General Motors Ditches Ultium EV Branding Despite Major Improvement. What Happens Now?
Lessons have been learned, the fixes are in, sales volumes are up, and the Ultium name has been retired, GM leadership proclaims.
What a difference a year makes. General Motors spent the day telling investors that it has its act together when it comes to EVs and software, having weathered manufacturing hell, software snafus, and slowing demand. The automaker says it has fixed mistakes, implemented new processes, exercised discipline on pricing, and is positioned to take advantage of the big investments it has made in its plants and products. It's also ditched the "Ultium" branding for its EVs across all brands and partnerships going forward. Here's what's going on with GM's plans for future gas cars, PHEVs, and EVs.
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Chairman and CEO Mary Barra and her team were quick to note that GM has spent a lot to transition to EVs and the rollout has not been a smooth one. But losses have peaked this year and the road ahead leads to profitability. Fixed costs are $2 billion lower than in 2023 and GM says it will keep profit margins in the 8-10 percent range, even with growing dependence on EVs. Profits in 2025 should be similar to 2024 results.
There is some evidence it is working. GM has overtaken Ford to become second in EV retail sales in North America (all its brands counted together) and its path to making money on EVs will be much shorter than Tesla’s long hard scrabble. EVs were 8.3 percent of U.S. sales in the third quarter, and GM’s share of that was almost 10 percent.
GM EV Profitability
Chief Financial Officer Paul Jacobson said GM will report variable profit (revenue minus costs) in the fourth quarter. The EV profitability inflection point is coming faster than anticipated, Barra told investors at an event in Spring Hill, Tennessee, where GM has retooled the assembly plant to add the Cadillac Lyriq EV and three-row Cadillac Vistiq EV, and built a battery plant in partnership with LG Energy Solution.
The average transaction price of GM vehicles is $50,000, about $5,000 above the industry average. The Cadillac Escalade IQ is expected to be the most profitable EV to date while the more affordable Chevy Equinox EV is showing early success, said GM President Mark Reuss.
Taking a dig at Ford, Reuss said GM does not need a skunkworks to create an affordable EV, referring to the 2026 Chevy Bolt that will be on the next-gen EV platform—which is no longer called Ultium as GM says it is no longer branding its electric vehicle architecture, battery and cells in North America. “We are attacking the cost of selling a car from end of end,” Reuss said. That is everything from lower marketing cost to vehicle development and bringing down the cost of the batteries.
GM is on a mission to reduce complexity of building and buying vehicles by reducing the number of parts, manufacturing processes, and trim options. Reuss says the automaker has eliminated 2,700 parts numbers—about 10 percent per vehicle—and is developing new models with simplicity in mind. The 2025 Lyriq has 24 percent fewer parts than the 2024 model and the next generation of fullsize trucks will have 35 percent fewer trims, 60 percent fewer selectable options, and 80 percent fewer build combinations. It means fewer parts to design, engineer, source, ship, warehouse, store on the plant floor, assemble, and validate.
New GM Battery Lab Announced
GM announced it will build a battery cell development center at its technical center in Warren, Michigan, to continue research and development of prismatic cells, cylindrical cells for performance vehicles and plug-in hybrids, solid-state batteries for more affordable vehicles, and other chemistries to reduce cost and speed new batteries to the market. The new center will make its first cells in early 2027. GM can develop, build, and validate new batteries and test them in prototypes. GM says its cell costs will be as low or lower than any other automaker in North America.
Combination of lower battery material costs, battery improvements, and a higher volume of EV sales for scale will narrow losses on EVs by $2 billion to $4 billion next year, Jacobson says. GM does have a pool of losses it must address, but it dug a big hole intentionally to build the manufacturing foundation that can now scale up and start to pay for itself. Barra sees this as GM’s advantage, having had the discipline to make the necessary investments for a positive EV journey. “I think we are uniquely positioned.”
GM EVs Finally Debugged?
On the software front, a year ago GM launched the Chevrolet Blazer EV with great fanfare and was forced to issue a stop-sale shortly afterwards to fix software problems. It forced the team to step back and recognize gaps in its software development process. The team was downsized and simplified, removing layers and duplication, while adopting new processes and a software stack that can be used across the portfolio instead of multiple configurations for each vehicle. There are also new ways to detect bugs sooner; GM says it is catching 10 times the number of defects during development.
GM is launching eight new or redesigned ICE vehicles including the Cadillac Escalade and Chevy Equinox (there's both gas and EV versions on sale), and 10 new EVs. The automaker plans to build 200,000 EVs in North America this year, having put the production problems of last year behind it. The Ohio battery plant is on track to make more than 100 million cells by the end of the year and the new battery plant in Tennessee is ramping up quickly and ahead of its yield targets.
New Plug-in Hybrids From GM Coming in 2027
The automaker will also bring some plug-in hybrids to North America in 2027. Reuss does not think the timing is too late. Combustion engine vehicles continue to be popular and GM is spending a third of its capital budget to keep the ICE lineup fresh which sets them up to generate more profit than the outgoing models.
GM also thinks North America is in a position to seize EV leadership from China. China has low labor costs, government support, local sourcing and demand. But the U.S. now has a supply base, talent, and localized production. Reuss also sees design as a way to differentiate. “We are serious about competing there and winning.” But it will take work. GM is working with its partners in China to reduce inventory and rightsize the business.
Alisa Priddle joined MotorTrend in 2016 as the Detroit Editor. A Canadian, she received her Bachelor of Journalism degree from Carleton University in Ottawa, Ontario, and has been a reporter for 40 years, most of it covering the auto industry because there is no more fascinating arena to cover. It has it all: the vehicles, the people, the plants, the competition, the drama. Alisa has had a wonderfully varied work history as a reporter for four daily newspapers including the Detroit Free Press where she was auto editor, and the Detroit News where she covered the GM and Chrysler bankruptcies, as well as auto trade publication Wards, and two enthusiast magazines: Car & Driver and now MotorTrend. At MotorTrend Alisa is a judge for the MotorTrend Car, Truck, SUV and Person of the Year. She loves seeing a new model for the first time, driving it for the first time, and grilling executives for the stories behind them. In her spare time, she loves to swim, boat, sauna, and then jump into a cold lake or pile of snow.
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