Weak EV demand sees GM lay off 1,700 workers at two plants

The automaker expects the regulatory environment to seriously slow EV demand.

See full article...

 

[omarsidd]

So, is this the "great again" part?

 

[Tonkaman]

This is the same Mary Barra who made such a spectacular deal with (fraudulent) Nikola, with apparently zero vetting. She's really on a solid roll.

Um, GM made money on that deal even though Nikola imploded. They were paid in Nikola stock for a promise of technology licensing for GM's hydrogen technology, and GM sold the stock immediately.

 

[Tech-Space-Cars]

By regulatory environment you meant Trump meddled in free enterprise at the behest of his oil industry handlers.

 

[Tech-Space-Cars]

China keeps finding ways to make cheaper EVs, Canada is pretty close to making a deal to allow Chinese EVs, they're already in Mexico, the world is starting to catch on to the idea of electrification, and GM is doubling down on ICE. This has MBA logic written all over it

American MBA logic is quite different that the rest of the world.

 

[johnlsenchak]

Don't expect any extended federal unemployment payments from King Trump like their was under President Obama Most states you get twelve weeks and that the end of it. Lets see how the homeless problem grows in this country after all the layoffs.

 

[Readercathead]

On the one hand it makes sense to prepare for market trends and cut underutilized capacity, but on the other hand this could turn into a self fulfilling prophecy. What happens if the 2026 Bolt is a market hit, but no one buys one because they literally don't exist? EV sales are down because we predicted EV sales would be down and didn't build any to sell!

Yup, always the plan. They’ve been making it difficult since the beginning to buy an EV. First GM only allowed leases of the EV1 and only in California, if you had a qualifying garage. Then they recalled them for crushing so they couldn’t be sold in the secondary market. Until recently the only EV we were allowed to buy in Colorado were Teslas and Leafs, everything else had to be imported as a used car from California. That’s how we got our Volt PHEVs too. And then more recently they just did not have them on the lots or added a 5 to 10 thousand dollar dealer penalty, after you made a hefty deposit and waited six months for your factory order to come. That is also how we had to buy several of our Priuses way back.

 

[Readercathead]

Meanwhile the GM executives are going around all the media websites and podcasts to pump the stock with lies and blether but actually just making everyone mad about CarPlay and their tone-deaf bootlicking.

 

[kmmatney]

One of the positives of having a secondary storage business at Tesla, they have a place for all of their extra batteries that they make if demand for EVs falls down for what they expect to be a short term.

If GM or LG had a place to put all of those batteries, they wouldn't need to fire so many people at the Ultium plants. Also, they wouldn't need to renegotiate their contracts with their suppliers (or they could negotiate long term contracts that would probably be cheaper for them)

An Ultium battery backup for my solar panels would be awesome. Even their smallest 50 kWh pack would be a "huge" amount of storage for a home. Shouldn't need water cooling for how slow a Solar array would charge them.

 

[Jack'snotInterested]

I'm sure ending the tax credit isn't going to help EV sales, at least after the current buying surge (caused by the EV credit ending) dies down, but uneven (or lowering) of EV sales/production expectations is not new since OBBBA passed in 7/2025. To intimate otherwise isn't correct.

https://meincmagazine.com/cars/2024/04/fords-q1-ev-sales-grew-86-but-its-shifting-focus-to-hybrids/
https://meincmagazine.com/cars/2025/0...ter-in-us-bmw-invests-in-internal-combustion/
https://meincmagazine.com/cars/2024/0...wagen-scales-back-battery-factories-buildout/

 

[ForkySpoony]

Certainly doesn't help when the UAW president is loudly endorsing the tariffs that led to these and other auto industry layoffs. It's become extremely obvious that the union, from bottom to top, doesn't understand how a globalized industry and its supply chain works.

I think many union leaders fall into the same nostalgia trap that so many people in the US do today, a longing for Post WWII manufacturing era where the US is basically the only one left standing. A single factory in the middle of Nowhere, USA could create and keep a town running. Improbably, some people seem to think that tariffs will suddenly make that re-appear in a couple of months or even years.

I will say that other unions I interact with from the IBEW, Steelworkers, Millwrights, etc seem to have a better grasp on the reality of the global economy.

 

[Tohelo]

I can only assume that they don't want to export any cars either.

Perhaps they might, at gunpoint (trade war -wise), like the British forced opium on the Chinese after the Opium War.

(The British wanted silver from China but had nothing to trade for it, so they went to war to force China into buying something they could supply. Naturally, lots of misery and resentment followed.)

 

[Tom the Melaniephile]

Thanks to tariffs and counter-tariffs, this is no doubt correct.

UAW endorsed Harris; it was the Teamsters who declined to endorse officially (and the Teamsters boss spoke at the Republican convention.)

And a whole bunch of Teamster locals collectively representing a majority of all Teamsters... Endorsed Harris.

Teamster national leadership stinks.

 

[NorthGuy]

I really, really want to see the Ford Transit EV sales vs Brightdrop sales. Because I wonder if GM is using a "drop in EV demand" as a fig leaf for losing market share to Ford.

My company uses Ford Transit EVs and I see them on the road all the time. I was actually surprised to see a Brightdrop on the road yesterday.

Same with electric F-150s. I'm in a very eco friendly part of Canada and they are very popular with the construction folks and I see them on the road all the time. I've seen a total of one Silverado EV on the road.

 

[gizmo23]

We have our own political problems in the UK. But luckily EV regulation isn’t being completely trashed.

Anecdotally, speaking to normal non-tech friends and family, more and more are either getting EVs or considering them. It also helps being a smallish island where range is less of an issue.

For September, the ICE (petrol + diesel) market share was under 50%. It’s a trend that has tracked for a while now. Year to date figures in the screenshot, sourced from SMMT.

Not sure it will happen, but I hope there’s a tipping point and we see a sudden large drop off on ICE sales replaced by BEV.

View attachment 121243

There will be an inflection point when the demand for petrol/gas drops to the point of overcapacity in oil refining and petrol/gas stations start to close. The price will increase dramatically as the volume sold decreases. When the supermarkets switch to electric charging points only, things will really change. The government will have to step in to support those people who are forced to run old ICE cars because they can't afford anything even vaguely new because their old job was replaced by AI (maybe) and they're reduced to delivering parcels for Amazon at minimum wage.

 

[gosand]

Seems like giving $1,000,000 to a certain someone's inauguration fund didn't work out as planned.

Depends on who you ask. Worked out just fine for the person who received the funding.

 

[Syphilitic]

Sorry to keep whining about Mary Barra's stupidity. I was ready to buy another Bolt or Equinox, until you/Mary started removing Android Auto/Carplay from the car. Just so you could charge us a monthly fee for the maps options.

Oh, and why not put back HD radio?

Seem like small things, but it is what the Germans called "driving pleasure":

Fahrvergnügen

Fahrvergnügen was coined specifically for the 1990 VW advertising campaign. Interesting Wikipedia blurb, mostly "citation needed," though.

 

[Smartyflix]

And this is how the United States loses their leadership position in yet another major manufacturing industry. China, congrats on your amazing win here!

 

[LDA 6502]

Sorry to keep whining about Mary Barra's stupidity. I was ready to buy another Bolt or Equinox, until you/Mary started removing Android Auto/Carplay from the car. Just so you could charge us a monthly fee for the maps options.

Oh, and why not put back HD radio?

Seem like small things, but it is what the Germans called "driving pleasure":

Fahrvergnügen

This. If my '23 Bolt EUV was totaled tomorrow, I would not replace it with a new '26 Bolt. I am not going to pay a subscription for a map app, especially when I didn't need one for the map app in my last car (a '16 Nissan) and when my phone has a perfectly good app.

Removing AA and CP: penny wise, pound foolish, IMO.

 

[stormcrash]

endorsements aren't votes.

Yep, the UAW rank and file very much need to wake up and smell the turd they bought and flush it asap

 

[mcmnky]

Slow demand? I'm currently shopping for a new personal vehicle, and every dealer I visit have low stock on EV and hybrids. Whatever they get in stock is gone in a free days. Meanwhile, they're trying to slip gas cars into your purse as you leave the showroom. They can't give them away.

Then again, I'm only looking at cars with good reviews from manufacturers with a reputation for reliability.

So of course I haven't visited any GM dealers.

 

[jlredford]

Geez but this is a shame. The new Cadillacs are nice, and the Equinox EV looks good and was selling well. I sure hope they're clearing out inventory during a temporary dip.

 

[Rambie]

UAW endorsed Harris; it was the Teamsters who declined to endorse officially (and the Teamsters boss spoke at the Republican convention.)

Thank you for the correction, I've edited my post accordingly

 

[stormcrash]

An Ultium battery backup for my solar panels would be awesome. Even their smallest 50 kWh pack would be a "huge" amount of storage for a home. Shouldn't need water cooling for how slow a Solar array would charge them.

The problem is that GM especially of the big three learned very hard lessons about sticking to their core competency and have basically gotten rid of any non-automotive business and are very hesitant to risk being distracted or diverting resources into a side venture at this point.

Could entering the solar/home energy storage market increase economies of scale on their batteries. Sure. But how much does that benefit their core automotive business vs divert resources that could be spent on improving the automotive business? There's a very real opportunity cost of those resources because no input is truly unlimited or infinitely instantaneously scalable on demand, so to ramp up on something new means taking resources you could have or would have put elsewhere.

The age of the conglomerate is basically over now that GE broke up a few years ago, supposedly the only one that bucked the trend breaking up conglomerates only to turn out it was rotten to the core under a paper thin facade facilitated by their abused financial arm.

 

[Fatesrider]

Is this really any different than the 1970’s when US automakers refused to believe that folks wanted smaller, fuel efficient vehicles and Japan was capable of making vehicles who could satisfy that need and were high quality?

It wasn’t until the mid/late 80’s when the US starting building smaller vehicles that weren’t frankencars (I.e. Chevy Chevette.)

Ford is the only US automaker that I am aware of that is committed to building an EV from the ground up vs. retrofitting an ICE vehicle into an EV.

EVs are coming. We will just have to endure the last gasp of the naysayers.

The question I'm asking is, "how much of this is because of a slowing economy?"

They're citing "weak demand", which from a general economic POV is not necessarily indicative of a weak economy.

But multi-sector layoffs across a diverse number of industries due to "weak demand" begins to herald some pretty dire economic outlooks.

Everyone knew that EV's were going to take a hit once the fuckwit in chief and his little band of Nazi's got into office. But the economy overall has a lot of warning signs that it is cooling a lot. And these moves, while plausibly explained, are also signs of an impending recession - or worse.

It's mostly the economic Magic 8-ball saying, "Situation unclear - ask again later", which in and of itself isn't a good sign.

Factors playing into it:

• Capricious and hostile government intervention in industry (notably the "green tech" industry) which was driving a lot of economic momentum.
• Tariffs and trade undermined due to the tariffs.
• government regulatory uncertainty cooling a lot of businesses and slowing projects and development.
• AI still not making a profit, and still not able to at scale, despite sucking down about 50% of the total economic growth of the last 5 years (according to economists).
• Health care becoming far more expensive, undermining spending, due to cutbacks.

A healthy economy can weather these things, but I don't get the sense that the economy can be healthy given the delusional way the government is doing things. So a recession at the VERY least will likely hit before the end of the year (especially if consumer spending for the holidays falls off a cliff, as I expect it to).

These layoff individually mean nothing, but when there are a number of them, they are typically precursors to a failing economy and a bad economic outlook.

 

[cfenton]

The EVs were the only reason I'd even consider a GM car, or hell any American car. If I'm going to buy an ICE or hybrid, I'll stick with Toyota.

 

[stormcrash]

The question I'm asking is, "how much of this is because of a slowing economy?"

They're citing "weak demand", which from a general economic POV is not necessarily indicative of a weak economy.

But multi-sector layoffs across a diverse number of industries due to "weak demand" begins to herald some pretty dire economic outlooks.

Everyone knew that EV's were going to take a hit once the fuckwit in chief and his little band of Nazi's got into office. But the economy overall has a lot of warning signs that it is cooling a lot. And these moves, while plausibly explained, are also signs of an impending recession - or worse.

It's mostly the economic Magic 8-ball saying, "Situation unclear - ask again later", which in and of itself isn't a good sign.

Factors playing into it:

• Capricious and hostile government intervention in industry (notably the "green tech" industry) which was driving a lot of economic momentum.
• Tariffs and trade undermined due to the tariffs.
• government regulatory uncertainty cooling a lot of businesses and slowing projects and development.
• AI still not making a profit, and still not able to at scale, despite sucking down about 50% of the total economic growth of the last 5 years (according to economists).
• Health care becoming far more expensive, undermining spending, due to cutbacks.

A healthy economy can weather these things, but I don't get the sense that the economy can be healthy given the delusional way the government is doing things. So a recession at the VERY least will likely hit before the end of the year (especially if consumer spending for the holidays falls off a cliff, as I expect it to).

These layoff individually mean nothing, but when there are a number of them, they are typically precursors to a failing economy and a bad economic outlook.

Yeah, I'm seeing more and more signs that the economy is going to shit the bed very soon. Latest personal anecdote was in booking airline tickets for the holidays. I booked late this year and expected a terrible seat map, instead I saw seats wide open and prices so low that I upgraded all my seats to economy plus/extra legroom seats and still paid a hundred dollars less than I normally do

 

[stormcrash]

The EVs were the only reason I'd even consider a GM car, or hell any American car. If I'm going to buy an ICE or hybrid, I'll stick with Toyota.

Dude, they're not abandoning EVs but they are matching their production to what they think they can sell right now given the end of the tax credit wrecking demand

 

[Tom the Melaniephile]

I'm really shocked that EVs aren't taking off for delivery vehicles at least. That should be such a good fit. I wonder what's going on there? Too many routes start in the suburbs?

I see Amazon EV delivery trucks fairly frequently. It could be that GM just isn't offering a competitive product.

Looks like Rivian delivered 10,000 additional delivery vans to Amazon in the first 6 months of 2025, taking the total number delivered to over 30,000.

 

[stormcrash]

I'm really shocked that EVs aren't taking off for delivery vehicles at least. That should be such a good fit. I wonder what's going on there? Too many routes start in the suburbs?

I don't think I've seen an EV delivery vehicle except for Amazon out on the streets. I wonder if the design of the bright drop just wasn't familiar enough? I know there are others working on an electric drivetrain chassis for a traditional sheet metal box truck body to be mounted on and I wonder if that will appeal more to companies like UPS given it's overall same shape as their existing fleet.

That said it sounds like their are still plans for the upcoming EV version of the Chevrolet Express/GMC Savanah panel van/cutaway chassis that might appeal more to customers as well compared to the brightdrop

 

[Tom the Melaniephile]

Once the folks who could charge at home and wanted an EV, the ones who could not and ended up disappointed there was only so much growth.

Things like having to deal with different plug standards and having to carry adapters, the requirements of Apps for charging, the broken chargers, the ADMs on cars it ended up killing momentum.

The US car industry has standardized on SAE J3400 (formerly NACS, formerly the Tesla connector.) The majority of EVs in the USA natively use SAE J3400. The majority of DC (L3) fast charging stations natively support SAE J3400. Some of these (like the Texas NEVI stations) natively support both CCS and J3400. The apps can be annoying. You can avoid apps by charging at Tesla stations.

You do need an adapter to use the SAE J1772 L2 chargers. Other than some rare edge cases, you shouldn't need any other adapter.

 

[Tom the Melaniephile]

One of the positives of having a secondary storage business at Tesla, they have a place for all of their extra batteries that they make if demand for EVs falls down for what they expect to be a short term.

If GM or LG had a place to put all of those batteries, they wouldn't need to fire so many people at the Ultium plants. Also, they wouldn't need to renegotiate their contracts with their suppliers (or they could negotiate long term contracts that would probably be cheaper for them)

So, one problem there. Stationary storage batteries are typically designed and built for ~10x the cycle life of long-distance vehicle batteries (usually NMC or NCA or NMCA) because they're cycled far more frequently than the average car battery.

LFP is the usual chemistry for stationary storage and it's in the process of taking over the shorter (or "standard") range EV market.

Unfortunately for GM, Ultiums are NMCA and probably not suitable for stationary storage.

 

[cfenton]

Dude, they're not abandoning EVs but they are matching their production to what they think they can sell right now given the end of the tax credit wrecking demand

It sure isn't a good sign for their future priority at GM. I'd like to see them go all in on EVs since they don't make anything else worth a damn, except maybe the Corvette. It's the one advantage they have over Japanese manufacturers and having sort-of affordable EVs gives them an advantage over what European brands choose to sell in the US.

 

[Tom the Melaniephile]

I don't think I've seen an EV delivery vehicle except for Amazon out on the streets. I wonder if the design of the bright drop just wasn't familiar enough? I know there are others working on an electric drivetrain chassis for a traditional sheet metal box truck body to be mounted on and I wonder if that will appeal more to companies like UPS given it's overall same shape as their existing fleet.

From what I've recently dug up, BrightDrop has been for sale since 2022 and cumulative sales are under 4,000 (They were "on track" for 4,000 by the end of the year - before the shutdown announcement)

Ford E-transit van has sold at least 27,500 while Rivian has sold over 30,000 vans just to Amazon (admittedly selling the vans to anyone but Amazon is pretty recent for Rivian.)

Either BrightDrop had longterm production issues, or they simply weren't that appealing to buyers compared to the competition.

 

[inter alia]

One of the positives of having a secondary storage business at Tesla, they have a place for all of their extra batteries that they make if demand for EVs falls down for what they expect to be a short term.

If GM or LG had a place to put all of those batteries, they wouldn't need to fire so many people at the Ultium plants. Also, they wouldn't need to renegotiate their contracts with their suppliers (or they could negotiate long term contracts that would probably be cheaper for them)

GM has a secondary storage business that sells bidirectional chargers and V2H equipment including storage….it’s called GM Energy, they have a webpage

 

[stormcrash]

It sure isn't a good sign for their future priority at GM. I'd like to see them go all in on EVs since they don't make anything else worth a damn, except maybe the Corvette. It's the one advantage they have over Japanese manufacturers and having sort-of affordable EVs gives them an advantage over what European brands choose to sell in the US.

That's not how business works, making too much inventory that you have to store and risk selling at a deep discount is a great way to go bankrupt. Adjusting production to match an expected reduced demand doesn't mean that it's not a "future priority" just that they don't want to destroy themselves making excess inventory, Was it also wrong of tesla to cut their production numbers to match their rapidly shrinking demand and help clear out their piled up inventory?

 

[johnnoi]

So... how's "bringing back jobs to America" going there Donny?

What's really sad is that the gas and coal bros he likes should be championing electric cars. After all, those kilowatts don't make themselves and even a shitty coal plant with basically any pollution controls worthy of the name is still technically better for the environment that burning the equivalent amount of gasoline and diesel. And those heavy batteries mean more asphalt to replace the roads that are wearing out faster.

But then again, this entire administration regime is powered by equal parts stupidity and spite, so here we fucking are....

Let's not forget that the most popular vehicle in the US are pickup trucks that are considerably heavier than a lot of EVs.

 

[johnnoi]

Over here in Canada, one of my friends just bought a 2025 Mazda CX-50. I asked if there was the typical model clear-out discount/sale to make room for the 2026 model year vehicles, buuuuuut nope. At the dealership he went to, none of the 2026 vehicles had arrived yet because they were still sorting out the tariff situation.

Not strictly GM EV-related, but part of the overall disruptions to the sector from this administration

That's sad, Japanese car made in either the US and or China gets hit with tariffs in both cases.

 

[Tonkaman]

I really, really want to see the Ford Transit EV sales vs Brightdrop sales. Because I wonder if GM is using a "drop in EV demand" as a fig leaf for losing market share to Ford.

My company uses Ford Transit EVs and I see them on the road all the time. I was actually surprised to see a Brightdrop on the road yesterday.

Same with electric F-150s. I'm in a very eco friendly part of Canada and they are very popular with the construction folks and I see them on the road all the time. I've seen a total of one Silverado EV on the road.

For the Brightdrop, the problem is twofold.

One, GM leaned heavily into range anxiety which doesn't really work for a business-owned vehicle. The Brightdrop range is massive compared to the eTransit, but so is the price because batteries are expensive. Businesses know exactly how much range they need down to the mile for their routes.

Two, the Brightdrop is built in Canada for the lower labor costs but Trump's tariffs more than made up for those labor cost gains.

 

[/or\]

So... how's "bringing back jobs to America" going there Donny?

What's really sad is that the gas and coal bros he likes should be championing electric cars. After all, those kilowatts don't make themselves and even a shitty coal plant with basically any pollution controls worthy of the name is still technically better for the environment that burning the equivalent amount of gasoline and diesel. And those heavy batteries mean more asphalt to replace the roads that are wearing out faster.

But then again, this entire administration regime is powered by equal parts stupidity and spite, so here we fucking are....

Makes you wonder when the President actually drove to the grocery store last time and saw the prices and gave a shit. I bet Jeffrey Epstein was giving him a ride there.