after the factory ceased assembling the Chevrolet Bolt and Bolt EUV at the end of 2023 – a transition process which would not have seen production of the Silverado and Sierra until the end of 2025 – GM has once again put plans to build the Silverado and Sierra on hold.
CEO Mary Barra told Wall Street analysts during a second-quarter earnings call late last week that GM has “decided to reopen Orion Assembly as a battery-electric truck plant in mid-2026.
“The new timing is six months later than our plan heading into the year,” Barra said. “We’re confident that we can meet customer demand for standout EV trucks in the interim by leveraging the production capacity and flexibility we have at Factory Zero.”
GM is still hoping to launch an all-new Chevrolet Bolt which will be based on its Ultium propulsion technology, but this car will be built at the Fairfax Assembly in Kansas and will launch in 2025.
GM also indefinitely suspended production of its self-driving bus-like Cruise Origin. Instead, Barra said that GM’s Cruise self-driving subsidiary would focus “their next autonomous vehicle on the next-generation Chevrolet Bolt, instead of the Origin.
This addresses the regulatory uncertainty we faced with the Origin because of its unique design. In addition, per-unit costs will be much lower, which will help Cruise optimize its resources.”
And while EV demand is sluggish enough to put GM’s plans on hold, the company says it is ready and willing to increase EV production if the demand is there, with GM Chief Financial Officer Paul Jacobson telling reporters that “we continue to make sure we continue to scale the business to customers and where they are at.”
Across the proverbial American automotive aisle, another automotive icon, Ford, is similarly struggling to ramp up its electrification efforts.
Even as overall company financials were steady, Model e, Ford’s electric car division, saw losses of $US1.1 billion over the first half of 2024 “amid ongoing industrywide pricing pressure on first-generation electric vehicles and lower wholesales.”
This came even as the division made around $US400 million in cost reductions, leading the company to predict a full-year loss for the Ford Model e division of between $US5 and $US5.5 billion.
Ford Model e sales for the first half of 2024 amounted to only 26,000 units, down 26 per cent over the same period a year ago, generating sales of $US1.3 billion, down 50 per cent against the first half of 2023.
A small glimmer of hope for Ford – one that also demonstrates the current demand for automotive electrification in the United States – is the fact that Ford Blue’s hybrid sales increased by 34 per cent, accounting for nearly 9 per cent of the company’s global vehicle mix.
Joshua S. Hill is a Melbourne-based journalist who has been writing about climate change, clean technology, and electric vehicles for over 15 years. He has been reporting on electric vehicles and clean technologies for Renew Economy and The Driven since 2012. His preferred mode of transport is his feet.