General Motors (GM)

GM has been using the Chevy Bolt EV electric car has an anchor vehicle for its car-sharing network, Maven. 

Now they are using it again today by sending 20 Chevy Bolt EVs to Austin.
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Industry analysts suggested that Tesla’s delays in ramping up Model 3 production and reaching its promised base price of $35,000 would open the door for other all-electric vehicles in the same price range, but it doesn’t seem to be the case so far.

GM’s Chevy Bolt EV sales in the US are still significantly down from the highs of 2017.
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The Chevy Bolt EV came to Europe as the Opel Ampera E around the same time that GM sold its European operation to PSA.

The change affected the rollout of the electric vehicle in Europe, but Opel announced this week that it is bringing an electric Corsa, which is in the same segment as the Ampera E, to market.
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GM’s Chevy Bolt EV sales started significantly down in 2018 on a month-to-month basis, but they remain slightly up over the same period last year.
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GM ended up delivering over 23,000 Chevy bolt EVs in the US during its first full year of production, but availability was limited in other markets.

Despite troubles in Europe where the vehicle is sold as the Opel Ampera-E, 2018 is expected to be a more important year for GM’s only all-electric vehicle sold internationally.

Now, we learn that South Korea could become an important market for the car as GM confirms that it is allocating 5,000 units to the country for the year.
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Today, GM unveiled the first image of its upcoming autonomous fourth-generation Bolt EV-based vehicle – the “first without a steering wheel or pedal.”

The automaker also says that it filed a petition asking the DOT permission to deploy the vehicle as soon as next year.
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With the relative success of its Chevy Bolt EV and the hunger for EVs in China, GM is one of the few big automakers actually trying to build a business around electric vehicles. CEO Mary Barra has committed separately to 5 crossovers, 2 minivans, 7 SUVs and 10 new electric vehicles by the end of the decade in China.  But with the Bolt EV reportedly losing up to $9000 per vehicle initially, how does the company get to real profitability with these vehicles?

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Not unlike the Tesla Model 3, the Chevy Bolt EV had a slow production and delivery ramp-up in 2017, but it did finish the year strong by increasing deliveries every month leading to another new record in December.
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Tesla shocked a lot of people when they announced last year that all their cars are now “self-driving ready” – potentially making them the first automaker with future-proof cars through upcoming software updates.

But those updates have been delayed and the lead position for the race to autonomous driving is still up for grabs.

Now GM is claiming that lead position and linking their autonomous driving effort to electric vehicles in order to compete with Tesla.
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GM CEO and Chairman Mary Barra elaborated on the automaker’s previously announced electric car plans and battery cost goals at a conference today.
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The situation with the Chevy Bolt EV in Europe, where it is sold as the Opel Ampera E, is becoming increasingly complicated ever since GM sold its European operations to the PSA Group. They have limited supply while demand is through the roof.

It now looks like they are capitalizing on that since they have announced a price hike for the all-electric vehicle.
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GM’s all-electric vehicle, the Chevy Bolt EV, just had another new record month for sales in the US as sales have steadily climbed throughout now its first full year of production.
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The situation around the availability of the Chevy Bolt EV in Europe, where it is sold as the Opel Ampera E, has been even more difficult than in the US.

So much so that Opel has now asked its Norwegian dealers to stop taking orders for the new all-electric vehicle as supply can’t match demand.
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After testing their all-electric and autonomous Chevy Bolt EV prototypes in California, Michigan, and Arizona, GM’s Cruise Automation vehicles are going to New York City to further test their system in a difficult traffic environment.
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On Thursday, GM announced a pretty big move in promoting Pamela Fletcher, who led the team that successfully launched the Bolt EV, to the newly created position of ‘Vice President, Global Electric Vehicle Programs’. Before that, her title was Executive Chief Engineer Autonomous & Electrified Vehicles and New Technology so it can be assumed that this is more of a creation of a new group inside of GM rather than a promotion for Fletcher.  She was also chief engineer behind the impressive Volt Propulsion System (Voltec) so I’d be hard-pressed to find someone more qualified to lead GM’s EV programs.

The creation of the group could be a big deal not just for Fletcher but for GM’s electric vehicle programs and hopefully, it is the first step to bigger changes within the organization. Here’s why…

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GM’s Chevy Bolt EV sales steadily moved higher leading to national availability in August, but last month it got its first more serious jump in deliveries.

The automaker confirmed its September delivery results today and it delivered an impressive 2,632 Bolt EVs.
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While GM has often talked about believing in the electric future, the American automaker had yet to announce specific goals when it comes to its electric car lineup after the Chevy Bolt EV.

Today, GM updated those plans with a more serious commitment to electric vehicles.
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Let me preface this by highlighting the fact that there’s currently no fully self-driving car on the roads and the prototypes currently in test programs are far from perfect and therefore don’t represent the potential of a true level 5 autonomous driving system.

Now with this out of the way, it seems like people just can’t stop crashing into GM’s ‘self-driving’ Bolt EV prototypes.
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GM has been quiet about its plans for electric vehicles after the Bolt EV, which came out almost a year ago. They hinted at new EVs built of the Bolt’s platform and they claim to be serious about the electrification of their vehicle lineup, but not much has come of it so far.

It’s another matter in China where GM is now committing to 10 new electric vehicles by the end of the decade.
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As part of its effort to bring self-driving vehicles to market, GM has claimed today that their autonomous driving division has produced “the first real self-driving car (really).”
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The Chevy Bolt EV is now officially available in every state and it helped GM deliver a record 2,052 units last month – about 100 more electric cars or 5% higher than in July.
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