General Motors has the fullest line of full-size electric trucks of anyone in the world, I think. Chinese automakers do have EV trucks and SUVs, but the breadth of what GM has done is impressive. What hasn’t been impressive are sales, so GM is now reportedly slow-rolling the development of a replacement.
The Morning Dump has been hybrid-heavy lately, but that’s just the way of the world. Big expectations crashing into reality. That’s happening with Amazon Autos, too, which is seeing some original dealers defect as the results have been underwhelming so far. You mean people don’t want to buy new cars at the same place they buy underwear? I’m shocked!
Tesla is one of the most highly-valued stocks when you look at its share price versus forward earnings, meaning investors see the company making a lot of money in the future off AI or Robotaxis. Will this quarter’s positive earnings impact that one way or another? Also, BYD has been suddenly taken off the list of companies allegedly involved in what the government referred to as “slavery-like” labor conditions in Brazil, and the person who put them on the list has been fired. What’s going on there?
Pivot! Pivot! PIVOT!
I’m serious. GM’s full-size electric platform supports the Hummer SUV, Hummer pickup, Silverado EV, GMC Sierra EV, and Cadillac Escalade IQ. Depending on how you look at it, that’s five different full-size electric trucks. Most of the Chinese EV platforms are for what we’d think of as midsize trucks. I mean, there’s the Yangwang U8, but that doesn’t seem to share a platform with anything else.
While GM is the leader in this space, it’s not a space that’s particularly popular. As with most things EV, the appetite for electric full-size trucks has not materialized. RAM scrapped plans for its EV pickup, Ford isn’t making a new generation of the Lightning, and even Tesla is selling a large chunk of its inventory to other Elon Musk-owned companies.
GM has continued selling its various EV trucks, but it has intermittently slowed down or stopped production at its Factory Zero plant that makes these vehicles. Now, according to reporting from Crain’s Detroit Business, GM has been telling suppliers that development on the next generation replacement has been halted.
Suppliers were recently informed that the next-gen program was halted with no new timetable specified. Supplier executives and analysts told Crain’s Detroit Business that they do not expect to see a new generation of the electric vehicle line until 2030 or beyond.
The current line of electric trucks will continue to be produced at Factory Zero in Detroit-Hamtramck. But the automaker is further diverting resources and capital from electrification to other programs including its new T1-2 gas engine platform, set to launch 30 miles north at Orion Assembly Plant next year.
A plug-in hybrid variant of the Silverado and Sierra is expected to be in the mix at Orion, the sources said.
A GM spokesperson did the usual “we’re not going to engage in speculation,” which is not a “no.”
There might be more of an appetite for this kind of vehicle in the future, so there’s nothing to stop GM from just making them indefinitely. It’s not like there’s going to be a ton of competition, and light refreshes might be a better course. I mean, look at the Durango. You can sell a vehicle for extended periods these days and seemingly get away with it.
EREVs and plug-in hybrid solutions seem to be the most logical for large trucks, so GM headed that way makes a lot of sense.
Amazon Autos Isn’t Changing The World Yet
There was a lot of buzz initially for Amazon Autos, which gives automakers a way to find leads via the expansive Amazon platform. The first foray was with Hyundai dealers and has since expanded, with Ford recently partnering to sell certified pre-owned cars.
The results have been rather muted, though, according to data provided to Automotive News:
Amazon Autos launched in December 2024 with Hyundai in 48 cities. It now operates in more than 130 cities and includes new, used and certified pre-owned vehicles from Chevrolet, Jeep, Kia, Mazda and Subaru.
Some early participants report selling just one or two vehicles monthly through Amazon, far short of what they’d hoped from a partnership with one of the world’s largest retailers.
“I think it’s way too early to tell because of the low volume of transactions,” said Andrew Wright, a Vinart Dealerships managing partner who helped craft Amazon’s early pilot with Hyundai dealerships but chose not to participate in the program.
Another Hyundai dealership owner from the Southeast who requested anonymity said, “The results have not met my expectations.”
It’s strange, because Carvana seems to be doing a healthy business selling cars online and delivering them to customers. This in-between step seems to just be a fancy version of lead generation, and maybe that’s not good enough.
What’s Going To Happen With Tesla Earnings?
The confounding thing about Tesla is that its stock trades something like 160-190 times its forward earnings depending on its price, which is to say that the amount being paid by investors to own the shares isn’t a reflection of what’s expected as a return in the near future (by comparison, Apple is the next-closest at roughly 30x forward earnings). What investors are choosing to believe is that what CEO Elon Musk is doing will make the company so necessary that it’ll unlock huge value in the distant future.
From that perspective, the quarter-to-quarter earnings or losses are less important than the story Musk and Tesla can tell about the future. Last quarter’s earnings weren’t great, this quarter’s earnings will probably be strongly positive, but what investors are looking for is that story.
As a result, investing pros say strong quarterly numbers that beat already lowered expectations aren’t likely to move the richly valued stock. Rather, Tesla needs one of two things to drag its shares out of their rut: Concrete signs of progress on its robotaxi plans or a shiny new object from Musk’s playbook that moves the goalposts for the company and resets the timer to show results.
“When a stock trades on a long-term story, patience doesn’t disappear overnight,” said Haris Khurshid, chief investment officer at Karobaar Capital, which owns Tesla shares mostly through derivatives. “The existing base is still holding on, but it’s getting harder to attract new buyers without clearer results.”
When Musk talks to investors, look for a big show, a shiny announcement, or something else.
BYD No Longer On The Naughty List In Brazil
Late in 2024, a big report came out from Reuters alleging that Chinese nationals were found to be working in “slavery-like conditions” at a Brazilian BYD plant that was under construction, which BYD wasn’t too fond of:
Brazilian labor authorities had on Wednesday said they found 163 Chinese nationals working in “slavery-like conditions” at a construction site for a BYD-owned factory in Brazil’s Bahia state. BYD said then that it had cut ties with the firm that hired the workers and was working with authorities.
“Being unjustly labeled as ‘enslaved’ has made our employees feel that their dignity has been insulted and their human rights violated, seriously hurting the dignity of the Chinese people. We have signed a joint letter to express our true feelings,” Jinjiang said on its official Weibo account.
This issue was seemingly resolved when the contractors for BYD and BYD itself settled with the state prosecutors office to the tune of $8 million, half of which was distributed to the workers.
Settled it was not, as then Labor Secretary Luiz Felipe Brandao de Mello last week put BYD on the list of companies that have been found to utilize such egregious labor conditions. BYD, as you might imagine, wasn’t too keen to be on this list. BYD is now off the list and the Labor Secretary has been sacked. What’s going on?
Nikkei Asia says some within the labor community think it was a retaliation:
Some leveled accusations that Mello was fired over BYD’s inclusion on the list.
“Regarding the dismissal of the labor inspection secretary, there is obviously a retaliatory element,” Mario Diniz, vice president of Safiteba, the labor inspectors’ union in the state of Bahia, told Nikkei in an interview. “Because it happened shortly after the inclusion of the BYD on the ‘dirty list’ of employers of slave labor.”
[…]
Mauricio Santoro, a professor of international relations at the State University of Rio de Janeiro, said, “It is possible that there was political interference,” as BYD’s Bahia factory received “strong support from important Brazilian leaders.”
It’s not really knowable what happened as an outsider, but Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has made connections to China an important part of his government.
What I’m Listening To While Writing TMD
One of the surprises of Coachella this year was Nine Inch Noize, which is a collab between Nine Inch Nails and German electronic group Boys Noize. That sounds super weird, and is, but it also works. Please enjoy “Hersey.” Well, enjoy the song, maybe not the concept.
The Big Question
What would a full-size EV truck need to be able to do in order to make sense?
Top photo: Chevrolet
The post GM Is Reportedly Delaying New Full-Size Electric Trucks As It Pivots Back To Gas-Powered Trucks And Hybrids appeared first on The Autopian.