Unlike its crosstown rival Ford Motor Co., General Motors will not separate its traditional internal combustion engine and battery electric development divisions.
GM has seen benefits from keeping the two within the same company to share learnings, said Tim Grewe, GM’s director of electrification strategy.
Grewe said that all of GM’s upcoming EV launches remain on schedule and the company is aggressively working to hire at its soon-to-open battery cell plant in Lordstown, Ohio. It has trained leaders for that plant at LG Energy Solution’s facilities in Holland, Michigan, as part of its planning to ensure the EV launches go off without a glitch.
“Production heaven is not always heaven when you’re working on this,” Grewe said. “But we have a thing we call Launch Team with dedicated resources to go catch issues early in the ramp-up and scaling and make sure that it’s very transparent to the customer.”
Grewe made the comments Wednesday morning during a virtual session at the Jefferies and BNP Paribas Exane 2022 Spring Autos Conference.
Shared innovation
On March 2, Ford CEO Jim Farley announced the automaker would create three separate automotive business units that include its existing commercial arm, as well as two new ones: Ford Blue, which will focus on the traditional internal combustion engine, and Ford Model e, which will develop EVs and connectivity. The move is aimed at making Ford more competitive.
When asked if GM has considered doing something similar, Grewe said, “We’re not feeling any disadvantage to keeping them common.”
GM has developed two proprietary systems for its future EVs: Ultium, the platform that will underpin and propel the vehicles, and Ultifi, its software connectivity system.
“Because of this fundamental building block approach and the ability to say we have this data farm in Ultifi, we’ve made the investments in the infrastructure and technology to say we’re keeping (EV and ICE) together,” Grewe said. “And we’re benefiting from that.”
As an example, he said when GM engineers innovate something for the GMC Hummer EV pickup, it will go into the Ultifi data farm, which can then directly apply to a vehicle in GM’s gasoline-powered fleet.
“Having that capability to run them the same across our entire business, from a technical point of view, is enabling. We don’t see it as a problem,” Grewe said. “We’re able to accelerate our schedules. We’ve redefined our process so we can develop a vehicle in half the time, when it’s an EV.”
Grewe said GM has done that while also keeping its gasoline-powered vehicle business innovative and profitable. The current EV and ICE structure also allows GM to get the most productivity from its workforce.
“This way you can flex your workforce between the two because they’ve got those common systems and common language,” Grewe said. “It’s mostly common culture of the innovation. This year we can work on the Ultium platform and you can take those learnings and apply it from the EV Silverado right into the traditional Silverado and make both of them better.”
Simultaneous ramp-ups
In late summer, GM and LG Energy Solution will start running the $2.3 billion battery cell factory they have been building in Lordstown, Ohio as part of their joint venture called Ultium Cells LLC.
Grewe said the plant will make 100 million battery cells a year once it’s fully operational.
All of GM’s upcoming EVs, such as the GMC Hummer SUV, 2023 Cadillac Lyriq and 2024 Silverado EV, remain on schedule to launch in the next three years.
But getting that Ohio plant and another Ultium Cells plant that GM is currently building in Spring Hill, Tennessee, online is complex.
“We haven’t delayed the launches yet,” Grewe said. “But as everybody knows, bringing in a 100-million-cell battery plant, a 45-gigawatt-hour battery plant in Ohio, while you’re in parallel ramping up one in Spring Hill, is going to have challenges. So we’re expanding our workforce today.”
In Lordstown, which is near Youngstown, Ohio, GM’s launch team has partnered with Youngstown State University to recruit the much-needed talent to staff the plant. Grewe said GM’s launch team is replicating that same “best practice” in Spring Hill. He did not provide details of which schools the team is working with in Tennessee.
The Ultium Cells LLC leaders and plant operators that GM hired for the Lordstown operation spent last summer training at LG Energy Solution Michigan, in Holland, he said. It is all to ensure GM stays on schedule to deliver 30 new EVs to market by 2025.
“By doing these launch teams and preparations, we’re minimizing (any delays) but the launch teams are busy,” Grewe said. “We’re going to keep them supportive to make sure we meet these deliverables.”
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Contact Jamie L. LaReau at 313-222-2149 or jlareau@freepress.com. Follow her on Twitter @jlareauan. Read more on General Motors and sign up for our autos newsletter. Become a subscriber.