GM announces a series of electric vehicles

General Motors has published its annual sustainability report, which includes details of the 20 electric models that GM plans for its various subsidiary brands by 2023.

+ + Kindly see our update below + +

Cadillac, which is reportedly set to become GM’s leading electric brand, will have four electric SUVs in addition to the previously announced Lyriq. These are to be at least one electric SUV below the Lyriq, the other three models will be larger. The largest electric SUV will have three rows of seats and will be the electric counterpart to the Cadillac Escalade. In addition, the Celestiq is to be a “super-exclusive” electric limousine.

Also new in the plans are an electric pickup truck and a medium-sized electric SUV for the Chevrolet brand, two electric Buick-SUVs and an SUV offshoot of the planned GMC Hummer EV electric pickup truck. According to Carscoops, the medium-sized SUV is likely to be a US offshoot of the China electric Buick Velite 7 and Chevrolet Menlo EV.

In the sustainability report, GM confirmed that the electrification offensive is on schedule despite the corona pandemic. Previously, the company had had to postpone the presentations of the GMC Hummer EV and Cadillac Lyriq scheduled for April and May respectively. These are to be made up for this year.

While it is common knowledge that at least the electric pickup (and thus probably also the SUV) of the GMC Hummer EV will be built in Detroit-Hamtramck, for many of the announced models a manufacturing location has not been revealed. Since the 20 models are supposed to be on the market in just under three years, the factories for the electric vehicles and the Ultium batteries will have to be prepared soon. Even in the case of the Cadillac Lyriq, expected to go on sale in 2021, there is still no reliable information about the production site.

In May, Ken Morris, Vice President of Electric and Autonomous Vehicles, announced his goal of selling one million electric vehicles per year in the two largest markets, North America and China, by the middle of the decade.

However, the announced sales targets contrast with less optimistic reports. At the end of March, Reuters cited internal documents indicating that the electrification planning at GM and Ford was in fact significantly lower than both companies publicly stated. Instead of one million electric vehicles, they had mentioned 320,000 internally planned electric vehicles for the year 2026 – for both Ford and GM combined.

Update 29 July 2020: Cadillac’s electrification offensive, which is to become GM’s leading electrical brand, is becoming more concrete. After GM’s sustainability report provided more detailed insights into model planning a few days ago, two brand registrations have now been discovered that point to the names of future EV models – namely Symboliq and Optiq. The Lyriq electric SUV and the Celestiq electric sedan had already been revealed.

As GM Authority has discovered, the names Symboliq, Cadillac Symboliq as well as Optiq and Cadillac Optiq were registered in Switzerland on 22 July at the Swiss Federal Institute of Intellectual Property in the category of “Motorized land vehicles, namely automobiles”. It remains to be seen which of the announced models the names will be used.

Meanwhile, industry insiders expect that some of Cadillac’s electric models will be produced in Mexico from 2023 at General Motors’ assembly plant in Ramos Arizpe, which is to be converted accordingly. According to other sources, the E-Cadillacs could also be built at the Lansing Grand River Assembly Plant in Michigan, but probably not until 2024.

The announced GMC Hummer EV and probably the SUV version will be built in Detroit-Hamtramck. For the Cadillac models, no production site has been confirmed yet. According to Automotive News, the handmade Celestiq electric sedan could also be assembled in Hamtramck, and the Lyriq could be built along with the Chevrolet Bolt at the Orion Plant athough this information has not been confirmed.

carscoops.com, freep.com, gmsustainability.com (PDF, starts page 39)

Update: gmauthority.com (Symboliq), gmauthority.com (Optiq), carbuzz.com (Mexico)