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GM to sink over $900M into 4 plants, mostly for a new V8

FLINT, Mich. — General Motors says it will spend more than $900 million to update four factories, with the bulk going to an engine plant in Flint, Michigan, to build the next-generation V8 for big pickup trucks and SUVs. Factories in Rochester, New York; Defiance, Ohio; and Bay City, Michigan, also will see investments, some to make V8 engine components as well as parts for future electric vehicles, the company said Friday. The investments won't create any new jobs, but they will preserve about 2,400 hourly and salaried positions positions at the four sites, the company said. The investments “provide job security at these plants for years to come,” Gerald Johnson, GM's manufacturing chief, said in a statement. Much of the money, $579 million, will go to Flint Engine Operations for equipment to build the sixth-generation small-block V8 that will go into the next round of big pickup trucks and SUVs. The plant now employs about 700 people who also will keep making their current product, a diesel engine used in light trucks. GM, like other automakers, is facing stricter government fuel economy standards and pollution limits starting in the 2024 model year. New vehicles sold in the U.S. will have to average at least 40 miles per gallon of gasoline in 2026, up from about 28 mpg, under new Biden administration rules that undo a rollback of standards enacted under former President Donald Trump. That means the new V8 will have to get better mileage and pollute less than the current versions. Although GM wouldn't release details on the new engine, Johnson said during a news conference at the Flint plant that it would be more efficient than the current version. GM has a goal of selling only electric passenger vehicles by 2035, but Johnson said that's a dozen years out, a period when many customers will still want gas engines. “We know that has a horizon,” he said. “Between here and there, there are a lot of internal combustion customers that we don't want to lose,” he said. In addition to Flint, GM's engine components plant in Bay City, Michigan, will get $216 million to build camshafts and connecting rods, and to machine engine blocks and heads for the new V8 being built in Flint. The plant now employs about 425. The Defiance, Ohio, foundry will get $55 million to build a variety of block castings for the new V8. Included is $8 million for castings to support future electric vehicles, the company said. The plant has about 530 employees.

GM's Ultium EV platform finally shows up in Q3 sales numbers

General Motors has heralded its Ultium battery-electric platform as the future of its passenger car and truck lineup, but for the first two years of its existence, its impact on the marketplace has been virtually nonexistent. Well, that finally changed in the third quarter of 2023, and while the cars based on this architecture don't represent anywhere near the volume of GM's broader combustion portfolio, we're reaching a point where Ultium products are finally in view (and in the hands) of real-world shoppers. At this point, five U.S.-market Ultium models are in production: the GMC Hummer EV, Cadillac Lyriq, Chevrolet Blazer & Silverado EV, and BrightDrop Zevo 600. If you're not familiar with that last one, that's OK; it's a commercial product that you likely won't see on the road for some time. Together, these four combined for 4,257 sales in the third quarter alone — up from 2,663 for the entire first half of the year. While that may not seem like a significant uptick when viewed from altitude, the quarter-to-quarter numbers paint a clearer picture.  Let's toss out the stragglers first. The Chevy Blazer EV, and Silverado EV for example, are barely in production. GM delivered 19 Blazers and 18 Silverados in the third quarter and that's the entirety of their production runs so far. Likewise, GM's BrightDrop Zevo 600 delivery van effectively exists apart from the consumer marketplace, so its contribution of just 35 units can be set aside too. That leaves us the two you've heard of: the GMC Hummer EV and Cadillac Lyriq — models with high sticker prices and long reservation queues.  Through the second quarter (remember, we're talking six months here), GMC sold 49 Hummer EVs. No typo. In the three months that made up the third quarter, GM moved 1,167 of them. Not only is that a dramatic improvement over the first half, but it's more Hummers than GMC sold in the entirety of 2022 (854). Lyriq's improvement was less eye-popping on paper, but after moving just 122 total units in 2022 and 2,013 of them in the first half of 2023, Cadillac managed to up that figure to 3,018 units in the third quarter alone.  GM is betting its short-term EV future on the Ultium platform, so these trends need to continue if that's going to be a profitable wager.

Nissan Leaf, Chevy Volt have best sales month of 2015

Things are trending upwards for the two best-selling plug-in vehicles in the US. Both the Chevy Volt and the Nissan Leaf had their best sales month of 2015 in May, with the Volt selling 1,618 units and the Leaf moving 2,104. The upward swings come at an interesting time, with lots of excess first-gen Volts waiting for buyers and some buyers already ordering their second-gen Volts. So far in 2015, the Leaf has outsold the Volt 7,742 to 4,397. While 7,700 Leafs is respectable, it's nowhere near the numbers that Nissan will have to hit to reach the 50,000 annual sales that CEO Carlos Ghosn says is possible in the US. Still, the Leaf had its best sales month since December 2014 (when it sold 3,102 units) in May, but last month was still down 32.5 percent compared to May 2014. Despite the smaller overall number, May represents a big positive for Chevy, which has seen sluggish sales for the Volt for a long while now. The 1,618 Volts sold last month are only 3.9 percent lower than the 1,684 sold in May 2014 and May 2015 was the best month for Volt sales since August 2014. Perhaps salesmen are ready to make deals, what with thousands sitting around on dealer lots right now. The next-gen Volt is due this fall, and the order books (in California, at least) opened up this week. Like every month, our full wrap-up of green car sales in the US is coming soon (the VW e-Golf, for example, hit a best-ever high of 410 sales). Until then, feel free to discuss the Volt and Leaf sales figures in the Comments. Green Chevrolet Nissan Electric Hybrid ev sales hybrid sales