[Steverino]

There is a 3-4 month delay in getting a replacement BECM :-(

 

[Steverino]

The Chevy Volt was designed to show Toyota that GM could build a superior Prius. Now Toyota has created a superior Volt! Oh, the irony!

I thought the same thing. Lutz must be unhappy.

While GM had plans to introduce a Volt SUV (we all said they should), in order to get the finances right for funding GM's drive into EV's and autonomous vehicles Barra was aggressively cutting money losing overseas operations, unneeded plants in the US and money losing projects in general. Given it had decided around 2017 to go all in on EV's the money losing Volt era was another victim of belt tightening. Each Volt sold was a $19,000 loss. Selling more would not help.

The Bolt's are money losers too but at $9,000 each, much less than the Volt. And the Bolt EV (and it's loss) was a needed first step to GM's all EV future. Without it, GM would be further behind and we would not see the stream of new EV's starting with the Hummer or the Ultium platform it's based on. Shutting excess plants resulted in a costly strike followed by a costly Covid shutdown, followed by a costly chip shortage and of course a costly Bolt battery recall. Though battered, GM was in better shape to withstand those storms due to the domestic and overseas plant closings.

Interesting note, the Volt's battery was designed by GM. Never any fire issues, The Bolt's battery was by LG. Getting an embarrasing PR black eye, the recall costs and the unhappy customers due to an LG design was too much. GM has decided to design it's own batteries again and Ultium will manufacture them.

 

[Steverino]

$19,000 loss, $9,000 loss per vehicle sold. No wonder it's called "Government Motors". Everybody wants it, but wants somebody else to pay for it. Question is, how long can the bold experiment continue at that breakneck moneylosing pace?

Until 2019. Then it stopped. No more Volts.

By the way, shuttering overseas and domestic plants doesn't pay for anything.

No it stops the losses. Before Barra, shutting the money losing overseas operations was never considered as an option. They were sacrosanct.

If the boat is taking on water, you don't need to add more buoyancy if you can plug the leaks. Barra eliminated the leaks.

With the hemoraging stopped, GM's overall profitability increased. Yes, you can do that by selling more $100k pickups or you can do that by reducing losses. Barra reduced the losses so she could spend more on developing $100k EV pickups.

 

[Steverino]

Business Plan:

Drop high volume, $100k, +40% gross margin cash cow that your customers want.

Sell low volume, $100k, -30% margin (if like Volt and Bolt, except more expensive batteries) loss leader that your customers hate.

GM has not stopped selling their high volume, high gross margin cash cows. Instead their plan is predicated on selling them to help fund the EV development program.

The Ultium EVs will be profitable, unlike the Volt or Bolt. That's why the Ultium batteries are being massed produced as a standard item to be used across the entire GM product portfolio. Large scale mass production brings costs down. In contrast, the Volt and Bolt were each unique, low volume one-off's. Nice as a real world R&D proof that GM can do them, but not money makers.

Also, GM expects its new electric vehicle profits to be in-line with cars and trucks with traditional engines by 2025 – years ahead of schedule and what many thought was possible.

GM Battery Cost per kWh dropping, EV profits on par with...

According to a March 2021 Cairn Energy Research Advisors report Tesla pays an average of $142 per kWh for battery cells versus $169 per kWh for GM and an industry average of $186 per kWh. Battery packs are the biggest expense in manufacturing electric vehicles. I don't know what the cost of...

www.gm-volt.com

 

[Steverino]

I called GM on Wednesday and told them my whole story. Magically, my dealer called on Thursday saying the part has been shipped out and I should have my car back next week sometime!

There have been a number of recent posts about BECM's showing up in under a month. Perhaps the supply chain is improving at last. Let's hope so!