Cross-town rivals Ford and General Motors are both in the midst of their own major EV push that involves huge investments and grand plans for mass electric vehicle production. As the two iconic American automakers are bitter rivals, both often mimic each others’ moves, launching similar certified pre-owned vehicle services, driver-assist technology, and even warning dealers about slapping excessive markups on desirable new products. However, it doesn’t seem as if GM will copy a recently announced Ford reorganization plan that will split its operations into two distinct entities – Model e for EVs and Ford Blue for ICE vehicles – according to the Detroit Free Press.
Tim Grewe, GM’s director of electrification strategy, confirmed that the automaker will keep its EV and ICE operations together in an effort to share learnings. “We’re not feeling any disadvantage to keeping them common,” Grewe said during a virtual session at the Jefferies and BNP Paribas Exane 2022 Spring Autos Conference. “Because of this fundamental building block approach and the ability to say we have this data farm in Ultifi, we’ve made the investments in the infrastructure and technology to say we’re keeping (EV and ICE) together. And we’re benefiting from that.”
GM already has two proprietary systems for its electric vehicles – Ultifi for software connectivity and Ultium for batteries and EV platforms. As Grewe points out, this enables GM to develop innovations for an EV, then adopt it to ICE vehicles afterward. “This way you can flex your workforce between the two because they’ve got those common systems and common language,” Grewe said. “It’s mostly common culture of the innovation. This year we can work on the Ultium platform and you can take those learnings and apply it from the EV Silverado right into the traditional Silverado and make both of them better.”
The Ford reorganization plan is taking a much different approach by splitting up the automaker’s business and using smaller teams to develop future models, asking dealers to specialize in one of its product offerings, and focusing on improving quality as a way to cut costs. However, GM isn’t the only rival to shun this approach, as Stellantis CEO Carlos Tavares recently panned The Blue Oval’s plan publically as well.
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