General Motors’ second-quarter earnings report is out, and there’s red ink to report.

Hammered by the coronavirus-related shutdown of its domestic manufacturing facilities and a corresponding sales slide, the automaker reported an $800 million loss in Q2 — a far cry from the rosy, $2.42 billion profit it saw a year earlier.

GM’s cash burn was also a five-alarm affair, but one element of the report was hardly depressing at all: the company’s Chinese sales. (Read More…)

Here at TTAC World Headquarters, we’re all in lockstep agreement that Cadillac’s electric vehicle naming strategy is both awesome and timeless. Names like Lyriq and Celestiq defy any and all attempts at derision and joke-making.

With that lie out of the way, let’s move on to the next addition to the brand’s EV stable: Symboliq. (Read More…)

No, General Motors hasn’t tapped an army of virus-resistant robot workers from Boston Dynamics to build its bread-and-butter models; rather, the pickups themselves will undergo changes to boost appeal amid potent competition from Detroit rivals.

Sometime next year, The General’s full-sizers will reportedly correct a mistake that held the duo back upon their debut. (Read More…)

Putting aside your author’s own predilection for traditional sedans (a kink shared by many a TTAC resident, but fewer and fewer buyers), one can understand why General Motors canned its Chevrolet Sonic, Cruze, Volt, and Impala, and why Buick stands to become a utility-only brand come 2021.

Less understandable, especially after last week, is why one newish model arrived in its present form. And it seems some people at GM are wondering that, too. (Read More…)

General Motors CEO Mary Barra predicted a brief recession and streamlined economic recovery in a recent interview. Mixed in with favorable coverage of how the company saved Michigan’s Governor Gretchen Whitmer by manufacturing personal protective equipment intended to combat the pandemic, the Detroit Free Press took time out to get Barra’s expert opinion on various subjects.

She mused that a 300-mile range will be the sweet spot for GM’s electric vehicles, noting that the company may eventually offer distances in excess of that with its new Ultium platform, and touted the merits of the Inclusion Advisory Board she recently placed herself at the head of. Things began to get more substantive when she attempted to predict how long the economy would languish as a result of COVID-19 lockdowns (Read More…)

It’s a big maybe, but it’s something GM Defense — General Motors’ military arm — would like to see happen.

We’re talking about the looming GMC Hummer EV pickup, a massive, un-Nissan Leaf-like electric vehicle originally scheduled for a May 20th debut. While the launch is postponed to a hazy future date, the model’s future applications remain, for now, unlimited. (Read More…)

Sure, we joke about the Blazer and question the need for tweeners like the Trailblazer (while lamenting what both names have become), but there’s no denying that General Motors’ Chevrolet Equinox is a sales juggernaut, topping all other GM CUVs in sales by a mile. And there’s a lot of CUVs to top.

Customers seem to like what they see in the current-generation Equinox, though one option stands to disappear for 2021. We can now confirm a recent report that Chevy plans to drop the model’s optional turbocharged 2.0-liter engine. (Read More…)

General Motors’ pledge to introduce 20 electric vehicles by 2023 sounded great to tech-obsessed investors and granola types, but the exact nature of these products, for the most part, remained hazy.

Sure, the Hummer name’s coming back, attached to a massive (and massively powerful) GMC pickup, and the Chevrolet Bolt’s getting a sibling, but what about the rest? Well, there’s news on that front. (Read More…)

Maybe the military will still be able to get one, but the cash-consuming coronavirus pandemic appears to have nixed any chance that a normal consumer will be able to slide into a fuel cell-powered General Motors vehicle anytime soon.

Good news for Honda, Toyota, and Hyundai? (Read More…)

According to a report in the Detroit Free Press, General Motors’ truck plants now resemble Tesla plants on the eve of the end of a fiscal quarter.

The need to crank out as many pickups as possible — essential for replenishing a depleted inventory while boosting flagging sales figures — has apparently brought both management and laid-off workers to the assembly line. (Read More…)

The decision to saddle the first all-electric Cadillac model with a name like “Lyriq” was made all the more eyebrow-raising when the second-in-line EV Caddy’s name cropped up: Celestiq. Stop it already! What’s going on here, many asked. While eager for a break from the de Nysschen days of alphanumeric gobbledygook, some were not ready for this particular naming convention.

So what’s the deal here? Cadillac explains. (Read More…)

Cadillac President Steve Carlisle just got a promotion. Following the announced departure of General Motors North America President Barry Engle, GM tapped the 58-year-old Canadian for the spot.

Arriving at Cadillac in 2018 after the ouster of former brand boss Johan de Nysschen, Carlisle has overseen the introduction of new product and the development of the first of Cadillac’s future range of electric vehicles. It’s a direction GM’s pursuing heavily across all brands, making Carlisle an obvious pick for Engle’s job. (Read More…)

General Motors’ racketeering lawsuit against rival Fiat Chrysler is dead in the water after a federal judge dismissed the case on Wednesday.

The move comes after GM appealed U.S. District Court Judge Paul Borman’s order that the CEOs of the battling automakers should meet in private and hash out a resolution themselves. The General won half of its appeal, and the meeting was scrapped, but Borman, who described the lawsuit as a “nuclear” option that only served to clog up the courts in a time of COVID-19, stayed on the case — against GM’s wishes.

Now, the case has come to an end, though the battle might still rage on. (Read More…)

The seemingly cursed mid-engined Chevrolet Corvette, aka the C8, probably spends its nights dreaming of clear skies and a vaccine. Early development problems, a lengthy strike, a deferred production start, then a pandemic-prompted production shutdown all conspired to make for a hellish entry into the world for the new-generation 2020 ‘Vette.

For 2021, the entry-level Stingray model doesn’t try anything wild, maintaining its entry price while adding a few things buyers might like… and one thing no one asked for. (Read More…)

This was a long time coming. In fact, Wednesday’s announcement of the discontinuation of the Chevrolet Sonic subcompact was expected to arrive by the end of last year, not halfway through the present one.

Regardless, the small hatchback and sedan that greeted buyers near the outset of the 2010s will not last more than a year into the 2020s. It’s dead come October.

Sad? (Read More…)