Source: Gasgoo Author: Xing Yun
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According to the foreign media, General Motors Company believe that the “production hell” of the electric vehicles is over, so the company can get back on track this year. After the failing to reach the electric vehicle sales targets in each of the past two years, will 2024 be the “year of execution,” as GM claims?
Image source: GM
With 75,883 GM electric vehicle deliveries in 2023, the company once again missed its goal of selling 100,000 electric vehicles in the second half of 2023.
GM has encountered shipping delays, software glitches and other issues that have delayed deliveries. After nearly three months, the company lifted the suspension of the Blazer electric model earlier this month. GM initially issued the suspension order in December, four months after taking pre-orders.
GM also stopped production of its top-selling Chevrolet Bolt electric model at the end of 2023, which sold 62,045 units last year, accounting for more than 81 percent of GM’s total EV sales.
GM aims to produce 200,000 to 300,000 Ultium-based electric vehicles this year, 20 times more than in 2023. But the target is still far below the company’s previous goal of producing 400,000 electric vehicles by mid-2024.
GM CEO Mary Barra said 2024 will be a “year of execution” for the company as it seeks to get back on track. “Constantly releasing vehicles and perfecting the software” are the company’s top priorities, she said.
“We’ve had some challenges in scaling up production,” Paul Jacobson, GM’s chief financial officer, said in a recent speech about ramping up production of Oatenergy cells. But he then added: “I think most of the challenges are behind us now.”
GM said it has doubled battery production at Factory Zero since the fourth quarter of last year, but there is still a lot of work to be done.
Mike Anderson, GM’s vice president of global electrification and battery systems, said the company did not test elsewhere, but immediately installed a fully automated battery assembly line at the factory.
The cells must be pressed and packed precisely, and the robot stacks up to six cell bags at a time, a process that can go wrong. If the battery is not perfectly aligned, the device will bend and the cell will not be able to connect to other cells. Since last August, the Detroit Fire Department has received nine calls from Plant Zero. Gm has hired battery experts, consultants and others, including former Tesla battery expert Kurt Kelty, to address assembly issues.
Next year, GM will launch a new Chevrolet Bolt based on the Altenergy platform, which will use lithium iron phosphate (LFP) batteries, a move that will save the company “billions of dollars.”
