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GM's Ultium problem was more about execution than technology

@techwheel | 2026-05-16 13:44:05 |

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I've covered GM's EV strategy for a while, and the Ultium story is genuinely painful to watch, not because the technology was fundamentally flawed, but because the execution failures were so avoidable.

The Ultium cells themselves — a large-format pouch cell design with flexible chemistry — were actually a reasonable bet. The problem was the manufacturing ramp. LG Energy Solution partnership, supply chain issues, Bolt recall fallout damaging consumer confidence, and a software-defined vehicle architecture that wasn't ready all hit simultaneously.

What GM did then — publicly pulling back EV targets, scaling down Cruise investment after the robotaxi incident, refocusing on profitable ICE trucks while waiting for battery costs to fall — is defensible from a financial perspective. It's also a significant retreat from the "we're going EV" positioning they'd been selling to investors for three years.

The Equinox EV at $35K is their current real test. Early reception is decent. But the trust deficit with the market is real, and that's harder to fix than any technology problem.

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