Tag Archives: GM news

GM Wants to “Electrify Everything”

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As part of a $37 billion program, General Motors plans to bring at least 30 battery-electric vehicles to market by mid-decade — but it is expanding its electrification strategy to power up pretty much anything “already on the road,” as well as on the water, it announced on Wednesday.

GM EV Components Textron GSE tug
GM looking to electrify “everything,” including offering conversion kits as well as packages for vehicles like this jet tug.

The largest of the Detroit automakers’ Electric Connect and Cruise eCrate systems will allow owners to swap out their conventional gas engines in classic vehicles like the Camaro and E-10 pickup for battery-drive technology. GM also is looking to power up cargo tractors and other airport gear, while also working up ways to bring electric propulsion to the marine industry.

“GM has an established strategy, network of integrators and co-development agreements to apply an extensive array of components and solutions to a broad range of customers and use cases,” said Travis Hester, GM vice president of Electric Vehicle Growth Operations, in a statement Wednesday.

The carmaker estimates there’s a “total addressable market” for swapping conventional drive systems for battery power that could approach $20 billion by 2030.

“As companies across many industries look to reduce their environmental impact, GM is uniquely positioned to serve as a leader not only through exciting new EVs across our brands, but through additional technology applications,” said Hester, “and we look forward to bringing customers — existing and new — along with us on our zero-emissions journey.”

SEMA K5 Blazer EV front

Chevrolet showcased a 1977 K5 Blazer converted to all-electric propulsion at SEMA360 in 2020.

Converting to electric

Demand for conversion technology is already on the rise. There’s been a flood of startups converting classic vehicles, including vintage Camaros, Porsches, Volkswagens and Land Rovers, to run on battery power.

GM targeted the conversion market with the launch of the eCOPO Camaro project car at the SEMA Show several years back, and has revealed other project cars like Project X and the 1977 K-5 Blazer. It is getting ready to provide what are essentially plug-and-play packages, like the Cruise eCrate and Electric Connect, to simplify the process. The goal is to allow owners and conversion companies to make a swap with a minimum of effort.

The Detroit automaker isn’t the only one sensing an opportunity here, however. Ford recently demonstrated the potential for its own Mach-E crate motors, which, as the name implies, uses hardware and software borrowed from its Mustang Mach-E battery-electric SUV. The conversion package can be plugged into classic products such as a 1978 Ford F-100 pickup. Volkswagen and Tesla have also gotten into the game, the latter automaker’s electric drive technology used by one conversion fan on a Rolls-Royce once owned by Johnny Cash.

Multiple applications for electric motors

But GM’s strategy isn’t limited to road-going vehicles.

It’s teaming up with Textron Ground Support Equipment Inc., a Textron subsidiary, to power up ground support equipment like the cargo and baggage tractors, belt loaders and Tug equipment found at commercial airports. Electrifying those vehicles promises to reduce emissions, as well as operating costs, while improving reliability, experts claim.

GM electric expansion graphic Dec 2021

Commercial fleets, in general are showing strong interest in making the switch to battery power. GM this month began delivering the first of its BrightDrop delivery vans, joining competitors like Ford and Rivian in a market that could rapidly grow this decade, according to industry forecasts.

The opportunity to electrify isn’t limited to ground vehicles, however. A number of manufacturers are looking at ways to harness battery and hydrogen fuel-cell technology for other transportation and cargo applications. Rolls-Royce recently set a speed record with an aircraft outfitted with one of its drive systems. Airbus just released plans for a hydrogen turbofan system.

GM sees big opportunities coming in the marine world. It recently announced a strategic investment in the Seattle-based Pure Watercraft. The move, the automaker said, “represents an opportunity to bring EV technology to the marine industry and help preserve enjoyment of the outdoors for future generations. Together, the two companies will develop and commercialize battery electric watercraft, to accelerate the transition to electric mobility.”

GM also has been exploring ways to electrify the rails. Last June it announced another partnership with Wabtec, one of the largest providers of freight locomotives. Under a non-binding agreement, the automaker will provide both battery and hydrogen fuel-cell systems for prototypes like the Wabtec FLXdrive. Eventually, the technology could replace the conventional diesel-hybrid systems that dominate the rails today.

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Dealers Running Dry, Even as GM Set to Halt Production for Two Weeks

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The shortage of microchips continues to drag on, forcing General Motors to idle virtually all of its North American production operations for as long as two weeks — though the automaker could yet extend this latest shutdown.

Wentzville Assembly
General Motors is basically shutting down its North American manufacturing operations due to the chip shortage.

GM is just one on a long list that includes virtually every automaker hit by the shortage — and its impact is being felt just about everywhere, from Stuttgart to Detroit to Beijing.

Industry planners hoped to put the shortages behind them by now. Barely a month ago, GM had signaled it had come up with new sources for some of the chips it needed. But that clearly didn’t meet its requirements.

No light at the end of this tunnel

The automaker will either close or extend closures at plants, such as the one in Wentzville, Missouri producing its Chevrolet Colorado and GMC Canyon pickups, another in Canada building the Chevy Equinox SUV, and the Ramos Arizpe facility in Mexico that assembles products like the Chevy Blazer SUV. All four of its North American brands will feel the heat.

Like some of its competitors, the automaker had been partially assembling vehicles, where possible, and then storing them until it could come up with the missing chips and electronic components. So, in some instances, GM will try to take advantage of the upcoming closures. It has secured enough chips, in some cases, to let it “repair and ship unfinished vehicles,” it said in a statement.

Wentzville Assembly

GM’s Wentzville plant, which produces its midsize pickups, is on the list to go down.

It was not revealed just how much production GM will lose due to the coming closures but some of those plants routinely produce more than 60 vehicles an hour on two or three shifts, many working overtime — when possible — to help rebuild inventories already drawn down as a result of last year’s pandemic closures.

Empty lots

Company officials indicated GM dealers now have barely half their normal stock of cars, trucks and crossovers which, this time of year, would run between 60- and 70-days’ supply.

Among the dealers TheDetroitBureau.com talked to, some indicated they have less than 10 vehicles in stock and are not sure when they will get more, especially when it comes to popular product lines like the Chevrolet Silverado and GMC Sierra pickups.

And they’re not alone. Toyota has barely 10 days worth of some of its most popular vehicles, like the RAV4 SUV. The automaker last month warned it would cut global production by 40% this month, so shortages could, if possible, get even worse. In recent days, Stellantis, Nissan and Ford, among others, have announced further cuts.

GM Ramos Arizpe plant

The company is idling its Ramos Arizpe facility in Mexico where it builds the Chevy Blazer.

Consumers paying the price

In turn, customers have been forced to either wait, extend their search or, in many cases, pay at or above sticker price. Some social media reports have highlighted dealer surcharges ranging anywhere from $5,000 to as much as $40,000 above MSRP.

That helped drive average transaction prices to a record of more than $41,000 in July, according to Cox Automotive, J.D. Power and other analysts. The figure is widely expected to have run even higher in August.

Sales for the month came in at an estimated, annualized rate of about 13.1 million, down from as high as 18.5 million earlier in the year.

The Labor Day weekend is normally one of the busier holidays at U.S. dealer showrooms but there is little hope, according to industry insiders, that it will generate anywhere near the normal levels seen in past years.

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GM Looking at New Vehicle Market: The Moon

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General Motors is looking to go to the moon again. 

GM Lockheed Martin lunar terrain vehicle
A new generation of lunar rovers under development by Lockheed Martin and GM could be used by Artemis astronauts in 2024.

The Detroit-based auto company, which produced the lunar rover for the Apollo 15 mission to the moon, is partnering with Lockheed Martin to develop and produce a “lunar terrain vehicle,” or LTV, for use by for NASA’s Artemis program.

The goal is to design and build a vehicle that allows astronauts explore more of the moon’s surface “than ever before,” according to GM officials. The LTV is just the first of several types of vehicles needed to help get astronauts across the moon’s surface.

“General Motors made history by applying advanced technologies and engineering to support the Lunar Rover Vehicle that the Apollo 15 astronauts drove on the Moon,” said Alan Wexler, senior vice president of Innovation and Growth at GM, in a statement. 

“Working together with Lockheed Martin and their deep-space exploration expertise, we plan to support American astronauts on the Moon once again.”

EV expertise + experience = LTV job

NASA astronauts at lunar South Pole

NASA needs a vehicle capable of traveling the lunar South Pole.

GM enjoys the advantage of having done this before. It aided NASA in the development of the agency’s Apollo Moon program, having developed, tested, integrated and produced the inertial guidance and navigation systems for the series, in particular Apollo that put astronauts on the moon for the first time in 1969.

Additionally, it helped to develop the Apollo Lunar Roving Vehicle (LRV) for Apollo 15-17. The all-electric LRV never drove farther away from NASA’s based than 4.7 miles during its time on the moon’s surface. Fortunately, GM’s electric vehicle technology has advanced substantially since then.

The new vehicles aim to travel “significantly farther distances,” including the moon’s South Pole, which is cold and dark with severely rugged terrain. The vehicles will also need to be able to haul plenty of equipment in addition to people. NASA, according to reports, is looking for a vehicle to be able to travel about 600 miles on a charge and about 6,000 miles in a 42-day period.

The GMC Hummer SUT, which is set to debut later this year, recently went through some extreme winter testing, which may lend the company’s engineers some much-needed insight into how their current battery technology will fare in the far-colder reaches of space.

Hyundai TIGER X-1 on the moon

A rendering shows how the Hyundai TIGER X-1 could maneuver across the moon.

Not the only automaker with lunar plans

GM isn’t the only auto company working on lunar vehicles, in fact, it may be described as the latest to prepare a vehicle to be driven on the moon. Earlier this year, Hyundai unveiled its autonomous, all-electric TIGER X-1, which it claimed could be used on the moon.

However, Toyota’s been working diligently with the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency, or JAXA, to develop a new lunar rover for its moon mission in 2030. The automaker started the project in 2019 and proceeded quickly enough that it expressed hope that NASA would use its vehicle for the 2024 mission to the moon.

The Lunar Cruiser, as Toyota calls it, is a six-wheeled, hydrogen-powered rover, and it made it clear that while the project began as a JAXA-inspired vehicle, it hoped the U.S. space agency would take notice.

“We have now found a new ‘road,’ which is the moon. And for this new road, we will be able to make a new vehicle,” Takao Sato, project head of Toyota’s Lunar Exploration Mobility Works and a former interior design engineer who worked on the Prius hybrid, told Automotive News. “This is a dream for us.”

Toyota is developing a lunar land rover that the company hopes NASA will use for a 2024 lunar mission.

Audi also prepared a remote-controlled buggy to be used on the moon in 2016. The German maker supported a team of scientists chasing the Xprize, hoping to launch their mobile lab atop an Indian rocket. The goal was to have it travel nearly a quarter-million miles before landing on the Taurus Littrow Valley — which just happened to be the last place an Apollo moon mission landed nearly 50 years ago.

GM’s first lunar models

The company’s first LRVs were battery-powered four-wheelers that they stripped down as much as possible to permit them to be loaded onto a Saturn V rocket for launch. They also folded so they could be loaded in the cargo back of the Apollo mission’s Lunar Excursion Module, or LEM.

Power was provided by what was, for the time, a highly sophisticated 36-volt silver-zinc potassium hydroxide batteries. They weren’t rechargeable, which didn’t matter on a one-way mission like Apollo — that’s likely to change this time around. The key was the battery pack’s durability in the moon’s devastating environment. Maximum range was 57 miles, though the longest distance driven was 22.3 miles on Apollo 17 – with the astronauts never getting more than 4.7 miles from their LEM base.

The first vehicles were somewhat purpose-built models, but GM is expected to develop — in concert with Lockheed Martin — a variety of vehicles. Autonomous, self-driving systems will allow the rovers to prepare for human landings, provide commercial payload services, and enhance the range and utility of scientific payloads and experiments.Lockheed, which will be leading this effort, has produced vehicles used for every Mars mission thus far, including the 11 spacecraft that has carried the rovers used on the Martian surface to the Red Planet. 

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