SAI Weekly 16 - 25: GM Making Moves, Unpacking Slate Auto, Don't forget about 🇨🇳 AV Inc
GM coming strong with some announcements this week.
First, a hire (or a poach depending on how you want to look at it) coming on the heels of reviews of the semi-controversial Celestiq. While also announcing a potential breakthrough on battery tech. One that could in the words of my friend Steve Levine “could break the stranglehold on global battery chemical industry…” by the Chinese.
Fresh off of launching an autonomous, non-safety driver, semi-truck OTR freight delivery pilot between Dallas and Texas with Aurora Innovation last month, co-founder of Aurora Sterling Anderson decided that although he’s had enough of autonomous delivery semi’s, he’s not had enough of the transportation space, at least on the passenger vehicle side.
Sterling was poached from GM to become its Chief Product Officer, a newly created position (that seems to add a layer to management) that will report to GM President Mark Reuss. According to the GM press release, he’ll oversee the ‘end-to-end product lifecycle for both gas and electric-powered vehicles, including hardware, software, services, and user experience.’
That’s a VERY broad definition which means its gotta ruffle some feathers of the incumbents. But guess what – if folks can’t get it done, legacy auto management need to get folks in that can. That’s called competency and competition.
I looked at this as a net positive, although when I texted a few people to hear their reactions, ALL ex-GM’ers, they all thought he wasn’t long for the role or company. I even made a bet with one of them, with the over / under being 15 months.
Looking at this in totality, the team they’re establishing in Mountain View where Sterling Anderson will be based, along with the Kurt Kelty hire – seems like GM is giving itself a mulligan for its past sins when trying to transform the organization into a more technology forward one.
Let’s list some of the very public stumbles over the last few years: The battery fiasco. The Cruise mess. The software snafus on the Blazer. Cancelling the Bolt. China market tanking. Writing a $25B check to buy back shares when much of that could’ve been used to bolster the business.
Further, reviews are trickling out on the Celestiq – a halo car for Cadillac. Caddy is making moves for sure. They had a BIG presence at AutoShanghai 2025.
They even had something go viral on Chinese social, which gave Caddy additional exposure:
Caddy is also entering F1 – all indications are that they want to be a player and think there’s room for them to take customers from Merc / Bimmer / Audi / Genesis / Lexus / Infiniti as the transition to clean energy for those companies has been pretty bumpy (w/ exception of Genesis).
Am I a fan of the Celestiq? Kinda sorta. I think the rear quarter looks unfinished, am not a fan of how the brake lights float and wrap around, but aren’t blended into anything. The Lyriq has similar styling.
That said, I love the ambition – if you’re going down, go down with a roar, not a wimper. Do they have their work cut out for themselves, they sure do, but there’s a pulse.
Some specs that need to be bumped up. 400V architecture. 307 mile range (likely on the best days ONLY). I am also not a fan of the interior’s simplicity. It’s just too simple. Now, I’ve not sat in it and haven’t tried out the infotainment stack so perhaps, the visual 2D pictures and videos don’t do it justice and I’ll be wowed if / when I am able to get inside. Again, love the ambition and I hope that, unlike in the past, they continue to push forward and continue to not try to hit for average.
I am a fan of many of these moves by GM, although I can’t really say I am being objective here – I want them to be successful. Setting my bias aside for a few minutes, I believe that Kurt and Sterling know what they’re doing and therefore, must be drinking the GM kool aid that was concocted by Mary and Mark.
Since Mary is considered a short-timer by most, could there be a Game of Thrones type management fight between Reuss and Anderson to be her replacement? I was told Kelty reports to Anderson. I doubt it, although I think a CEO with less auto experience isn’t such a bad thing.
Speaking of big news from GM, they also announced this week the development of a new battery chemistry they hope will reduce the pack cost by as much as $6K!
I also love that there seems to be a Product Manager now, how that contrasts with the VLE’s (Vehicle Line Executive) of the past from GM remains to be seen, but I’ll dig a bit to find out more. I also feel there’s starting to be more clashes from the new blood and old with the old not wanting to budge on how they do things. That’s not going to work because almost everything that the General and other legacy automakers do needs to change. And get faster, much faster.
In other GM news, LMR chemistry the gamechanger GM wants it to be? Kurt Kelty seems to think it can save $6K / pack for each full size truck / SUV they use it with. That’s because it takes much of the nickel and cobalt out of the cathode and replaces it with Manganese. LMR stands for Lithium Manganese Rich. I hope they’re able to round the corner on this. Kurt wasn’t around when their latest battery fiasco occured, let’s hope his thick book of lessons learned get them closer to commercialization on this emerging tech.
Then all they’d need to do is get the UX / software development right. Piece of cake!!!
BIGGEST NEWS THIS WEEK
I’ve had an opportunity to noodle on the Slate Auto unveil and am ready to give my $.02 now.
Let me qualify this before I give my ‘BUT’ statement. I love the approach Slate is taking here. We need MORE affordable clean energy vehicles. GM is starting to hit its stride with the Equinox, Blazer and soon to be re-booted Bolt, but there is room for more ambitious startups that want to address an underserved market.
As you can see, I am trying to put as many qualifiers as I can upfront before I articulate my doubts. It’s a cool little car, something I’d even consider to scoot around town.
BUT
These are my concerns. First, there’s no way it’s gonna come in at $25K. If pricing gets anywhere near $40K, wouldn’t I just get a Maverick?
Simple is a design aesthetic, but when has de-contenting ever been a great strategy in the automotive sector. Tesla is looking to do that with its Model Y in order to push out the inevitable – a major slowdown in sales, although Elon has really accelerated that all on his own.
Next, if I am driving on I-75 in my Slate sandwiched between a Chevy Tahoe on one side and a Ford F150 on the other, I have a good feeling who’s not gonna win that fight.
There are already some really cool companies like Alpha Motor, Telo Trucks, Strut Motors, granted they don’t have Daddy Bezos bankrolling them, but he’s not going to throw good money after bad and I’ve heard they’ve raised about $700M so far. That’s a start. They’ll likely need another $1.5B to get to Job #1 and if they continue to be miserly, maybe the first batch of production units off the line. And I am not confident they get Job #1 out by end of 2026.
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GM > Tesla in EV sales in China. Yep, you read that right. GM (5.7%) outsold Tesla (3.2) in China in April, granted many of those vehicles sold by GM are Wuling branded vehicles that are much less expensive generally than their Tesla counterparts, but I bet GM is gonna take this win any way it can get it. GM has a way before they’ll dethrone Tesla in the US (114K vs. 633K), but if Tesla can’t find a new hit to supplement sales of Juniper, this is going to be a very slow slog for Tesla through the end of this decade.
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Porsche had its way in China for about 84 quarters starting in 2001, continuous growth in that market. Printing money. That was until 2 years ago when it started stalling.
Now it’s in complete freefall. Who oversaw this massive decline of Porsche in China you ask? Oliver Blume, Porsche global CEO since 2015. He also happens to be CEO of Volkswagen Group. Should he really be either?
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An autonomous vehicle rental service launching? In China. It’s being piloted by Baidu. This past trip, I tried to focus on seat time in new cars and not so much on the latest versions of robotaxis. That’ll be remedied later this year and one company I am looking to try out again is Baidu. I’ve been able to try out their service most times I’ve been back since I normally head to BJ for a few days and can schedule a ride whenever I am there.
But the thought of being able to rent an autonomous vehicle is enormous. As we cheer on Waymo, Zoox and Nuro who’ve all launched or will be launching pilots that total in the dozens or maybe hundreds of cars – Baidu has more than 400 in Wuhan alone.
As the world begins to pay attention to China’s impact on EVs. They better be able to keep their eyes on the progress being made on the robotaxi side – and not just follow the stumbles of one man’s ego and empty rhetoric who still hasn’t launched anything in Austin. Because Baidu is also going to be launching a robotaxi service – in Europe later this year.
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A Pony catches fire. One of Pony AI’s robotaxis caught fire in BJ this week. No one was inside or hurt and it looks like it was detected by the team who initiated a response in order to minimize any risks.
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Wunderkind Austin Russell OUT at Luminar. LiDAR is a TOUGH business. Especially when companies like Hesai, Robosense and Innovusion keep pulling prices down. Luminar tried to be a premium LiDAR supplier, unfortunately there just seems to be no such thing.
QUOTED
Had a nice chat with friend of SAI, Junko Yoshida who wrote a piece comparing and contrasting Geely vs. VW Group strategies on managing the clean energy transition. Great piece that I contributed a small bit to. Click the link here to get to the article.
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My read on BYD’s global ambitions. Had a good chat with Nick Carey from Reuters about his piece on BYD communicating openly it’s ambitions to be 50% global by 2030. With everything they’ve accomplished the last several years, who are we to doubt their capabilities??? Read the piece here.
BY THE NUMBERS
£5. Or $6.6M, that’s how much the most expensive exotic you can buy in 2025 costs. And it’s from Red Bull. It’s called the RB17 and it’s effectively a street legal, hybrid (with a V10) F1 car that redlines at 15K RPM and weighs <1 ton.
CHINA EVs & MORE
Episode #208 - Reflections: AutoShanghai2025, Roadtrip: Beijing to Shanghai
Episode #209, Friday - 9am ET. We are live on these platforms: YouTube, Linkedin and X. See you there!
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This weekly newsletter is a collection of articles we feel best reflect the happenings of the week or important trends that have effects on the global automotive and mobility sectors. We also provide a point of view that we hope educates and sparks debate.
The Sino Auto Insights team