All posts tagged: General Motors

TechCrunch Mobility: SpaceX rockets past Tesla

TechCrunch Mobility: SpaceX rockets past Tesla

Published by skeptic

Welcome back to TechCrunch Mobility, your hub for the future of transportation and now, more than ever, how AI is playing a part. To get this in your inbox, sign up here for free — just click TechCrunch Mobility! I won’t spend too much time rehashing the SpaceX IPO — every media outlet, including TechCrunch, has spilled enormous amounts of digital ink on the company’s first day of trading. But there are two important data points to note for anyone who closely watches the “future of transportation” industry. As of market close Friday, SpaceX has a market cap of $2.1 trillion, rocketing past Musk’s other publicly traded company, Tesla. SpaceX is currently the sixth most valuable U.S.-listed company, behind Nvidia, Apple, Alphabet, Microsoft, and Amazon. Tesla’s market cap was $1.52 trillion as of market close. These two companies could soon become one. There have been plenty of hints and speculation. Last week, senior reporter Sean O’Kane spotted new language in SpaceX’s S-1 document that warns investors of future dilution. The additional sentence reads, “We may …

GM Wants Your Electric Car to Power Your House—and Your Neighborhood

GM Wants Your Electric Car to Power Your House—and Your Neighborhood

Published by skeptic

Still, Wade Scheffer, GM Energy’s vice president, insists: The reason more people aren’t using their cars to power their lives comes down to “awareness, awareness, and awareness.” To that end, at Tuesday’s event the subsidiary announced two partnerships with utilities: a “stress test” of bidirectional charging capabilities with 30 GM employees, enabled by Michigan’s DTE Energy, and a plan to get 52,000 GM EVs on PG&E’s major Northern California grid by 2030. The automaker says it’s worked out dozens of partnerships with other utilities. Still, getting all of those GM cars hooked up and contributing to the grid will be a long and likely winding road. Not all states are enthusiastic about EVs or new energy tech right now. And even in early adopter states, where lawmakers are gung ho about innovative climate and energy policies, vehicle-to-grid tech is still in its early stages. It took researchers with the University of California at Irvine several years of collaboration with Kia and Hyundai to get a vehicle-to-home charging project up and running in six Southern California …

TechCrunch Mobility: Inside GM’s 0M EV battery gamble

TechCrunch Mobility: Inside GM’s $900M EV battery gamble

Published by skeptic

Welcome back to TechCrunch Mobility — your central hub for news and insights on the future of transportation. To get this in your inbox, sign up here for free — just click TechCrunch Mobility! Senior reporter (and resident battery expert) Tim De Chant traveled to General Motors’ sprawling Warren Technical Center outside Detroit to learn more about the automaker’s plans to reduce the cost of its next slate of EVs. The upshot: GM is banking on LMR batteries and a new Battery Cell Development Center that is viewed as the bridge between its R&D efforts and full-scale production.  Kurt Kelty, GM’s VP of battery and sustainability, provided fresh details about the company’s $900 million initiative and how this new chemistry will preserve range while slashing costs. For instance, the Chevrolet Silverado EV could be $6,000 cheaper. Read the story here. As with most companies these days, AI also makes a cameo appearance. Although I should note that AI plays more than just a supporting role at GM. I recently interviewed Sterling Anderson, GM’s chief product officer, …

Do U.S. Automakers Have a Future in Canada?

Do U.S. Automakers Have a Future in Canada?

Published by Sam Flores

When General Motors of Canada underwent a model changeover in 1999 at its sprawling factory complex in Oshawa, Ontario, the last Chevrolet Lumina to come off the line went on a monthlong farewell tour. It was wheeled around the factory, and employees signed their names in permanent marker on its white paint. No one at the Canadian Automotive Museum in Oshawa, where the Lumina is now displayed, has counted the signatures. But in 1999, roughly 22,000 unionized G.M. employees could have taken a pen to the car. G.M.’s dominance of Oshawa, east of Toronto, for nearly a century was part of the giant footprint U.S. automakers long enjoyed in Canada — a presence that has gone into a steep, accelerating retreat as President Trump wages economic war against Canada. Across the river from Detroit, Chrysler, now part of Stellantis, once economically ruled the city of Windsor, Ontario, from its assembly plant. And Oakville, Ontario, part of the Toronto metro area, was practically a Ford company town, with two giant plants and corporate offices. At the …

TechCrunch Mobility: The AI skills arms race is coming for automotive

TechCrunch Mobility: The AI skills arms race is coming for automotive

Published by skeptic

Welcome back to TechCrunch Mobility — your central hub for news and insights on the future of transportation. To get this in your inbox, sign up here for free — just click TechCrunch Mobility! There is a bit of a theme emerging in transportation — and really every industry: AI is creating jobs for some at the loss of others.  General Motors, for instance, laid off more than 10% of its IT department, or about 600 salaried employees — in a deliberate skills swap. This won’t translate into a one-to-one exchange, which means there will likely be a net-negative job loss. But GM insists it is hiring and those layoffs have made room for it to recruit IT people with AI-focused backgrounds. The most sought-after capabilities are AI-native development, data engineering and analytics, cloud-based engineering, agent and model development, prompt engineering, and new AI workflows. In practical terms, GM is looking for people who know how to build with AI from the ground up — designing the systems, training the models, and engineering the pipelines …

After Struggling With EVs, US Automakers Pivot to Energy

After Struggling With EVs, US Automakers Pivot to Energy

Published by skeptic

Tesla’s energy storage business is the elder statesman, at more than a decade old. Growth in its Powerwall (battery storage for homes) and Megapack (battery storage for utilities and commercial facilities) sales has, in recent years, helped to compensate for a drop in EV sales, though last quarter saw a sudden drop in energy revenue. Still, Tesla is moving forward with its plans to launch a Houston facility dedicated to a new, larger Megapack later this year. In total, 11 battery cell manufacturing plants are being retooled for energy storage, according to a March count by BloombergNEF, with eight of those in the US. Drive Time One reason investors are so bullish about battery energy storage is their continued enthusiasm for AI. AI companies need data centers, and data centers need energy. Batteries are a great fit for data centers, says Shan Tomouk, who leads battery energy storage research at Benchmark Mineral Intelligence, a research firm focused on battery supply chains. Batteries can help directly power the very energy-hungry centers, which constantly run servers and …

The 19 Most Exciting Cars at the Beijing Auto Show 2026

The 19 Most Exciting Cars at the Beijing Auto Show 2026

Published by skeptic

While major motor shows in Europe and the United States are being forced to downsize or change their format, those in China continue to expand. With 1,451 vehicles on display, including 181 world premieres, the 2026 Beijing International Automotive Exhibition 2026 (also known as Auto China 2026) has become the largest auto show in history—and that’s in terms of both exhibition space and the number of vehicles on display. This fact itself reflects a shift in the center of gravity of the automotive industry, but that’s not all. A much larger structural transformation is actually taking place in China today. Previously, the focus was on low-priced electric vehicle models, but now price is no longer the primary point of competition. At the show, not only were there many high-end EVs and large SUVs from Chinese manufacturers equipped with advanced driver-assistance technologies and AI functions, but these technologies are also rapidly spreading to the lower price range. Chinese manufacturers’ cars offer many technologically impressive features. Lidar sensors, which use lasers for advanced driver assistance, are now …

The FTC’s data-sharing order against GM is finally settled

The FTC’s data-sharing order against GM is finally settled

Published by skeptic

The Federal Trade Commission said Wednesday it has finalized an order that bans General Motors and its OnStar telematics service from sharing certain consumer data with consumer reporting agencies. The finalized order, which comes a year after the agency reached a proposed settlement with GM, also requires the automaker to be more transparent with its consumers and obtain their explicit consent on any data collection. The finalized order comes nearly two years after a New York Times report showed how GM and OnStar collected, used, and sold drivers’ precise geolocation data and driving behavior to third parties, including data brokers LexisNexis and Verisk. The data was collected through GM’s Smart Driver program, a free feature contained within its connected car apps that tracked and rated driving behaviors and seatbelt use. Data brokers sold this information to insurance providers, which could affect customers’ rates, the NYT reported at the time. GM discontinued the Smart Driver program in April 2024 across all of its brands, citing customer feedback. GM said at the time it unenrolled all customers …