Like other carmakers, General Motors is applying the brakes on some of its ambitious EV plans because of less-than-expected customer demand.
The latest delay comes at GM’s St. Catharines, Ontario plant in Canada where the company had planned to make more than 400,000 EV drive units annually, transitioning from producing highly profitable Gen 5 V8s and DCT transmissions for the C8 Corvette. An electric drive unit consists of an electric motor, a power electronics module and a transmission.
With much fanfare, GM announced those big EV plans back in February 2023, with the St. Catharines plant slated for a big investment to allow the production of units for Ultium-based EVs like the Cadillac Lyriq, Chevy Blazer and Silverado EV, and BrightDrop delivery vans.
Now, however, The St. Catharines Standard is reporting that those plans have been delayed because of the recent slow growth in EV demand. Maybe the days of the ICE V8 aren’t quite over yet, though a GM representative said the change-over for EV production at St. Catharines is still underway.
“Work continues to retool the V-6 engine and 6-speed transmission lines at St. Catharines Propulsion Plant to make way for EV drive units and we are assessing the timing for that transition,” Natalie Nankil, director of corporate and internal communications at GM Canada, told the newspaper in an email. “We will continue with our long-standing strategy of building to demand for our propulsion technologies.”
The GM decision comes on the heels of an April announcement by Ford that it was putting off production of a new electric SUV for two years at its Oakville, Ontario plant, with the new vehicles now slated to arrive in 2027 instead of 2025. Earlier, Ford had also said its Blue Oval City plant in Tennessee would go online in 2026, a year later than originally expected.
Not surprising since a recent JD Power survey covered by the Canadian press pointed out that 11 percent said they were “very likely” to buy an EV as their next car, down three percent from a year earlier. Meanwhile, Statistics Canada says zero-emission vehicle registrations in the fourth quarter of 2023 dipped nearly 5,000 from the third quarter in Canada.
Source:
stcatharinesstandard.ca
Related:
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Get the guy who has to have someone wipe his butt and we will see the demise of coal fired golf carts. Never were they intended for the average middle class family.
Depreciation and repairs are insane on an EV. Just ask Hertz!
Well, that seems to be a no brainer decision there Mary.
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