These are trying times for automotive bean counters in Detroit: Ford is recording $19.5 billion in losses and killed off the F-150 Lightning. Stellantis is dumping its plug-in hybrids. And General Motors yesterday tacked on a $6 billion loss to its 2025 balance sheet, yes, tied to its aggressive investments in battery-electric vehicles.
But yesterday’s SEC filing includes a sentence that provides perhaps a glimmer of hope for those planning to buy an all-electric Chevy Equinox or Cadillac Optiq from GM:
“Our strategic realignment of EV capacity does not impact today’s retail portfolio of Chevrolet, GMC, and Cadillac EVs in production, and we plan to continue to make these models available to consumers.”
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While Ford heads back to the drawing board to recast its strategy for battery-electric vehicles (and pivoting toward an extended-range F-Series pickup with an internal-combustion engine), this statement suggests General Motors has more confidence in a broad EV lineup that started with the first Chevy Bolt, then the GMC Hummer, Chevy Blazer EV and Cadillac Lyriq, followed by pickup trucks or crossovers from all three brands. GM now counts 13 EVs across its portfolio, including the over-the-top Cadillac Celestiq.
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When Reality Sinks In
So it makes sense that GM isn’t skinning back the same way Ford has. GM’s invested a whole lot more and spent years building the Ultium battery-electric platform (a brand name now discontinued) and establishing a corporate culture embracing battery-electric vehicles of all types. GM said in 2021 it planned to spend $35 billion on EVs and autonomous vehicles by 2025.
This week’s SEC filing shows the General staying committed to EVs, although reality has forced production slowdowns for several existing models, particularly in the fourth quarter when the discontinued federal tax credits pushed EV demand off a cliff.
How Much Can GM Endure?
The future is a moving target, which explains why GM’s once-utopian goal to go all-electric by 2035 got scaled back instead to hopes for 50 percent of the fleet to be “electrified” by 2030, perhaps including hybrids or plug-in hybrids that GM has discussed launching in the near future.
After a financially draining end of 2025 for all EV makers, the probing question is: How many more cash-burning quarters can General Motors endure before seriously changing course?
Black Hole In Orion, Michigan
GM’s SEC filing mentions its plant in Orion Township, Michigan, north of Detroit, which opened in 1983 and now represents a black hole that merely consumes money, rather than generating any revenue at all. The plant was idled after producing the Pontiac G6 and Chevy Malibu until 2009, the year of GM’s bankruptcy filing.
Then came the quickly forgotten Chevrolet Sonic and Buick Verano, followed by the Chevy Bolt in late 2016. A vehicle hasn’t rolled off the Orion assembly line since 2023, but GM was spending about $4 billion retooling the plant to build all-electric Chevy Silverado and GMC Sierra pickups, because Factory Zero in nearby Detroit Hamtramck wasn’t expected to have enough capacity to meet the anticipated demand for EV trucks. Looking at you, Cybertruck.
Pivoting To Gas Pickups, SUVs
When the EV market cooled in 2024 and GM realized Factory Zero could handle the withering demand for the EV pickups, the automaker had to admit its miscalculation: While retooling the Orion plant for EVs, it scrapped that plan, announcing yet a new retooling, to build full-size internal-combustion light-duty Silverado and Sierra pickups and the Cadillac Escalade in Orion. A dumpster isn’t large enough to handle all the cash torched in this tortuous saga.
But the current plan, to deliver trucks starting next year, is the best product news for the workers at this assembly plant since it first opened. In explaining GM’s motivation for adding truck capacity, the SEC filing says: “We believe we have unmet demand.”
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While GM says it expects additional charges in 2026 connected to commercial deals with suppliers, the automaker says it believes those losses “will be significantly less than the EV-related charges incurred in 2025.”
Something to build on, perhaps. And if you’re wondering why Buick is left out of GM’s EV strategy, there was talk about the Electra E5 crossover coming from China, but tariffs of 38 percent (or more) make it prohibitive.
And today GM Authority reports China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology has unofficially revealed SAIC-GM’s plans for a new Buick Electra E7 crossover. That vehicle also seems ill-suited for the U.S. at this time, especially with a published photo of an “Electra X7” nameplate, perhaps a mistake that will catch the attention of the BMW legal team.
Source: General Motors, GM Authority
