IAUTO
Speed Depth Attitude
Introduction |
2021/12/12
Whatever the endgame of the transformation, what Mary Bora has accomplished at the helm of GM over the past seven years has far exceeded the ceiling that female leaders can break.
Author 丨 Barolo
Responsible editor 丨 Luo Chao
Editor 丨Zhu Jinbin
In January 2014, Mary Barra officially became CEO of General Motors, becoming the first female CEO in the company's history.
At the detroit auto show the following year, she appeared surrounded by spotlights, crowds and flowers, and was as popular as a popular Hollywood star in North America. The "Iron Lady" not only became the first female head of a multinational car company in Detroit's century-old history, but also became the only female leader in the global automotive field.
As 2021 drew to a close, Mary Bora also completed her and GM's "seven-year itch" and ushered in her eighth year at the helm of the company.
On Thursday, she gave a public address at Detroit's The Gem Theater as part of a series of events to lead GM's eighth anniversary. The public talk released a lot of important information, including Bora's own views on the pace of GM's transformation and strategic deployments to meet the challenges of competitors such as Tesla.
The battle is about to begin
Generic, which has pressed the transformational fast-forward button.
According to Marie Bora's plan, GM will start producing the Sierra EV, a chevrolet all-electric pickup model, in early 2023, and the new car will compete with electric pickups such as the Ford F-150 Lightning, Rivian's R1T, and Tesla's upcoming Cyberruck.
Steve Carlyle, president of GM North America, said last month that he believes that the truly successful electric pickup truck is not necessarily a derivative of the fuel version of the model, in contrast, all new cars will start from the lowest technical logic, giving people a new product experience. The Chevrolet Silverado EV will be born out of GM's latest Ultium platform and will unveil more product information at next year's Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.
When the veteran Detroit automaker began showcasing its electric Hummer, Cadillac Lyriq, and the planned Chevrolet Silverado EV, we saw not only a product matrix of concentrated efforts, but also a clear and ambitious market idea for the coming years.
GM has promised to bring 30 new electric vehicles to market by 2025, but the key to achieving this new car scale lies in how to increase existing electric vehicle capacity.
Mary Bora mentioned the possibility of building a new plant in Michigan, and it is reported that GM is considering investing in two electric vehicle-related facilities in Michigan, which will total more than $3 billion. The Detroit News revealed that Michigan's government leaders are also working to provide a series of incentives to attract GM to build at least one vehicle factory here.
When asked about the capacity expansion in North America, Marie Bora told media reporters at the scene that many important conversations and negotiations are currently underway, and in the near future, she believes more details will be available to the public to answer this question. Asked how long the "not-so-distant future" will be, Mary Bora replied that it could take weeks, not months.
"Right now, almost every competitor is touting its electrification ambitions, but everything they're working on right now, GM actually started quietly laying out a few years ago."
Mary Bora told the North American media at the scene of the speech that the Aoteneng pure electric platform provides the scale and speed for the future development of GM, "Now, it is the time when the Aotene platform begins to exert its strength, whether it is the product dimension or the technical dimension." This is where we are most advanced, many opponents are still in the construction of the platform at this stage, but this key link, we have completed it in advance as early as three or four years ago. ”
The Detroit News reporter asked about GM's market value of $87.5 billion, because in the eyes of many in the industry, compared with the $95 billion market value of the startup Rivian, and Tesla, which has a market value of more than $1 trillion, GM's current value seems to be undervalued.
"Sometimes, traditional automakers like GM, even if we're innovating quickly, are looked at differently. But, that's okay, we'll prove it slowly. ”
Marie Bora acknowledges that GM needs to do better and run faster in many ways, and that this is the best time for companies to engage in transformational battles and value in the new era.
New ambitions in the supply chain
In July, GM announced its entry into the lithium-mining industry, announcing a commercial partnership with Its strategically invested California lithium company, Connected Thermal Resources (CTR), to secure low-cost lithium resources from the Salton Sea, near California's border with Mexico.
GM has named the project Hell's Kitchen, and by 2024, the raw materials mined from the project will be used for electric models produced in the United States, which can reach 60,000 tons, about 6 million electric vehicles.
It also means that in the coming years, CTR is highly likely to become the largest producer of lithium batteries in the United States, about twice the planned production of its rival Lithium Americas in Nevada.
This is just a prelude to upstream integration.
In order to win this battle of electrification, the Detroit giant is building a resilient and sustainable electric vehicle manufacturing value chain in North America, from raw materials to components, from upstream to downstream, thereby conquering the broader electric vehicle market.
This also means that GM's Aotene platform, its most important battery production system, will be localized in North America by 2025.
The latest protocol is about magnets.
Few readers may know that GM was one of the automotive giants that topped the rare earth magnet industry in the 1990s. In the era of electrification, NdFeB magnets are the key resources needed to manufacture electric vehicle motors, the importance of which is self-evident, at the inflection point of transformation, the Detroit veteran manufacturing choice to plan ahead and rearrange this market segment.
Just this week, GM struck a new cooperation agreement with Las Vegas-based rare earth mining and manufacturer MP Materials to develop a supply chain of rare earth magnets in the United States. As part of the agreement, MP will build a new magnet plant in Texas to supply GM with enough raw materials, and rare earth resources will come from the mines that MP operates in California.
The only large-scale rare earth mine in the United States.
Recently, GM has made other big moves.
The key words are still "raw materials" and "American mainland". Just this week, GM and POSCO Chemical POHANG Iron & Steel plan to form a new joint venture and build a factory in North America to process battery raw materials for GM's Aoteneng platform.
POSCO is a subsidiary of the largest integrated steel manufacturer of the Posco Group in South Korea. Under the agreement, the company and GM will jointly process and produce cathode active material (CAM), a key battery material that accounts for about 40 percent of the battery cost.
A key step in platform building, GM's current strategic focus has gradually shifted to building a sustainable and resilient North American electric vehicle supply chain, spanning the entire ecosystem from raw materials to battery manufacturing and recycling.
Compete for third place in the world
On the one hand, the "Iron Lady" has opened up the market ambitions of the new era, and on the other hand, Ford, which also belongs to the Detroit camp, is also racing on the new track. Both established U.S. automakers are sharpening their knives, and their common short-term goal is to sell more electric cars by 2025.
The opponent did not stop.
At present, Tesla, which is gaining momentum, has become a global leader in electric vehicles, and Volkswagen in Wolfsburg, Germany, has also launched a new challenge .
Just this past week, Volkswagen unveiled a new plan for electrification, investing 89 billion euros (about 640.7 billion yuan) in research and development in the fields of electric vehicles and digitalization, which will account for 56% of the group's total investment.
In the next few years, whether it is GM or Ford, its biggest goal will be to compete for the third place in global electric vehicle sales.
According to Data provided by AutoForecast Solutions, while the two Detroit manufacturers are ready for a multi-dimensional hand-to-hand battle for the transition, their electric vehicle production will lag behind leaders Tesla and Volkswagen by 2028, and not only that, they will also face the competition of Stellantis.
According to AFS's latest projections, Tesla's global production will reach nearly 1.5 million units by 2025, and further growth will depend on how the company expands its production capacity, while Volkswagen expects to reach 1.45 million electric vehicle production in 2025 and climb to 1.9 million in 2028.
Ford's global electric vehicle production is expected to reach 695,000 units in 2025 and 1.14 million units in 2028.
GM's electric vehicle production is expected to be 494,000 units in 2025, and this figure will expand to 624,000 units in 2028. However, it is worth mentioning that the data does not include SAIC-GM-Wuling in the Chinese market.
In order to win, GM must hurry up.
In March 2020, GM announced that it would invest $20 billion in electric vehicles and autonomous driving projects between 2020 and 2025. But this week, the company continued to increase its strategic investments, and by 2025, its investment in electric vehicles has increased by 75%, from $20 billion to $35 billion.
Forbes magazine once commented that as one of the most important leaders in the automotive industry today, if Bora can guide GM smoothly on the right track of transformation and realize the new vision of electrification, the "Iron Lady" may well rise to the list of the greatest business leaders in American history.
Whatever the endgame of the transformation, what we're seeing is that over the past seven years, What Mary Borah has accomplished at the helm of GM has far exceeded the ceiling that female leaders can break.
It's just that the follow-up hard battle is more difficult to fight than the fuel era.