Hey everybody. Welcome back to the Elon Musk
Podcast. This is a show where we discuss
the critical crossroads that shape SpaceX, Tesla X, The
Boring Company, and Neurolink. I'm your host, Will Walden.
General Motors is taking a $1.6 billion charge tied to its
electric vehicle business, cutting its near term
expectations and slowing production as EV demand
continues to fall short of earlier projections.
Now, GM revealed the impairment in a regulatory filing, stating
that it no longer expects to meet its previous EV volume
targets and is adjusting its investment pace accordingly.
Now, the charges linked to slower product development and
reduce capital spending in areas like battery production and
vehicle assembly as the company assesses how aggressively to
pursue its EV roll out. Now the cutback directly effects
Altium sells G Miss battery manufacturing joint venture with
LG Energy Solution. The filing says GM now plans to
reduce the scale and speed of planned battery plan expansions,
which were expected to support a fleet of future EVs with battery
output tied closely to overall EV capacity.
This decision forces GM to accept lower near term volumes
across several models. Now.
These changes follow a series of delays and scaled back launches
over the past year. The Chevy Silverado EV and
Equinox EV were both pushed back from earlier production dates,
with updated schedules stretching well into 2025.
And in parallel, GM has shifted some of its plant retooling
investments away from EVs and toward hybrid vehicles, which
have seen stronger demand in both US and overseas markets.
Now, the $1.6 billion write down suggests GM no longer sees this
EV strategy as immediately profitable or scalable without
deeper restructuring that resets expectations for a company that
once promised to sell only 0 emission light duty vehicles by
2035. It also follows A broader market
trend where several automakers have admitted that the total
cost of EV ownership, including higher interest rates in a
weakening resale market, is affecting consumer adoption.
Now, this shift is not a final decision.
It directly effects how GM manages its supply chain,
though. Contracts with battery material
suppliers, charging infrastructure providers, and EV
specific parts manufacturers are now under review.
GM is actively renegotiating some of these deals, especially
those tied to the postponed battery plant build outs.
And that's likely to ripple across multiple industries that
had remapped up to support GM's earlier EV timelines.
Now GM also cited ongoing challenges and software dev,
particularly with its in house Altify platform, which underpins
many of the features in its newer EVs.
Software bugs and integration issues have already caused
delivery delays and added costs. GM had hoped Altify would offer
a path to new revenue through subscriptions and vehicle based
services, but those plans now look a little bit more distant
than before. But on the retail side, GM is
facing increased pressure from Tesla new entrants, especially
in the 40 to $60,000 price band where competition is
intensifying. With lower production volumes,
GM dealers are expected to carry fewer EV units in 2025 and 2026.
That could reduce consumer visibility, slower adoption even
further, creating a feedback loop that weakens demand just as
GM tries to contain its own costs.
Now, if you're 1 of the 74% of the listeners of this podcast
who have not subscribed but also listen to the show every day, I
got a question for you. Actually, I have an ask for you.
Could you just take a second, hit the subscribe or follow
button on whatever podcast platform you're on?
Literally takes a second. And I need to ask you a huge
favor though, if you're on a podcast platform that allows you
to leave a review and you listen to the show and you love it,
please give this show a five star review.
We need all the help we can get. We're pushing the boundaries
here of what's possible with news podcasts that pertain to
Elon Musk and all of his companies.
So we need all the help we can get to boost this signal.
And it's up to you, the community of this show, to show
your support for the show. And we're going to talk more, a
little bit more about GM. But I also want to talk about
the Flight 11 Starship real quick because Flight 11 went off
without a hitch. It was a great flight and I'm
very excited about it because this leads us into Flight 12
now. The successful completion of
Flight 11 mark the end of the Block 2 era for SpaceX Starship,
and now SpaceX turns its focus to the revolutionary Block 3
architecture that will debut with Flight 12.
This upcoming mission represents far more than another test
flight, though. It's the beginning of Starship's
transformation from experimental prototype to completely
operational spacecraft capable of lunar missions.
Mars exploration in unprecedented orbital operations
with massive payloads of Flight 12 will launch the first Block 3
Starship and Super Heavy Booster featuring Ship 39 and Booster
18. If all goes well now, this
mission marks a huge shift in Starship's development
philosophy, transitioning from iterative testing to operational
capability demonstration. The Block 3 architecture
incorporates years of lessons learned from previous flights
while introducing revolutionary technologies that will enable
Spacex's long term vision of making life multi planetary and
sending people to Mars to live. The timeline for Flight 12
remains fluid, but it's probably going to be around early 2026
ish, maybe spring, following a longer development gap that
previous missions due to the extensive changes required for
Block 3 systems. Now, SpaceX has indicated this
extended timeline reflects the need for more rigorous testing
and validation of this new architecture before flight.
This is a huge leap forward for Starship and this could be
literally the vehicle that sends us to Mars, not Flight 12, but
the vehicle architecture that sends us to Mars.
That is a wild thing to think about.
Now back here on Earth, GM insists it remains committed to
an all electric future and the current financial disclosure
show a pivot to a more kind of cautious execution.
Though hybrids, which were once viewed as a temporary bridge
tech are now becoming a core part of G miss medium term
strategy company is preparing to launch new plug in hybrid
variants across multiple brands including Cadillac and GMC.
Now I want to know what your thoughts are on hybrid vehicles.
If you are full electric and you never want to see another ICE
engine ever again in your life, leave it in the comments.
I want to know what you think if you are like me and you see the
value in hybrids, I believe it's a really great in between
structure and foundational technology that will eventually
shape the EV future into full electric of course.
And people are scared of moving over to EV.
They have range anxiety. But if you could use a hybrid to
get around town, you know, you charge it up at night and then
you go to work in the morning with a full charge.
You come back at night with, you know, a little bit less charge,
then you get charged up again, full charge.
You don't use your ICE engine until you absolutely need it,
maybe for a longer trip or you know what have you.
If you're going to be on the road for a long time, use your
ICE engine. So that would be a great use of
a hybrid technology. And I think that's where a lot
of people are going to land. It's a jump from an ICE engine
to an EV. Everyone, even though Tesla has
been working on this for a very long time, you would still be
considered an early adopter of an EV at this point because even
though you do see them on the road a lot, the majority of
vehicles are still ICE engines or hybrids.
So you're one of the early adopters.
You're one of those people that really believes in this
technology. So with that being said, let me
know what you think. Is it E, is it time for GM to go
full EV? It's time for you to go full EV.
Or is it the hybrid strategy to the future?
Hey, thank you so much for listening today.
I really do appreciate your support.
If you could take a second and hit the subscribe or the follow
button on whatever podcast platform that you're listening
on right now, I greatly appreciate it.
It helps out the show tremendously and you'll never
miss an episode. And each episode is about 10
minutes or less to get you caught up quickly.
And please, if you want to support the show even more, go
to patreon.com/stagezero and please take care of yourselves
and each other and I'll see you tomorrow.