General Motors begins deliveries of Hummer electric pickups and commercial vans for FedEx
General Motors (GM) begins deliveries of its first new-generation electric vehicles – GMC Hummer EV Edition 1 and BrightDrop EV600 commercial vans built using new Ultium batteries.
Universal Ultium batteries are the basis for creating new GM electric vehicles and scaling their production quickly. Ultrium uses graphite-based anodes, nickel-cobalt-manganese-aluminum cathodes, and a liquid electrolyte.
GM has announced plans to introduce 30 brand new electric vehicles by 2025, two-thirds of which will be available in North America. GM invests about $30 billion in the production and development of electric cars. GM also announced plans to double its revenue by 2030, compared with the recent average annual sales of $140 billion.
Hummer EV – will be the second all-electric pickup truck sold by an American manufacturer after the launch of Rivian (RIVN) of its R1T.
According to GM President Mark Reuss, the company has the first 17 Hummer EV electric pickups ready to ship to customers, with their orders fully booked over the next year. After that, the company plans to produce about 1,200 units of the Hummer EV in a particular “Edition 1” version (priced from $113,000) before cheaper versions go into production.
GM’s next Ultium-based vehicle, the Cadillac Lyriq, is expected to be launched in spring 2022 and assembled in Spring Hill, Tennessee. Chevrolet Silverado EV will officially debut in January 2022 at CES. GM also revealed plans to release a Chevrolet Equinox crossover at a price of about $30,000.
GM delivers the first BrightDrop EV600 electric vehicles to FedEx.Last week, the first deliveries of GM subsidiary BrightDrop EV600 electric vans for the FedEx delivery fleet (FDX) started from an order for a total of 500 units.
Will launch The first deliveries from a hand-assembled plant in Michigan and the EV600 from November 2022 at the upgraded CAMI plant in Ontario, Canada. In its December 17 press release, FedEx announced plans to make 50% of its delivery fleet electric by 2025 and 100% by 2030.
GM plans for 2023 to produce medium-sized commercial BrightDrop EV410 vans for delivery to Verizon (VZ), the first buyer to use them as maintenance vehicles. A large company Merchants Fleet also ordered 12,600 EV600 vans and 5,400 EV410 units.GM shares plummeted amid resignation of Cruise CEO
Shares of General Motors (GM), which have increased by 32.5% since the beginning of 2021, but have lost 14.6% month, fell sharply by 5.5% on Friday amid news of the departure of the head of the self-driving car company Cruise. Trading signals and forecasts for GM stocks.
Dan Ammann has been the head of Cruise since 2018 and has raised more than $6 billion. Investments for the company from partners Microsoft, T. Rowe Price Associates, Honda, and SoftBank Vision Fund. These fundraising rounds have brought Cruise a valuation of over $30 billion.
According to analysts, Ammann and GM CEO Mary Barra had different views on the future of Cruise. Ammann wanted to make the company public, while Barra and GM’s board of directors favored keeping Cruise inside the company. In their opinion, this gives GM both a highly profitable Robo taxi business and more direct access to the company’s resources to create other autonomous cars and services.
The Robo taxi Cruise fleet occupies a leading position in the new market, thanks to its success in testing the service in the San Francisco area. Cruise taxis can serve passengers from 22:00 to 6:00 at speeds up to 48 km/h. However, Cruise still needs final approval from the California Public Utilities Commission.
In April, Cruise became the exclusive provider of Robo taxi services in Dubai, starting in 2023. That’s when GM launched the production of its 6-seater Origin car without a steering wheel.
