After years of pushing the brand, General Motors is rethinking its approach to electric vehicles and battery operations, and will no longer use the moniker “Ultium” for its batteries and related technology.
Ahead of an investor briefing on Tuesday, the Detroit carmaker announced the move. On this day, executives boasted about their efforts to diversify battery chemistries and discussed ways to minimize battery prices.
Additionally, GM stated that it is on track to manufacture and distribute around 200,000 electric vehicles (EVs) in North America this year, turning a profit by the end of the year based on production, or contribution-margin.
In addition to EVs, GM highlighted the company’s reduced capital expenditures and its ability to build conventional cars with internal combustion engines as well as EVs. Its dedication to EVs is made in the midst of the electric car market’s slower-than-expected uptake.
With the exception of an approximately 3% gain at the start of the event, GM’s shares were almost flat.
The switch to Ultium occurred after General Motors invested billions of dollars to create proprietary “Ultium” batteries and technology, which the carmaker had referred to as “revolutionary” and the best available options for creating a successful EV company.
With the exception of production activities like its joint venture facilities with LG Energy Solution for “Ultium Cells,” the business stated that the batteries and technology will continue, but the name “Ultium” will not.
“GM is no longer branding its electric vehicle architecture, battery and cells, or EV components with the Ultium name, starting in North America,” the firm stated in a statement. “GM is continuing to expand its EV business.”
With the market shifting and new outside leaders joining the company, such as JP Clausen, a former Tesla employee who now oversees GM production, and Kurt Kelty, GM’s vice president of batteries, GM has been reevaluating its approach to EV batteries.
Although not as quickly as the firm had hoped, the automaker’s EV sales are increasing. It stated that sales of EVs increased by over 60% year over year in the third quarter, reaching about 32,100 units. Nevertheless, only 4.9% of the company’s third-quarter sales were made up of EVs.
GM CEO Mary Barra reaffirmed a 200,00 EV target on Tuesday, which is less than the prior guidance of 200,00 to 250,000 EVs. The earlier estimate was lowered from a high of 300,000 units.
GM has already begun transitioning to different battery types and chemistries from its initial Ultium pouch cells, which were made using LG and nickel manganese cobalt.
Earlier this year, GM and LG competitor Samsung SDI of South Korea signed a more than $3 billion agreement to produce hard-can batteries, also known as prismatic cells.
In a study released on Monday, Kelty stated to The Information, “We’re moving from a single-source, single-form factor, single-chemistry to a multi-chemistry, multi-form factor, multi-supplier strategy.” “Going forward, we will genuinely optimize for every vehicle.”
After spending millions on marketing and advertising, including two years in a row of star-studded Super Bowl advertisements for Ultium in cars that weren’t yet ready for customers to buy, the manufacturer is now using that same method.
GM is also reconsidering other matters. In September, Rory Harvey, the President of Global Markets at General Motors, which includes North America, told CNBC that the company was reevaluating its plans to build an all-electric car facility in Orion Township, Michigan, from the ground up, from manufacturing to the supply chain.
“Lessons are something we always learn. We constantly learn something new,” he declared in September. “The rationale behind our Orion initiative is that, as you can see, the initial EV adoption curve was undoubtedly a little more aggressive than it is now, both within the industry and for us personally.”
“This enables us to take a moment to pause, regroup, and determine what is suitable for the current demands of our customers,” he stated.
GM now operates Factory Zero in Detroit as its only EV-producing facility in the United States. Before the business postponed its plans by at least a year, the Orion facility was supposed to be the second by the end of 2024.
