Free Republic

The Corvette's executive chief engineer waves the checkered flag just as his masterpiece—the new ZR1—debuts this summer. Tadge Juechter, the Corvette's executive chief engineer since 2006, has announced his retirement. Juechter's career with General Motors spanned 47 years, most of which were spent in the Corvette division. He led the development of the C7 and C8 generations, with the latter effectively making him the godfather of the mid-engined Corvette that debuted for 2020. Since 1993, Tadge Juechter has been involved with one of the most iconic sports cars in the world: the Chevy Corvette. By 1999, he was named assistant...

G.M. had provided information about braking, acceleration and speed to LexisNexis Risk Solution and Verisk, firms that generated driver risk profiles for insurers... General Motors said Friday that it had stopped sharing details about how people drove its cars with two data brokers that created risk profiles for the insurance industry. The decision followed a New York Times report this month that G.M. had, for years, been sharing data about drivers’ mileage, braking, acceleration and speed with the insurance industry. The drivers were enrolled — some unknowingly, they said — in OnStar Smart Driver, a feature in G.M.’s internet-connected cars...

General Motors once hoped to unseat Tesla as America’s EV leader. Sources tell us what went wrong with batteries, software and more. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ It wasn’t supposed to be like this. By early 2024, General Motors was to have had half a dozen electric vehicles selling in volume, all using the next-generation Ultium architecture it unveiled at “EV Day” in March 2020. That list includes the Chevrolet Silverado EV, Blazer EV, and Equinox EV; the Cadillac Lyriq; and the GMC Hummer EV in two versions. This expansive rollout of new EVs was to put GM on a course to, as The...

Ford CEO Jim Farley and GM CEO Mary Barra said they are open to collaborating with automakers on EV tech to compete with China The CEOs of leading U.S. automakers Ford and GM on Thursday signaled they are open to considering partnerships to lower the cost of electric vehicle technology to compete with low-cost Chinese EVs looking to the U.S. and European markets. "If there’s ways that we can partner with others, especially on technologies that are not consumer-facing, and be more efficient with R&D as well as capital, we’re all in," GM CEO Mary Barra told investors at a...

A full-size van replacement and a Ford Maverick competitor—both of them EVs—have been canceled. * Sources tell us plug-in hybrid versions of the Chevrolet Silverado and GMC Sierra are headed to market, in a hurry. * General Motors had been fully committed to all-electric pickups, but problems towing and hauling heavy loads have made EV pickups less attractive to traditional truck buyers. * GM’s change in plans creates uncertainty for Detroit’s Factory Zero, which has been retooled solely for production of battery-electric vehicles such as the GMC Hummer (pictured above). ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ While zero-emissions enthusiasts wait for mass production of General...

Three pony cars made it out of the muscle car era to be part of our modern automotive world. These three are the Ford Mustang, Dodge Challenger, and Chevy Camaro. The Challenger is barely a pony car, but the Mustang and Camaro provide several engine options leading up to a V8 engine at the top of the line, defining the pony car market. While the Mustang lives on, the Chevy Camaro is dead and won’t likely return in true pony car form. The top-level Chevy Camaro was awesome At the top ZL1 trim, the last two generations of the Camaro...

Ford CEO Jim Farley and GM CEO Mary Barra said they are open to collaborating with automakers on EV tech to compete with China The CEOs of leading U.S. automakers Ford and GM on Thursday signaled they are open to considering partnerships to lower the cost of electric vehicle technology to compete with low-cost Chinese EVs looking to the U.S. and European markets. "If there’s ways that we can partner with others, especially on technologies that are not consumer-facing, and be more efficient with R&D as well as capital, we’re all in," GM CEO Mary Barra told investors at a...

A tech boss has plunged to his death during his firm’s celebrations as horror footage captured his final moments alive. Sanjay Shah, CEO of US-based company Vistex, was making a grand performance in an iron cage before part of the chain supporting the structure snapped. The freak accident took place at Ramoji Film City in Hyderabad, India, during the company’s silver jubilee on Thursday evening, The Sun reports. Sanjay, accompanied by his colleague Raju Datla, entered an iron cage on stage intended to be lowered from a height. But one side of the iron chain supporting the cage broke, dropping...

General Motors will lay off about 1,300 workers from two of its Michigan plants, according to WARN notices the company has filed with state regulators. The job cuts at GM’s Orion Assembly and Lansing Grand River Assembly, which will take place in the new year, come after the automaker said in October that it would be delaying electric pickup truck production into 2025. The layoffs at GM’s Orion plant will affect 945 employees, while 369 employees will be cut from the Lansing assembly plant. The Orion plant produced the Chevrolet Bolt EV and Bolt EUV crossover, and GM is planning...

The 2024 Chevrolet Blazer EV is an early step in General Motors' promise of an electric vehicle future. "Our early experience in a Chevy Blazer EV has been anything but positive, sadly," said Alistair Weaver, editor-in-chief of Edmunds.com. *snip* "We took it into a Chevy dealer, asked them to have a look at it, and they came back with nothing short of 23 different error codes, which frankly is almost unheard of," said Weaver.

Cadillac is quickly transforming itself into an electric SUV brand, and the upcoming 2026 Vistiq will serve as the mid-size three-row offering in the luxury marque's lineup. So far, all we've seen are a couple of exterior photos released by the company, but from what we can tell the Vistiq looks to be about the same size as the gas-powered XT6 SUV. Styling is sharp, with inspiration drawn from the brand's other electric offerings. Under the floorboards will undoubtedly be a variant of General Motors's Ultium battery.

General Motors, the parent company of troubled self-driving car firm Cruise, is suing San Francisco, saying the city improperly overcharged the company more than $100 million over seven years by miscalculating its tax bill. In the case filed Friday in California Superior Court, GM said it was seeking a refund of nearly $108 million in taxes plus some $13 million in interest and penalties between 2016 and 2022. The Detroit automaker contended that San Francisco-based Cruise is run separately from GM. The automaker had average annual gross receipts of approximately $148 billion over the seven-year period at issue, said the...

The layoffs, which mostly hit commercial operations and related corporate functions, comes one day after the robotaxi subsidiary dismissed nine “key leaders.” The moves are fallout from the company’s response to the Oct. 2 incident in which a pedestrian was dragged 20 feet by a Cruise self-driving car after being hit by another vehicle. Since the incident, the company has suspended all trips on public roads and halted production of a new robotaxi, among other moves. ... General Motors’ Cruise on Thursday announced internally that it will lay off 900 employees, or 24% of its workforce ... The layoffs, which...

Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway unloaded its entire $850 million worth of General Motors (GM) stock last quarter, according to a Securities and Exchange Commission filing.

General Motors (GM) faces an unprecedented EV crisis as CEO Mary Barra unexpectedly halts EV production and scraps most electric plans. This abrupt move has reverberated across the automotive landscape. The primary reason? A significant lack of demand. Dealerships are overwhelmed with nearly 92,000 unsold EVs, posing a daunting challenge.

General Motors is building Silverado EVs. It delivered a whole 18 of them during the third quarter of this year. It planned to expand production beyond its Detroit-Hamtramck facility, also known as "Factory Zero", by 2024 to Orion Assembly where the Bolt EV is built, albeit not for much longer. That plan has now been pushed back to late 2025, and according to GM, the decision was not made due to any supply shortages, or even the ongoing United Auto Workers strike. It could be indicative of waning consumer enthusiasm for fully electric vehicles as a whole. The automaker cited...

The effort to electrify America's most popular and influential vehicle class is under way, but it appears to be faltering at the hands of reluctant motorists. This week, Ford said it would lay off about 700 workers at the Detroit plant that manufactures its electric F-150 Lightning pickup truck and GM pushed back production of the Chevrolet Silverado EV, citing slowing demand. And Tesla CEO Elon Musk told investors during an earnings call on Wednesday, 'we dug our own grave' when referencing the company's much anticipated electric pickup Cybertruck. Pickup trucks have long been the crown jewel of the US...

Thousands of Canadian auto workers are joining the United Auto Workers (UAW) strike across the United States as American auto workers warn that they face “poverty wages” as a result of President Joe Biden’s rules to mandate electric vehicles (EVs). On Tuesday, about 4,300 Canadians at three Ontario-based General Motors (GM) plants joined the UAW strike, which is also against Ford and Stellantis. GM now faces a production issue, as the plants produce a number of vehicles, including Chevrolet Silverado trucks, one of the automaker’s most profitable. Officials with Unifor, the Canadian labor union equivalent to the UAW, accused GM...

General Motors (GM) has agreed to place battery manufacturing for electric vehicles (EVs) under its main agreement with the United Auto Workers (UAW) union, UAW President Shawn Fain announced on Friday. Fain said the union won’t expand its strike against the Big Three automakers following the the last-minute development in negotiations. “We’ve been told for months that this is impossible,” Fain said. “We’ve been told the EV future must be a race to the bottom. And now we’ve called their bluff.” GM’s commitment to use UAW workers for EV battery manufacturing is a massive victory for the union.

The brother of President Joe Biden’s top adviser is a lobbyist for General Motors (GM), complicating matters for the White House as the United Auto Workers (UAW) strike against record inflation and the administration’s electric vehicle (EV) mandates. Jeff Ricchetti, the brother of Steve Ricchetti, who currently serves as Counselor to the President in the Biden administration, has a well-documented history of lobbying for GM. Steve Ricchetti was also once a lobbyist for GM. Most recently, Politico buried in a report regarding Biden’s ties to GM CEO Mary Barra how the White House has many close ties to the automaker....