I Am Not The Only One Doubting GM and Ford's EV Goals

According to electrek.com, analysts have called into question the viability of both Ford and GM’s targeted production capacities over the next few years. More specifically, Ford has targeted an annual run rate of 2 million electric vehicles by 2026 and GM has a 1 million production target by 2025. Neither company looks to be in a position to attain these goals, at present, with Ford only selling an unimpressive 10,866 EVs in the first quarter of 2023 and GM selling only a little over 20,000 EVs in the same timeframe (though to be fair, GM has the second largest number of sales by a single automaker, after Tesla, as long as we don’t count Hyundai, Kia and Genesis as a single automotive brand “family”). Worth pointing out here, Ford actually lost its second place station to GM after Q1 this year, though this may have been due to retooling at its EV production plants in order to enable higher volume production later in the year. Regardless, both Ford and GM are facing the hard reality of needing to dramatically increase production volume in order to lower costs and meet their sales goals over the next 2.5 years, and that is going to be extremely difficult, for both storied brands.

Complicating this hard reality for both automakers, is their bottom lines. Ford’s operating losses for its electric “Model e” segment were $722 million for Q1 2023 and they project a $3 billion (with a B) loss for their EV unit this year. GM is planning to end production of its only EV models that are currently selling at volume this year (the Chevy Bolt and Bolt EUV), replacing them with EV versions of the Equinox and Blazer SUVs and the Silverdo pick-up. GM claims it will produce about 150,000 EVs this year, roughly half of them Bolts. But GM will have to dramatically ramp production of the new Blazer, Equinox and Silverado EVs, and likely increase production of its Cadillac and Hummer EV’s as well, at the same time it is winding down Bolt production, something the analysts sited in the electrek.com piece are also skeptical of. Specifically, they think GM will only achieve about the half-way mark of its 2025 production targets, due to how long it will likely take to ramp production (i.e. longer than GM is intending). Personally, I would expect GM to sell no more than about 100K EVs in the US this year and Ford around 75K (which would only be a little more than it sold last year). What’s more, I think it is wildly optimistic to expect GM to increase their EV production volume of EVs by 4-5x during 2024 and 2025 and my prediction for where they will be by the end of 2025 is closer to 300,000 EVs. I would expect Ford to be at a slightly lower figure than GM as well.

Let me be clear that my predictions are not what I hope for, I am just trying to be as realistic as I can be in my estimations. But what do you think readers? Will GM, or Ford, crank up their production lines faster than I, and other analysts, think? Please leave your comments and questions below.

Images courtesy of Ford and GM.

Justin Hart has owned and driven electric vehicles for over 15 years, including a first generation Nissan LEAF, second generation Chevy Volt, Tesla Model 3, an electric bicycle and most recently a Kia Sorento PHEV. He is also an avid SUP rider, poet, photographer and wine lover. He enjoys taking long EV and PHEV road trips to beautiful and serene places with the people he loves. Follow Justin on Twitter for daily KIA EV news coverage.