President Mark Reuss recently stated that General Motors does not want its potential clients to be discouraged by its upcoming electric vehicle pricing, as per InsideEVs. He clarified that GM plans to take a long-term approach at the automaker’s investor day in New York City.
Good news for potential clients
General Motors is counting on consumers to shift to EVs.
That said, it plans to introduce more electric models in 2023. Additionally, it intends to convert Cadillac and Buick to 100% electric vehicles by 2030.
Customer willingness to pay a premium for EVs has been demonstrated by research. However, GM plans to keep its prices competitive with ICE vehicles.
Reuss stated that GM’s responsibility is to provide “really good vehicles at appropriate segment pricing that doesn’t cost anybody any more money than what they were paying to go into an ICE segment.”
Reuss added, “It’s our job to deliver the commercial value, to be able to do that at margins that were similar — or in some cases above — what we did on an ICE vehicle. … Being opportunistic or episodic with pricing is not what we’re doing here. We’re in the long game, and we’re going to create customers for life.”
The automaker will also monitor reservations, preventing it from hiking prices for customers queuing up, as per CFO Paul Jacobson.
This explains why only one model year of the Cadillac Lyriq accepted reservations from the automaker. The cost to produce a vehicle for the 2024 model year could not be projected, despite increased demand.
“We weren’t going to make the mistake that others have, where we’re going to go and have to change prices on somebody who’s already ordered a vehicle. We’d rather take the risk that the orders dry up or customers suddenly run away from EV transformation rather than put ourselves in a position where we’re exposing the customer to our incapability to manage the production costs of the business.”
It is also worth noting that the Cadillac Lyriq, Chevrolet Equinox EV, Blazer EV, Silverado EV, and GM Sierra EV are “core and critical to our EV growth strategy through 2025,” according to GM CEO Mary Barra.
All of these Ultium-based vehicles will be available on the market in 2023, except the Lyriq.
