CEO Mary Barra says General Motors will not be lowering prices on their electric vehicles (EVs) following Tesla slashing prices on their lineup of EVs by as much as 20% earlier this month. The decision not to adjust its pricing strategy follows a similar move from VW, but is in contrast to Ford’s price cuts to the Mach-E announced yesterday.
GM announced their fourth quarter financial results on Tuesday, and was able to beat Wall Street expectations with a 28% increase in revenue in Q4 year-over-year, and a 23% increase in revenue in 2022 compared to 2021. During a call with analysts following the publication of the results, Barra cited the level of demand for their EVs as the reason why they were not going to respond to Tesla’s price cuts.
“When we look at our strong product portfolio and the interest that we have at the prices that we’ve already announced, we feel that we’re well positioned. We think right now we’re priced where we need to be,” Barra said (via MarketWatch)
GM currently has four EVs customers can purchase today, including the Bolt EV and EUV, Cadillac Lyriq, and the GMC Hummer EV. The Bolt EV and EUV are competitively priced and among the cheapest new EVs you can buy on the market today. The story is different for the Lyriq and especially the Hummer EV, which can easily push north of $100,000 depending on the configuration.
However, production of both EVs is so limited that it is going to take years for GM to work through the backlog of orders. In 2022 just 122 Lyriq’s were delivered to customers, and just 854 for the Hummer EV. As we reported yesterday a GM exec called the Hummer EV “the most sought-after vehicle in the world,” on the news that production of the Hummer EV SUV had begun at Factory Zero. That will help move through the 90,000 reservation holders waiting in line, but it will still take several years before that backlog is cleared.
GM does plan to add to its EV portfolio in 2023 with the addition of the Silverado EV (170,000 reservations at last count) in the first half of the year, then later in the year adding the Chevy Blazer EV and Chevy Equinox EV. Whether they can produce these in any meaningful volume in 2023 will be the big question.
