GM's 2024 Chevrolet Equinox EV during a media launch event for the vehicle in Detroit, May 16, 2024.
Michael Wayland / CNBC
DETROIT – General Motors said Tuesday it is again slowing its plans for all-electric vehicles by further delaying a second U.S. electric truck plant and the first Buick-branded electric vehicle.
The six-month delay in retooling the electric truck plant in Michigan to mid-2026 also means GM will miss its previous goal of having North American production capacity of 1 million electric vehicles by 2025.
“We are committed to growing responsibly and profitably,” GM Chief Executive Mary Barra told investors during the company's second-quarter earnings conference call on Tuesday.
Barra's comments come a week after she expressed concerns about GM meeting its North American EV production capacity goal.
Barra did not provide an updated timeline on Buick’s first electric vehicle, which was expected in 2024. The entire Buick brand has targeted going all-electric by 2030, part of GM’s plans to offer exclusively consumer EVs by 2035.
The changes add new questions about the Detroit automaker’s plans for future battery cell plants beyond the two current joint venture facilities with LG Energy Solution in North America. GM previously announced plans for four of the multibillion-dollar plants in the U.S. by 2026.
Barra said Tuesday that the company would ramp up cell production at a “significant pace.”
GM Chief Financial Officer Paul Jacobson declined to discuss possible plans to delay or cancel the automaker's future electric vehicle battery cell plants, other than the two facilities that make cells in Ohio and Tennessee.
“We will continue to be customer-led. We are rapidly scaling up production at cell plants one and two,” Jacobson said during a press conference. “We have nothing to comment on at this time.”
GM's U.S. electric vehicle deliveries rose 40% in the second quarter from a year earlier to 21,930 units. Still, EVs accounted for just 3.2% of its total U.S. second-quarter sales.
Jacobson said the company is prepared to ramp up assembly to achieve production and wholesale sales of 200,000 to 250,000 all-electric vehicles in North America this year. He said the company wholesaled about 75,000 of its new electric vehicles during the first half of the year.
Jacobson reiterated that GM expects its electric vehicles to become profitable in terms of production or contribution margin once it reaches production of 200,000 units in the fourth quarter.
“We continue to hold on to that,” Jacobson said, adding that additional EV sales are expected to reduce the company's earnings as they will be lower than variable earnings from GM's traditional gas models
