On January 25, local time, GM officially announced that it will invest more than $7 billion in four production bases in Michigan to improve the production capacity of batteries and electric vehicles, and achieve the goal of becoming the market leader in North American electric vehicles in 2025. And this is the largest investment in GM's history.
Mary Barra, chairman and CHIEF Executive Officer of GM, said, "By investing in GM's battery factories in the United States and electric vehicle factories in North America, we can accelerate GM's campaign in the field of electric vehicles." ”
Of the more than $7 billion investment, GM plans to invest $2.6 billion in Ultium Cells, its joint venture with LG Chem, to build Ultium Cells' third U.S. battery manufacturing plant. According to the data, the battery factory, located in Lansing District, Michigan, will start production at the end of 2024, and will supply batteries to GM's factory that produces electric vehicles after production.
Another about $4 billion will be used to revamp its factory in suburban Detroit. It is understood that the plant will produce Chevrolet Silverado EV and electric GMC Sierra in the future, and the Ultium platform developed by GM will also be operated at this plant to meet GM's more personalized production needs.
Once the retrofit is complete, the plant will begin producing electric trucks including the Chevrolet Silverado EV and the electric GMC Sierra in 2024. However, during the factory conversion, GM will continue to produce the Chevrolet Bolt EV and EUV.
In addition to its electric vehicle-related investments in Michigan, GM plans to invest more than $510 million in two auto assembly plants in the Lansing area to ramp up production capacity of its near-term products.
Under a series of initiatives, GM expects that by the end of 2025, GM will have more than 1 million electric vehicles in North America; by 2030, GM will divert 50% of North America's assembly capacity to electric vehicle production.
However, it is worth noting that after the expansion of production capacity, GM also needs to match the sales capacity. According to data released by foreign media, in 2021, among the sales of North American electric vehicle manufacturers, the global delivery volume of Tesla vehicles is 936,172 units, the sales volume of Ford Mustang Mach-E is 27,140 units, and the sales of electric vehicles of General Motors are less than 25,000 units.
It seems that it is still difficult for GM to become the leader of the North American electric vehicle market in just three years.