2019 Chevrolet SilveradoDerek McNaughton / Driving GM CEO Mary Barra told investors at an event in New York on Thursday her companys first electric pickup will debut in showrooms in late 2021, and it will have a leg up on the competition. General Motors understands truck buyers, she said.Barra made the announcement hours before Tesla CEO Elon Musk was set to reveal that companys new Cybertruck.But other GM executives are confident Teslas pickup wont be in the same league as their electric truck.I suspect price-wise there might be some similarities, but I think in terms of size and capabilities, there might be a difference, Phil Brook, the vice president of marketing for GMs GMC brand, said in an interview. People who buy our trucks, they are very proud of the fact that theyll take their trucks anywhere, theyll get them dirty, then theyll wash them out and go to a five-star restaurant for dinner. So theyre not people who just drive them around and want to look good.Musk told a Tesla enthusiast podcast earlier this year he wants his truck, which is also aiming for a late 2021 market launch, to start at less than $50,000. During an October earnings call, he declared it will be the companys best product ever. But Tesla probably wont have the electric-truck market to itself for long, if at all. Amazon-backed Rivian Automotive plans to launch its R1T pickup late next year. Ford has vowed to start selling hybrid-electric and battery-electric versions of the F-150 starting in 2020, and GM has committed to producing plug-in pickups at a plant it had been planning to shutter in the Detroit area.Perhaps more importantly, Japanese automakers have spent two decades and billions of dollars trying to get in on the big pickup gravy train; 20 years after Toyota first started making the Tundra, they are still getting crushed by the Detroit Three, which control almost 92 per cent of the U.S. half-ton truck segment, according to IHS Markit.Customers who own Ram pickups are more loyal than owners of any other model line in the U.S., the researcher says, and brand loyalty to Ford or General Motors Chevrolet isnt far behind.Check Out Our Latest Auto Show CoverageTeslas Thursday night event bookends the press days for the Los Angeles Auto Show, where Ford generated buzz with the debut of the Mustang Mach-E electric SUV. But seeking attention of his own wasnt the only motivation for Musk to stage his truck reveal now and near the show.When announcing the date and locale, he joked on Twitter they were strangely familiar and shared a link to the opening credits and scene of the 1982 film Blade Runner, which was set in November 2019. He had referenced the movie before as inspiration for the pickups futuristic design.Musk is scheduled to begin making remarks around 8 p.m. local time at Teslas design center in Hawthorne,
Origin: GM’s electric pickup gets a fall 2021 on-sale date
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Trump to meet with GM’s Mary Barra after criticizing company
President Donald Trump tours the American Center of Mobility with GM CEO Mary Barra. U.S. President Donald Trump will meet on Thursday with Mary Barra, the chief executive officer of General Motors days after he castigated the company for shrinking its U.S. workforce.The White House meeting, scheduled for the afternoon, will take place as four other auto industry giants have defied his administration by reaching a compromise with California to bolster fuel efficiency.A person familiar with the matter said Barra hoped to use the get-together, which was reported earlier by Reuters, to talk about jobs, trade and fuel economy rules. The person requested anonymity to discuss the meeting, which was announced by the White House on Wednesday night.General Motors, which was once the Giant of Detroit, is now one of the smallest auto manufacturers there, Trump tweeted on August 30, a day after Bloomberg reported GM employed fewer United Auto Workers-represented employees than Ford or Fiat Chrysler. The president called for GM to start moving back to America again.GM has about 46,000 UAW workers, about 2,000 fewer than it had in 2009, when the company emerged from a bankruptcy reorganization backed by the U.S. government.Trump has criticized GM’s plans to close plants in Michigan and Ohio, states that are crucial to his re-election bid. That has put him at odds with Barra, who has said the closings were necessary for the business to thrive. GM is also embroiled in contract talks with the UAW. The joint agreement involving California with Honda, Ford, Volkswagen and BMW had already been rejected by Trumps Environmental Protection Agency. The deal announced on July 25 alongside the California Air Resources Board eases the pace of annual efficiency improvements required under current Obama administration rules but is tougher than the Trump administrations proposal to cap mileage requirements at 2020 levels.GM was not part of that accord, and is seeking what it calls a 50-state solution.In California, they have a standard where the cars are going to have to be much more expensive and wont be as good, Trump said earlier Wednesday. If we can build a less expensive car thats better, we like
Origin: Trump to meet with GM’s Mary Barra after criticizing company
GM’s first public autonomous cars will probably have manual controls
In this Jan. 16, 2019, file photo, Cruise AV, General Motors autonomous electric Bolt EV is displayed in Detroit.Paul Sancya / AP If GM has its way, it will be setting loose onto the roads of North America up to 2,500 driverless taxis a year. The vehicles would be requested by users with smartphones, and then commanded with touch screens inside once it arrives. What they wouldn’t be able to do, however, is be driven by a human in the traditional manner. But despite requests to put out its first fleet of publicly available self-drivers sans manual controls this year, a GM executive in charge of the autonomous division says the upcoming fourth-gen Cruise AV will “most likely” feature manual controls, meaning a human could grab the literal wheel, step on the pedals and pilot the vehicle using traditional methods if need be. The comments first highlighted by Automotive News suggest that, due to the U.S. government’s hesitation to hand out exemptions for vehicles that don’t meet the Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards’ idea of a safe vehicle, GM’s upcoming initial wave of public-serving, self-driving cars will include such manual controls. Until we have exemptions, which we filed a petition for, and/or law changes, we probably wouldn’t go forward with Gen 4, Doug Parks, GM vice president of autonomous and electric vehicle programs, said during a recent conference in California. But we think it’s really something we’ve got to talk about, we’ve got to work on. The third-generation Cruise AV, which is currently being tested in San Francisco, includes manual controls as well as “safety driver” there to take over for the autonomous system should an issue arise. Would you feel comfortable in a self-driving car with no steering wheel or pedals? Or would you prefer to know that an actual foot on an actual brake could still bring the vehicle to a halt?
Origin: GM’s first public autonomous cars will probably have manual controls
Trump administration upholds tariff on GM’s Chinese-made Buick
2020 Buick EnvisionBuick The largest U.S. automaker can’t get a pass on tariffs snagging one of its models. The Trump administration refused to grant General Motors an exclusion for its Chinese-built Buick Envision sport utility vehicle, keeping in place a 25-per-cent duty on the import. In a letter dated May 29, the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative denied the requested tariff relief by saying the vehicle was “strategically important or related” to Chinese industrial programs such as Made in China 2025, which it views as a national security risk. That initiative issued by Chinese Premier Li Keqianq is designed to help the country produce higher-value products. GM said in its July of 2018 petition that tariff relief was necessary to help the Buick brand compete against “foreign competitors” in the U.S. market, including Honda‘s Acura brand, Volkswagen‘s Audi and Daimler‘s Mercedes-Benz. Earlier last month, the U.S. Trade Representative denied a similar request from Volvo for tariff exclusion on its Chinese-made XC60 mid-sized SUV. The Swedish automaker, which is owned by China’s Zhejiang Geely, had asked for the exemption last October, saying it would assist in its transition to planned U.S. production of the vehicle. GM sold just over 30,000 Envision models last year. Despite those relatively low sales volumes, the SUV is key for the Buick lineup as a mid-sized entry that sits in between the compact Encore and three-row Enclave. The vehicle, which has a starting price of US$32,000, saw sales fall more than 25 per cent last year. Buick lowered the price by US$2,000 just before the tariff was put in place. GM has not passed on any of the costs of the tariff on the Buick model to consumers, said spokesman Stuart Fowle. He said the SUV’s drop in sales is related more to competition in the market than higher prices. The USTR also denied several other exclusion requests from GM for parts, including antenna assemblies, on grounds the company failed to show that the duty would cause “severe economic harm.” The company could still get an exclusion if a similar product from another company is granted relief, the trade representative’s office
Origin: Trump administration upholds tariff on GM’s Chinese-made Buick
GM’s new global digital platform will underpin electric, autonomous vehicles
GM Digital Vehicle Platform GM unveiled its new all-electronic platform late May, the basis for its next generation of conventional and electric vehicles; active safety, infotainment and connectivity technologies; and evolving Super Cruise driver assistance. The company said these and other advancements are central to its vision for zero crashes, emissions and congestion, including an “all-electric future.” Over the next five to 10 years, vehicles will need more electrical bandwidth and connectivity to ensure all advanced vehicle features can run in conjunction with each other. The platform’s technology powers an electronic system that’s capable of managing up to 4.5 terabytes of data processing power per hour, a fivefold increase over the company’s current electrical architecture. Over-the-air software updates will allow functionality upgrades over the vehicle’s lifetime. The platform will debut underneath the 2020 Cadillac CT5, which goes into production later this year, and is expected to roll out to most vehicles across GM’s global lineup by 2023. It was developed at GM’s global facilities by teams of electrical, hardware and software engineers. For cybersecurity, the system includes additional protective hardware and software levels, and the company maintains an integrated team of experts that focus on protecting data, as well as chairing the Automotive Information Sharing Analysis Center, a community of private and public sector partners that analyzes intelligence about emerging security risks in the automotive
Origin: GM’s new global digital platform will underpin electric, autonomous vehicles
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