General Motors: History, Innovation, Legacy
Learn about General Motors’ rich history and outstanding innovations, from its founding in 1908 to its leadership in electrical and autonomous vehicle technology.
- Barra highlighted the challenges to EV production planning amid regulatory and industry hurdles.
- Barra was introduced to GM’s partnership with Hyundai after meeting with the executive chairman that day.
When General Motors announced its historic move from the Renaissance Center on the Detroit Riverfront to the Woodward Avenue space, CEO Maryborough announced that the new venue will be “a very personal venue for me.”
Growing up in Waterford, Michigan, Rose has favourite memories of Kimuko’s stunning Christmas lights when her family visited the JL Hudson department store.
“My mother takes my siblings and me here and we shop in the store only for the kids. It was this really cool area, smaller than this room you can enter. For me it was my $7 dollars and I would buy Christmas presents without my parents.”
Hudson closed its downtown location in 1983, and in 1998 the building collapsed, leaving vacant ground plots.
On September 11th, Barra said it was the annual industry event for publications held in Hudson’s division on stage at Automotive News Congress. This will feature event space under the new GM Global HQ in the new Hudson Detroit Building.
GM has agreed to the first 15-year multi-level lease on the top office floor of the Woodward building, part of billionaire Dan Gilbert’s Hudson development.
“We wanted to stay in Detroit, and it’s our home, but we also knew how our business was changing and how we did it,” Bala said. “We are excited to work with (Gilbert) and can’t wait to move in January.”
Barra submitted questions about GM’s business outlook and Barra’s reflections on her time leading the biggest Detroit car maker at the auto news event on September 11th.
Barra on GM’s EVS Resilience
Ten years after GM developed a strategy to develop a complete portfolio of electric vehicles across product types, the earthquake issue has repeatedly passed through the industry, putting a burden on the company’s capital.
After a serious restructuring following the automaker’s bankruptcy, “unprecedented events” baffled the industry as GM worked to chart new courses of the US propulsion system that suited global trends well..
“We’ve been through a lot as a country, a world, a country as an industry. You’re thinking about Covid, the semiconductor shortage, the impact it’s had on suppliers. And we’re still working through it while dealing with tariffs and a rather big shift from a regulatory perspective,” Bala said. “Until a year ago, we were on a journey into a regulated environment where we had to drive an EV.”
Customer interest has grown with electric vehicles, she said, but not with clips that are fast enough to justify the original manufacturing plan. GM has repeatedly changed production to meet consumer needs. The balance of vehicle inventory is currently being purchased with appliances that the company invests key capital and plans to premiere.
Part of the challenge was that before deciding which vehicles to produce as gas operations or battery electricity, Bala said, he knew how long the company could postpone.
“In the past few years, if we started a new program, I got the information, ‘OK, when do we really need to decide what we’re doing? And what were the milestones along the way?” and then I said, ‘Yes, I’m going to do that program from internal combustion.’ “You have to do things based on a lot of scenarios.”
GM’s SpringHill manufacturing plant in SpringHill, Tennessee provides a blueprint for the automaker’s flexible strategy, she said. This is because the plant was converted to produce both gasoline-powered vehicles and battery electricity at the same site.
About GM’s Hyundai Partnership
Barra met with Euisun Chung, executive chair of Hyundai Motor Group on September 11th, she said. Chung was also recognized at the Automotive News event.
GM and Hyundai signed a non-binding memorandum in September 2024 to share the vehicle by “reviewing opportunities to review regional procurement opportunities such as battery raw materials, steel and other areas.”
The company said it will jointly develop five vehicles on August 6th. Four of them are targeting the Central and South American markets, and support both internal combustion and hybrid powertrains, as well as one electric van for North America.
Barra did not reveal details of their arguments, but said the relationship moved beyond the memorandum of understanding, and that companies “actually work together.”
“We had a meeting that said we were very productive. I think the automotive industry can do a better job of sharing (research and development) dollars and capital sharing (research and development), especially in areas that face non-customers that don’t distinguish us,” Bala said. “When we started a conversation with Hyundai, we found a partner who shared that view. We approached those looking for victory/winning.”
About vehicle design
Regardless of the propulsion system, GM’s goal, leading in product desirability, has enabled mass sales during the post-crisis crisis, Bala said.
When asked who he believed to be the most influential figure in the automotive industry of the past century, Harley Earl, the industry’s first automotive designer and ancestor of the GM design department, quickly became his 50th year.
“Nothing happens in our business until we sell a vehicle. The vehicle must be beautiful. I’ll give that design team that credit,” Bala said. “We’re not just in the exercise business. We’re part of the fashion business.”
Jackie Charniga covers General Motors for the Free Press. Contact her at jcharniga@freepress.com.
