16 H BY WADE MALONE
Mary Barra talks plant closures, autonomy and electric vehicles.
On Wednesday, General Motors’ CEO Mary Barra sat down with KC Crane for an interview at the Automotive News World Congress in Detroit. GM had been taking a lot of heat in recent weeks over their decision to idle 4 U.S. plants and discontinue several low selling vehicles.
All plants are set for closure following negotiations with the United Automobile Workers union. Among the models cut was the popular Chevy Volt plug-in hybrid. Barra used the interview to address the plant closures. She also laid out more of her vision for the future of electric and autonomous vehicle development.
According to Barra, the automaker had to make the decision to cut their losses. Most of the plants on the chopping block had been operating at 30-40% of their capacity for several years. It was important that the automaker “outperform the cycle.” Especially ahead of possible economic downturn and a period of rapid technological change. Barra believes that GM needed to begin a transformation while the economy was still strong.
Autonomy and Electricity
During the talk, she re-iterated the importance of re-positioning Cadillac as a technological leader. GM plans to accomplish this by making Cadillac the automaker’s premiere EV brand. Cadillac is expected to launch their electric crossover as a 2021 or 2022 model. But she has confirmed that Chevrolet and other nameplates will continue to see new EV product.
On the autonomous front, Barra says new Cruise Automation CEO Dan Ammann is especially passionate about self driving tech. They believe there is “room for personal autonomous vehicles” in the future. However, Cruise is currently focused on launching a consumer ride sharing company. Barra also denied rumors of Cruise being spun off into it’s own IPO, saying they want to keep EV and AV development “under one roof.”
One interesting statement made was that the automaker has never replaced a battery pack. According to Automotive News:
Barra: We’ve sold over 200,000 electric vehicles — and we have yet to replace a battery pack. #ANWorldCongress
— Automotive News (@Automotive_News) January 17, 2019
Since Automotive News has not yet provided the full transcript or video, the context for this statement is unknown. If taken at face value, this does not sound correct. Some Bolt EV owners claimed to receive fresh packs after a battery recall early last year. Although the majority of owners simply received a software update to alert them if an issue occurred.
Naturally, at least some battery packs have been replaced under warranty due to this or other defects. However, her statement almost certainly references battery degradation. Battery packs from General Motors and Tesla have far outlasted projections at the start of this decade. Chevrolet has previously stated that the Chevy Volt has had a whopping zero Volt batteries replaced due to “general capacity degradation.” Unfortunately, not all automakers can make this claim.
Source: Automotive News