Last October 2, a Cruise self-driving taxi malfunctioned after being hit by another vehicle in San Francisco, dragging a pedestrian 20 feet. In the same month, Cruise announced a nationwide suspension of driverless operations due to a series of safety incidents.

In addition to ceasing operations, Cruise has also undergone significant leadership changes. Its co-founders, including CEO and co-founder Kyle Vogt, have resigned, and nine other leaders have been fired and subsequently laid off. 24% of employees and a group of contract workers were recruited. Details can be found in previous reports by IT Home.

On the 9th local time, the company stated that the suspension of its autonomous driving business was to rebuild trust and redesign safety protocols. “Significant progress has been made in these areas.”

Cruise said the redeployed vehicles will not operate as self-driving taxis as before, but will instead “create maps and collect road information in select cities, starting with Phoenix.” Data such as signs and traffic lights.

A company spokesperson said their “goal is to resume driverless operations” but did not provide a specific timetable. The company’s goal is to regain trust and build partnerships with communities, eventually working with cities to resume operations of fully driverless vehicles.

The post GM’s Cruise Resumes Self-Driving Plan, Leading Deployment Across U.S. appeared first on TechGoing.

These new markets will build on the GMC brand’s established presence in the United States, Mexico, Canada and the Middle East. It is noticed that the GMC brand has achieved good results in the current international market:

Canada:

 Retail sales to grow 10% in 2023

 Total market share reaches record high 5.5%

 Sierra HD reaches record 29.6% retail market share

 Denali and AT4 retail ratio is 53%

 Yukon and Yukon XL are Canada's best-selling full-size SUVs

Middle East:

 Total sales increased 15% year-on-year

 Yukon / Yukon XL sales increase 12% year-on-year

Mexico:

 Sales increased 14.4% year-on-year

 Sierra sales up 50.4% year over year

It is understood that the GMC brand offers the compact Terrain and full-size Yukon, all-new Canyon and Sierra light trucks, and the GMC HUMMER EV, the world’s first all-electric super truck.

The post General Motors plans to introduce the GMC brand to the Chinese market appeared first on TechGoing.

Data show that General Motors’ full-year vehicle sales in 2023 will be 2,594,698 vehicles (a year-on-year increase of 14.1%), including 625,176 vehicles in the fourth quarter (Note: The company sold approximately 2.3 million vehicles in 2022 and 2019 respectively. and 2.9 million vehicles).

Sales of the Buick brand increased 61%, followed by mainstream brand Chevrolet with a 13.1% increase. Sales for the GMC and Cadillac brands each increased about 9% in 2023.

It is worth mentioning that although General Motors’ pure electric vehicle sales in 2023 are not bad, they will only account for 2.9% (75,883 units). The vast majority of them are the discontinued Chevrolet Bolt models. However, the Alton platform pure electric vehicles Sales are still growing steadily.

In the fourth quarter, General Motors sold a total of 19,469 all-electric vehicles, accounting for about 3.1% of total sales, down slightly from 20,092 vehicles in the previous quarter, but up about 19.7% from 16,266 vehicles in the same period last year.

Data shows sales of both the Lyriq and Hummer EVs are up, and deliveries of the Blazer and Silverado EVs have begun, albeit in extremely limited quantities. In addition, Hummer electric vehicles performed well this quarter. The model sold 2,028 units in the fourth quarter, almost double the 1,167 units sold in the previous quarter and only 72 units in the same period last year.

Meanwhile, the Lyriq has shown similar growth trends, with General Motors selling a total of 3,820 Lyriq models in the quarter, up from 3,108 in the third quarter and 86 in the same period last year.

However, due to the discontinuation of the Chevrolet Bolt in December, quarterly sales of this model fell, falling to 12,551 units from 15,835 units in the third quarter. This figure was also down from 16,108 units in the fourth quarter of 2022.

General Motors says this is part of a plan to phase out the Bolt so that it can focus on the Alteon platform.

General Motors sales of various pure electric vehicles in the fourth quarter of 2023 (year-on-year change):

BrightDrop: 164 (from 0 a year ago)

Cadillac Lyriq: 3,820 units (up 4,342%),

Chevrolet: 13,457 units (down 16%)

-Chevrolet Blazer EV: 463 (new)

-Chevrolet Bolt EV/Bolt EUV: 12,551 units (down 22%)

-Chevrolet Silverado EV: 443 (new)

GMC (Hummer electric pickup/SUV): 2,028 units (up 2,717%)

Total: 19,469 (up 19.7%)

General Motors’ pure electric vehicle sales in 2023 (year-on-year change):

BrightDrop: 497 (up 240%)

Cadillac Lyriq: 9,154 units (up 7,403%)

Chevrolet: 62,988 units (up 65%)

-Chevrolet Blazer EV: 482 (new)

-Chevrolet Bolt EV/Bolt EUV: 62,045 units (up 63%)

-Chevrolet Silverado EV: 461 (new)

GMC (Hummer electric pickup/SUV): 3,244 units (up 280%)

Total: 75,883 (up 93%)

The post General Motors Q4 Deliveries of 19,469 EVs, Up 20% Y/Y appeared first on TechGoing.

Image source Pexels

General Motors Co said on Wednesday its vehicle deliveries rose less than 1% in the fourth quarter as it recovers from a UAW strike at four assembly plants. Nissan and Honda reported more modest growth late last year, while South Korean automaker Kia America’s sales fell in December.

The pent-up demand that underpinned sales in the wake of the pandemic has been met, with some consumers now balking at 10% auto loan rates and average prices around $48,000. Total seasonally adjusted sales likely fell to about 15.4 million vehicles in the final month of 2023, down from about 15.5 million in the previous two quarters, data compiled by Bloomberg showed.

“We’ve seen a significant reduction in the number of low- and middle-income households buying new cars, and now it’s almost all in the top 20% of income earners,” said Jonathan Smoke, chief economist at Cox Automotive. of households are buying new cars.”

Still, some companies are bucking the trend. Toyota’s deliveries rose more than 15% in the final three months of 2023, driven by hybrid vehicles. South Korea’s Hyundai brand posted a record sales growth of 5% during the same period.

Toyota’s big sales gains came from its compact Corolla hybrid sedan, which more than doubled in sales, and the RAV4 small SUV, which saw sales rise 37% in the fourth quarter. The company attributed the strong sales performance to the easing of supply chain and logistics issues in the second half, increased product availability and the launch of products such as the Grand Highlander midsize SUV.

“We hit our own pace in the fourth quarter and were able to deliver more new products to our dealers,” David Christ, head of Toyota’s U.S. brand, said in an interview.

For Hyundai Motor Co.’s namesake brand, the fastest-growing sales were a gas-guzzling car and an electric vehicle, with deliveries of the large Palisade SUV and IONIQ 5 EV nearly doubling in the fourth quarter.

General Motors Co’s sales rose just 0.3% in the fourth quarter as strikes at four plants cut production of its best-selling Chevrolet Tahoe and GMC Yukon SUVs, as well as production versions of its Chevrolet Colorado pickup truck. A spokesman for the company said sales were strong in December as inventory was replenished. Despite the strike, GM’s sales rose 14% for the year.

The Detroit automaker still faces challenges in producing electric vehicles. GM aimed to deliver 150,000 electric vehicles last year but actually sold fewer than 76,000, with most of those sales coming from the Chevrolet Bolt compact plug-in car. However, General Motors has stopped producing this model. Production problems have plagued the rollout of cars using the company’s Ultium batteries.

Financing costs
Judy Wheeler, Nissan’s vice president of U.S. brand sales, said in an interview that Nissan’s sales slowed at the beginning of the fourth quarter but picked up in December. Lower interest rates will help lower financing costs and keep dealer lot inventories steady for many manufacturers.

“Interest rates are starting to come down now, and that’s going to have a big impact on consumers because they now have a little more money in their pockets,” Wheeler added.

Nissan’s fourth-quarter sales rose 5.6%, a sharp slowdown from 23% growth for the full year. Kia America said sales fell slightly to 60,275 vehicles in December, despite reaching a record 782,451 vehicles for the year.

Honda’s U.S. vehicle deliveries surged 31.5% in December, but that was slower than the company’s full-year growth of 33%. While sales of CR-V models rose 88.2 percent, sales of its signature model, the Accord, fell 11.5 percent, making it the best-selling crossover SUV on the market.

Ford Motor Co. is scheduled to release its latest U.S. sales figures on Thursday local time.

Continuous challenge
While auto sales are already much improved in 2023 compared to inventory-constrained 2022, challenges emerging at the end of the year are expected to persist. Cox Automotive predicts U.S. auto sales will grow less than 2% through 2024. This means annual vehicle sales are unlikely to exceed 17 million units anytime soon, as they did for five consecutive years before the pandemic.

“The industry’s new sales norm is closer to 16 million due to declining affordability. We’ve lost about 10 percent of our buyers,” said Jonathan Smock, chief economist at Cox Automotive.

Automakers have no incentive to cut prices because they make more money selling fewer cars. Consumer spending on new vehicles will reach a record $578 billion in 2023, marking the third consecutive year it has topped $500 billion, according to research firm J.D. Power. Consumers’ average monthly car payment was estimated at $739 in December, up $9 from a year earlier, according to J.D. Power.

Toyota executives say the price shock is forcing more car buyers to cut back on their budgets when trading in vehicles, with some consumers choosing to buy used cars of newer models instead of new ones. Even so, they expect annualized sales to reach 16 million units by 2024 as vehicle supply improves and other brands increase incentive spending to spur demand.

“The market sentiment this year is significantly more optimistic,” Jack Hollis, executive vice president of Toyota Motor North America, said in an interview.

The post U.S. auto sales slow down as car purchases by low- and middle-income families plummet appeared first on TechGoing.

Chad Lyons, Chevrolet’s executive director of communications, said in a statement that the team is rolling out a fix as soon as possible and will contact owners to provide updated service details. Chevrolet Vice President Scott Bell also admitted that some car owners have encountered quality problems related to software and emphasized that user satisfaction is the primary consideration, so the company decided to temporarily stop the delivery of new cars. General Motors did not disclose the specific number of vehicles affected, saying only that it was a “limited” number.

Two months after the car information website Edmunds purchased a 2024 Chevrolet Blazer EV RS AWD for long-term testing, the vehicle stayed at the dealer for two weeks due to 23 fault code issues. They said, “The information we received from the dealer made it… It’s shocking, the number of fault codes is the highest of any new car we’ve ever seen.”

Kevin Williams, editor of InsideEVs, another automotive media outlet, had it even worse. His test drive lasted just 28 hours when the car, which lacks CarPlay and Android Auto infotainment, suddenly froze while driving, followed by a “Vehicle service immediately” error message while charging, and the test had to be interrupted.

InsideEVs subsequently followed up with reports that owners of other electric vehicles powered by GM’s Ultium powertrains had complained of similar quality issues that seemed difficult to resolve, raising concerns about the quality of GM’s electric vehicles.

At present, General Motors has not disclosed the details of the repair plan, and it is not clear when sales of Blazer EV will be resumed.

The post General Motors suspends sales of Chevrolet Blazer EV due to frequent software issues appeared first on TechGoing.

According to reports, the layoffs involve 900 employees, mainly from commercial operations and related corporate functions. At the same time, Cruise also said that this time it ended the work of some “temporary workers supporting our self-driving business.”

For comparison, Cruise had 3,800 employees before the layoffs were announced. Cruise said, “This reflects our new future and more measured path to market, which means we reduce the immediate need for field, commercial operations and corporate personnel.”

▲ Picture source Cruise

A GM spokesman said, “GM will support Cruise in making the difficult decision that reflects their ‘safety as their North Star’ and more thoughtful path forward. We have full confidence in this team, which operates with trust, accountability and accountability.” and transparency, laying the foundation for the company’s long-term success. We are committed to supporting Cruise.”

It was previously reported that in October this year, a Curise taxi caused a traffic accident. The taxi dragged a pedestrian and dragged him 20 feet (6 meters). After that, California banned the taxi. The company’s self-driving vehicles drive on the road. Soon thereafter, Cruise ceased all testing operations in the United States.

Cruise CEO Kyle Vogt announced his resignation last month. Additionally, the company fired nine executives this week, including its chief operating officer.

The post GM’s self-driving unit Cruise announces 24% layoffs, affecting 900 employees appeared first on TechGoing.

▲ Chevrolet official promotional picture, the same below

Garza said this week that General Motors will begin production of the Chevrolet Equinox electric vehicle at its Ramos Alispe, Mexico, plant in the first quarter of 2024. It will be the second electric SUV to be built at the plant, following the Blazer EV. The first Blazer EV rolled off the factory line in late June, with customer deliveries starting in the third quarter.

The first batch of Equinox EV models launched early next year will be 2RS FWD and 2RS AWD, with starting prices of $48,995 (Note: currently about 352,000 RMB) and $52,395 (currently about 376,000 RMB) respectively. 2RS models have an EPA range of 319 miles.

The Chevrolet Equinox plug-in hybrid version has appeared on the domestic Ministry of Industry and Information Technology declaration list. The length, width and height are 4653/1902/1714mm respectively, and the wheelbase is 2730mm. Judging from its “body”, the Equinox is clearly a compact SUV. The overall design language of the car is quite hardcore, with a high ground clearance and a muscular body outline. It can also be seen from the rear part of the car that the new car is expected to provide different versions such as “Equinox ACTIV” or “Equinox RS”, and the tail badge clearly indicates its identity as a PHEV (plug-in hybrid) model.

In terms of power, the car is equipped with a 1.5L engine produced by SAIC-GM, with a maximum power of 127kW. At the same time, the car’s power battery comes from Fudi Battery Co., Ltd. in Qinghai and Xi’an. It is also equipped with a drive motor with a peak power of 140kW and a maximum speed of 180km/h.

The post General Motors confirms Chevrolet Equinox EV production to start early next year appeared first on TechGoing.

Tim Babbitt, GM’s head of infotainment products, recently gave an interview to MotorTrend and provided additional insights into the abandonment of CarPlay and Android Auto.

Babbitt said GM always puts consumer safety first, and CarPlay and Android Auto can have problems with poor connections, slow response times, compatibility issues and connectivity issues that distract drivers from troubleshooting smartphones.

Babbitt said that the built-in car computer system reduces the dependence on services such as CarPlay, allowing drivers to reduce the probability of picking up their mobile phones while driving, thus improving road safety.

Note: Babbitt did not provide relevant theoretical basis during the interview, nor did he conduct corresponding tests.

Babbitt cited J.D. Power data showing that drivers who encounter problems using CarPlay and Android Auto tend to direct their anger at the automakers, rather than Apple and Google.

GM’s planned infotainment system will integrate Google apps, including Google Maps and Google Assistant for voice commands.

As MotorTrend points out, eliminating CarPlay would give GM more control over driver data and allow GM to offer subscription services and apps that allow for the purchase of groceries, gas and other sundries.

The post General Motors talks about ditching CarPlay and Android Auto appeared first on TechGoing.

Cruise had previously banned the company’s self-driving vehicles from driving on public roads after an accident on October 2 in which one of its self-driving taxis dragged a pedestrian.

“We need to take steps to improve our safety metrics and rebuild trust, and our strategy is to re-launch in a city and prove our performance there before expanding,” the company said.

Cruise said the strategic shift will result in a reduction in its headcount “primarily in non-engineering positions.” It also said it would provide more details in mid-December.

The department said it will focus on Bolt-based Cruise AVs in the short term, while its long-term strategy revolves around the Origin, a vehicle without a steering wheel or other operations by a human driver.

Attached is the incident:

 In August this year, ten Cruise Robotaxi vehicles suddenly stalled on the road, causing a traffic jam. A few days later, a Robotaxi crashed into a road construction area and got stuck in the wet concrete; another Robotaxi hit a fire truck at an intersection, causing its passengers to be sent to the hospital.

 The California Department of Motor Vehicles announced on October 25 that Cruise's self-driving cars pose an "unreasonable risk" to public safety and "fail to meet standards for on-road operations."

 Cruise has suspended all public operations of its self-driving cars and will issue a recall for 950 vehicles.

 Cruise is facing multiple federal investigations into the safety of its vehicles, including two cases in which its self-driving cars failed to yield to pedestrians on sidewalks.

 On November 20, Cruise co-founder and CEO Kyle Vogt announced his resignation.

The post GM Cruise plans to relaunch driverless taxis appeared first on TechGoing.

In an email to employees, CEO Kyle Vogt also said the company would make a new takeover bid that would allow employees to sell stock (two days after Cruise withdrew its previous takeover bid).

“I am sorry that we have veered off course under my leadership, and this has profound consequences for Cruise,” Vogt wrote in an email.

“As CEO, I take responsibility for the situation Cruise is currently in. There are no excuses or sugarcoating what happened. We need to redouble our efforts on safety, transparency and community engagement.”

Vogt also noted that the way the company works with regulators, the media and the public “must improve.”

Attached the incident detail:

 In August this year, ten Cruise Robotaxi vehicles suddenly stalled on the road, causing a traffic jam. A few days later, a Robotaxi crashed into a road construction area and got stuck in the wet concrete; another Robotaxi hit a fire truck at an intersection, causing its passengers to be sent to the hospital.

 The California Department of Motor Vehicles announced on October 25 that Cruise's self-driving cars pose an "unreasonable risk" to public safety and "fail to meet standards for on-road operations."

 Cruise has suspended all public operations of its self-driving cars and will issue a recall for 950 vehicles.

 Cruise is facing multiple federal investigations into the safety of its vehicles, including two cases in which its self-driving cars failed to yield to pedestrians on sidewalks.

The post GM’s Cruise CEO apologizes for crash, allows employees to sell stock appeared first on TechGoing.