GM CEO Mary Barra chip shortage, electric trucks, and...

scottf200 · 2022-05-05

Title: GM CEO Mary Barra chip shortage, electric trucks, and the outlook for EV investment and adoption.

Steverino

· #21 · May 9, 2022

solar_dave said:
let Joe pay for it.

Oh oh, the angry people with pitchforks and torches will soon be arriving...

Reply

Save

Like

noyoudont

· #22 · May 9, 2022

Titanic comes to mind, no, not becouse its a sinking ship. More like a moment in time, before it hit the iceberg.
Even in gm, i'm sure their are people at the back of the bus(ship) going, i dont know where we are headed, people in the middle, going, we will be fine and people at the front, going, we need to turn now. Trouble is, all the controls are at the back of the bus

The question now is, will they hit or miss the iceberg

Reply

Save

Like

Steverino

· #23 · May 9, 2022

I think most automakers can see the iceberg, some more so than others.

Keep in mind we'll still have ICE's on the road for the next 20 years even as a shift to EV's occurs. Plenty of people over the next 10-15 years will say no to buying an EV for various reasons. GM's not stopping EV development (and hit the iceberg), but the market is in a 10-15 year transition phase. Again, only a small number of buyers are willing to jump to an EV today. Even a fair number of Volt owners are reluctant. EV buyers are a growing number, but still small. Nonetheless GM is "pouring on the coal, all hands are on deck", they have plotted a course around the berg. Now they need to execute.

Reply

Save

Like

Reactions: 1

noyoudont

· #24 · May 10, 2022

heard all the vw ev's are sold out for the next year

Reply

Save

Like

Killroy

· #25 · May 10, 2022

noyoudont said:
heard all the vw ev's are sold out for the next year

Selling out needs some context.

VW's BEV Q1 2022 sales are up 65% year over year, but while ~100,000 sounds like a lot, it's really not for VW auto group.

Reply

Save

Like

begreen

· #26 · May 10, 2022

Steverino said:
Thanks, Scott. GM has a LOT riding on the Ultium Cell battery platform.

The Ultium Cell battery is designed to be chemistry agnostic but I either did not know or forgot that it's also cell form agnostic, accepting prismatic, pouch or cylindrical. Both of these equal a lot of flexibility for future battery upgrades/replacements.

I disagree with her team's strategic decision to drop the Voltec in favor of 100% EV focus so they can have a full lineup of EV's sooner. The target is 50% of their sales being EV by 2030 and 100% by 2035. She did not say it, but I read elsewhere they will also be tying upper management compensation to meeting those goals.

Interesting but not surprising that the focus for heavy duty vehicles will be fuel cell.

They are also looking into "services", e.g. monthly subscriptions.

Barely a mention on Cruise AV or BrightDrop.

You are right about concerns about dropping Voltec. How is that going to work in a big city like New York where there are 2 million cars and only 86 charging stations, many of which are not convenient or ICEd?

Reply

Save

Like

Steverino

· #27 · May 10, 2022

begreen said:
You are right about concerns about dropping Voltec. How is that going to work in a big city like New York where there are 2 million cars and only 86 charging stations, many of which are not convenient or ICEd?

I think there is a need over the next 15 years or so for cars like the Volt. There are still too many use cases today and near term where having an EREV or PHEV make more sense than a BEV. For a two car family, having both an EREV and BEV are a great combo.

Reply

Save

Like

hellsop

· #28 · May 10, 2022

begreen said:
How is that going to work in a big city like New York where there are 2 million cars and only 86 charging stations, many of which are not convenient or ICEd?

Extreme case cherry-picked to support whatever case you're trying to make. That there ARE NOT chargers does not mean that there CANNOT be chargers, and the US as a whole already has 8 parking spaces per vehicle, there's plenty of places to put them.

Reply

Save

Like

M

microVOLT

· #29 · May 11, 2022

I also think that abandoning the Voltec was a poor decision.
Instead of playing catch up game with Tesla why not perfect the Voltec and add more range. Work on cost cutting. Increase the range and actually make vehicles that most people can afford instead of trying to compete with Tesla in Elon Musk's game.

If you increase the Volt's range to 100 miles and sell it for less than $35K, Tesla wouldn't be doing this well in the first place.

Most people don't need a 300 miles $60K battery electric vehicle. There is no need to put a heavy and super expensive battery in a car. 100 miles will suit most everyone's purpose for having an electric car. You wouldn't even need enormous infrastructure of fast chargers all over the place. Many people would be happy to reap the benefits of an EV and still enjoy the convenience of 5 minutes fill up. You can still have destination chargers at every parking garage or businesses.

Even with my Volt's puny 50 miles range, I barely put any gas in my car as it is. I never once have been anxious of running out of power or getting stranded either.

I still don't get this crazy push for pure BEV especially by any government. I guess by not being wealthy, I feel left behind from this technology and I believe most American feel the same way. That is why BEV adoption is very slow.

See less See more

Reply

Save

Like

begreen

· #30 · May 11, 2022

hellsop said:
Extreme case cherry-picked to support whatever case you're trying to make. That there ARE NOT chargers does not mean that there CANNOT be chargers, and the US as a whole already has 8 parking spaces per vehicle, there's plenty of places to put them.

It's not a single case. Philadelphia has 164 in a 15km radius. Boston, Houston, and Miami have about 500. We're not going to be able to charge a city's worth of vehicles with some randomly placed small clusters of chargers. Some of those scattered chargers will be blocked, hard to access, or broken. To charge a large number of vehicles reliably there will need to be lots of chargers. This issue is that real estate is very expensive in big cities so coming up with solutions will be very expensive. And if the charging is to be at say a large parking lot, then supplying the massive amperage feed to that lot with say 25 fast, 350amp chargers, will require substantial infrastructure work. This is not a trivial or random issue.

Reply

Save

Like

Steverino

· #31 · May 11, 2022

microVOLT said:
Most people don't need a 300 miles $60K battery electric vehicle.

Just for comparison, my Bolt EV (with the new free battery) shows 260 miles range, cost me $34k. That's what my Volt cost when I bought it in 2011.

Still, a 100 mile Voltec EREV vehicle rather than a BEV might tempt me as a replacement for the Volt.

On the other hand, the total elimination of maintenance for an ICE and it's related components for the Bolt is dramatic and almost unbelievable. Gone are engine oil changes, spark plugs, timing chains, valves, air cleaners, catalytic converter, exhaust system fuel tank, fuel pumps, charcoal canisters, wiring, sensors, radiator and fluid, yikes. All gone. The Bolt EV maintenance schedule is almost a blank page.

As far as urban area charging, there is almost no infrastructure for BEV's if you don't have a garage, a home with a driveway, or a parking spot with electric. Charging for street parking may eventually be a thing, but it will be a LONG time coming. Most cities don't have the money. It can be done incrementally over time as sidewalks are replaced, but it will be very slow. What I can see is a private company doing it and sharing some revenue with the city in return for a 99 years lease or the like. But the charging cost for residents will undoubtedly be high.

See less See more

Reply

Save

Like

F

FI Spyder

· #32 · May 11, 2022

What is often lost in the discussion is that only 16% or 17% of people live in apartments, depending whether you live in the US or Canada (can never remember which is which, not that it matters). A lot of those apartment dwellers use transit, either because of cost of owning/driving a vehicle or there is just no place to park them. So the small number of people (percentage wise) that need fast chargers (other than for road trips) is quite small. As many places will outlaw sales of new ICE cars by 2035, they last an average of 15 years so many will be around till 2050. Will the need for fast chargers keep up? Stay tuned. That's without external factors changing like EVs becoming cheaper to buy than ICE cars, the inconvenience of increasing lack of service stations, the ever increasing cost of gasoline (people are cutting back driving now because they can't afford the increase in gas prices coupled with the increase in food and the increase in rents).

Reply

Save

Like

Steverino

· #33 · May 11, 2022

Depending on the state, in the US apartment dwellers range from 5% to 24%, with NY being the highest, West Virginia the lowest. Mean average looks to be about 10% to 12%.

U.S. residents living in apartments by state | Statista

In 2019, approximately 24 percent of New Yorkers lived in apartments, whereas the same was only true for six percent of New Mexican residents.

www.statista.com

Reply

Save

Like

F

FI Spyder

· #34 · May 11, 2022

Steverino said:
Depending on the state, in the US apartment dwellers range from 5% to 24%, with NY being the highest, West Virginia the lowest. Mean average looks to be about 10% to 12%.

U.S. residents living in apartments by state | Statista

In 2019, approximately 24 percent of New Yorkers lived in apartments, whereas the same was only true for six percent of New Mexican residents.

www.statista.com

Yes it will vary by state just as mileage does. I went with US and Canada wide.

Reply

Save

Like

obermd

· #35 · May 11, 2022

hellsop said:
Extreme case cherry-picked to support whatever case you're trying to make. That there ARE NOT chargers does not mean that there CANNOT be chargers, and the US as a whole already has 8 parking spaces per vehicle, there's plenty of places to put them.

Those spaces aren't in NYC though, so obviously ICEVs won't work there either. It's kind of fun to take an anti-EV argument, pare it down to the base comment and then turn it around against ICEVs.

Reply

Save

Like

hellsop

· #36 · May 11, 2022

obermd said:
Those spaces aren't in NYC though, so obviously ICEVs won't work there either. It's kind of fun to take an anti-EV argument, pare it down to the base comment and then turn it around against ICEVs.

The worst part is that NYC does have about three million parking spaces in the five boroughs, with only the two millions cars. And they're almost all free-as-in-no-money-charged-to-park-there.

Now, one can argue that the real problem is that they're not on the upper west side between 86th and 90th near Columbus Ave, but that's getting down to a problem that might be best solutioned by saying something like "There's FIVE subway lines within four blocks from there, smart-ass. Get on 'em."

Reply

Save

Like

Reactions: 1

hellsop

· #37 · May 11, 2022

Steverino said:
Depending on the state, in the US apartment dwellers range from 5% to 24%, with NY being the highest, West Virginia the lowest. Mean average looks to be about 10% to 12%.

U.S. residents living in apartments by state | Statista

In 2019, approximately 24 percent of New Yorkers lived in apartments, whereas the same was only true for six percent of New Mexican residents.

www.statista.com

And, as I've mentioned before, I just vacated an apartment I lived in for 6.5 years, with two EVSE in the basement and the capacity to add about 50 more. I'll fret about "where will people charge?" when we run out of that kind of situation.

Reply

Save

Like

obermd

· #38 · May 12, 2022

hellsop said:
And, as I've mentioned before, I just vacated an apartment I lived in for 6.5 years, with two EVSE in the basement and the capacity to add about 50 more. I'll fret about "where will people charge?" when we run out of that kind of situation.

At what cost to add additional EVSEs? Also, who will pay for the power and who will pay to maintain them? The latter two questions are the fundamental flaw with all free EV charging stations.

Reply

Save

Like

hellsop

· #39 · May 12, 2022

obermd said:
At what cost to add additional EVSEs? Also, who will pay for the power and who will pay to maintain them? The latter two questions are the fundamental flaw with all free EV charging stations.

Probably about $2500 per each, and this particular building management charged $15 a month for the EVSE access (power included), which would have been about right had I been doing a normal commute somewhere. So they did the math good. BUT in the entire time I lived there, there was only about two years where there were plug-in vehicles in both of the existing EVSE parking spaces, so they weren't at capacity yet. And, I literally picked to live there for the long term that I did because of the EVSE access, and made sure that the management knew it; they weren't having to go through the hassle of re-leasing the apartment every year or two because those EVSEs were in the garage and (considering how much time they spend showing the place when I was moving out) that saved them a hundred labor hours per year just having me renew instead of move.

Reply

Save

Like

begreen

· #40 · May 12, 2022

There's a big difference when there are just a few people in the building with EVs vs all the tenants' cars being EVs. The issue is not just the cost of installed EVSEs, but also bringing the additional power to entire blocks of apartment buildings and then into the buildings themselves.

Reply

Save

Like

Top Contributors this Month