GM lowers its sales targets for BEVs
- Following the end of the cooperation with Honda on the design, production and sales of battery electric vehicles, the GM group (fifth largest carmaker in the world) decided to continue its development in the electric technology on its own. The battery electric platform designed by GM and Honda will therefore have only seen two realizations at Honda and six at GM.
- This platform, called GM BEV3 by the American carmaker, which concerns vehicles from 4.75 m to 5.00 m, was supposed to be followed by the GM BEV2 platforms (vehicles from 4.50 m to 4.75 m) and GM BEV1 (vehicles from 4.25 m to 4.50 m), but the carmaker has decided to postpone these projects due to the lack of dynamism in the market of battery electric vehicles which tend to stagnate almost everywhere in the world, except in China.
- GM is revising its objective of producing one million battery electric vehicles in 2025. GM is also ending the Ultium brand which was to supposed to gather all activities linked to electric technology (models, platforms and battery cells). GM will also adjust its investments in the electric technology, due to lower demand than expected, favoring LFP batteries for current production and reserving NMC batteries for the Premium category (Cadillac).
- GM sold only 290,000 BEVs in China (with Wuling and Baojun) over the first eight months of 2024 and 60,000 in the United States, or 350,000 in total, which is equivalent to a volume of 525,000 over the year (8% of its production). And the sales decline in China (-29% over the first eight months of 2024) does not give any signs that the volume of its BEV sales will increase in 2025. In response to this difficult context, the carmaker is now announcing the return of a range of plug-in hybrid vehicles, without however calling into question its objective of a fully electric range for the entire group in 2035, which seems unrealistic.