Cadillac Drives Into Electric Vehicle Future

be a major player in all of it. Cadillac, in fact, is looking to be an all electric company by the year twenty thirty. Joining us now is Rory Harvey, Global vice president of Cadillac. He joins us on the phone from New York City. Rory, how are you? It'll be fine, thanks yourself, Juan, Well, thanks, it's really it's really great to have you. Um, why go electric now? Why is why is now the right time versus a few years ago? Yeah?

I guess you know. There are multiple factors that coming to play that, and one is is the market at option ready for these? The second is is the infrastructure out there? The third is other capabilities there? The fourth is are the demander or is the demand there. I think there's lots of different data sources. I'm sure that you have access to many of them that you extrapolate what is going to happen with eb adoption. And from our perspective, we think now that the time is right

absolutely to put up on the accelerated panel. We have a great portfolio today of icicles, but we think now is the time to compliment that word switching to eving. So I'm going to ask a different question that why does it Why is it going to take to twenty thirty? Why not sooner? Especially when you've got you know, a company like Tesla that has definitely at this point is out front and center and has the first mover advantage. They're now ranked is the world's most valuable car company

by far. You've got Ruvian supporting this second house market cap among US carmakers despite having no sales revenue yet. I mean, that's a topic for another conversation. So I'm just curious, you know, why not try and do it sooner rather than later? Is it logistically it's just got to take this amount of time. No, I think it's a it's balancing basically, what we need to do, what we need to do in terms of market opportunity with our ice vehicles, what we need to do in terms

of evs. So as an example, if you looked at the Lyric, which will be the first EV in terms of luxury crossover from Cadillac, we pulled that forward by nine months. So we brought that forward and accelerated it to the back end of March in twenty two. That will be followed by the Celestique, which will be an

ultra luxury brand. And indeed, you know, without giving the time in a way of all of the product portfolio, if you look at GM across the board, we will have thirty products by twenty five that are EV variants, with about sixty of those sold in the US. So there is a fairly aggressive introduction of the evs moving forward.

I guess the thirty time scale is, you know, the period of time when we would be selling the last ice vehicles from the Cadillac perspective, but we will certainly be in the market much earlier than that compliment in our ice vehicle cells. With EVY vehicles. You know, Tim and I talk or a lot about um wanting our next car to be an electric vehicle. Uh, Tim lives in the city. I lived just outside the city. In the urban environment, you do wonder about, Okay, how the

heck am I going to charge this puppy? How much of your timing also is thinking about the bigger, broader infrastructure problems that I feel like we've been talking about for a few years that in order for evs to really come, you need to have the EV support network to be there as well, especially when it comes to charging. You're absolutely right, Carol, I mean that's that's fundamental. And if you look at some of the metropolitan areas, you

know there's a big push in terms of infrastructure. If you look at some of the legislation and some of the activities that the states are putting in place, you have AMENDMENTUM is really starting to build. But it's a it's a fundamental issue in terms of being able to

facilitate demand with customer convenience. And from that point of view, you know, there's a number of things that we're doing, whether it be working with our dealer partners to put charging stations in place that we made an announcement the week before last. In terms of that, whether it be our mobile app, which basically gives customers the ability to be able to determine where to charge, which charges are up,

and NY minimum downtime, et cetera. But it is one of the challenges that the industry places in terms of ensuring, particularly in some of those densely populated areas, that the infrastructure is there. So again, that's part of the reason that at the moment we have the need to be able to satisfy customers from a nice vehicle perspective, but also from an ev perspective. Hey, Rory, is you know when it comes to battery charging stations, how much of

it is the private sector responsibility? How much is it public sector? Is it a little bit of both? I think it's a it's a little bit of both, you know. I think it's uh, it's down to the incentives that are available. It's down to the distribution. It's down to private companies because there's a business opportunity, it's down to public I think this one is a team effort in terms of putting the infrastructure in place. I did want to ask you about I mentioned Tessa and now ranked

as the world's most valuable car company. Get Rivian it's boring the second highest market cap among US car makers. How do you see Tessa and Rivian in the overall auto market? Yeah, I guess that's an interesting question. To be a very candidate, I'd prefer to talk about GM and and how we sit in the overall market, because you know, we have our vision of the car company, which has zero crashings, zero emissions of the zero congestion, and we believe that that's a key catalyst for growth.

There's no doubt that there are incremental competitors that have come into the industry over the recent past, and that some of those are having successes. As you mentioned earlier in your opening, some of them at the moment have sold a very limited amount of vehicles. But I think the the exciting part from my perspective is that I think that this is an incredible opportunity for General Motors, and I think it's a great investment opportunity for us

in terms of growth. We had an invested day probably about a month ago now, where again we put forward our strategy, which was to double our revenue by whilst also expanding our margins. So I think if you look at some of the data points, it just shows the

opportunity that there is for general motors. But do you think that there, you know, some of the disruption that's going on the auto market actually last because of some of these upstarts, or do you think time will tell in terms of whether or not the traditional automakers that are around for a long time ultimately take the lead. And just got about thirty seconds and then we'll come back and talk some more. Yeah, I think it'll be a combination of both. I think there's a lot of

changes that have happened in the marketplace. There's a lot of disruption, there's a lot of new thinking, and I think from a general modus perspective, how comes to the fact that you know, I do believe that this is an exciting opportunity, and I believe that we've got robust plans, and I think that we've got plans that will enable

us to lead. I gotta say it does feel good that everybody's all in an electrification, certainly coming off of Cup twenty six, and we continue to watch, uh the environment. At this point, we're gonna we just got to get rid of our I'm ready. I mean, we're definitely ready and thinking about the next car Rory Harvey. We're going to come back with him. He's global vice president of Cadillac overseeing their day to day operations there. This is Bloomberg Radio. You want to get back to our guest

here on business week. Rory Harvey is still with US global vice president of Cadillac on the phone in New York City. Hey, Rory, you know, I'm thinking about GM and they're all in on UM electric vehicles. Cadillac obviously a key part of that component UM. I am curious about in the transitioning, especially at a time where we're talking so much about supply chains. Are you guys able at this point to get all the raw materials, the minerals and things that you need to easily and continue

to make this transition and keep to your timeline. Yes, So I guess there's a There's a couple of parts for that, so I will I'll answer it first in terms of relating to semi conductors, which is one of the challenges that the closed automotive industry is is facing today. So you know that has been a challenge throughout the course of one and it's still a challenge today. Having said that, I would say that you know, we are

seeing a better flow of chips now. There's been a terrific amount of work that has been done with the supply chain, indeed, getting more involved and deeper into the supply chain to be able to secure the right level of supply of chips and moves and forward. Um. It

is going to continue into two. But as an example, if you looked at North America and our plants in North America, we've got the majority of them for general motors back up and running, and indeed, as of Monday of this week, every single Cadillac plant in North America is now operational. So that step one in terms of getting inventories to recover so that we can fulfill what is very strong customer demand at the moment um. So we're looking forward to some stability coming during the course

of two. There. Then in addition in terms of you know, the materials that are required going forward in terms of batteries UM. Again, we've made some recent announcements in terms of some of the ventures and infrastructures that we're putting in place to ensure that we can secure the right levels of supply to enable and support the transition as we need to and at this particular point in time, there is absolutely no delays to our EV platforms in

terms of rollout schedule. Indeed, I mentioned earlier that we're looking to pull the lyric ahead by nine months versus the original plan, so we will start producing that vehicle in March of two. As Carol mentioned, you've been pretty much a General Motors for pretty much your whole career, right, that's correct, thirty two years, and so well, contextualize the shift, the shift to electric vehicles for us, and how big of a shift that's happening inside General Motors and inside

Cadillac right now? Is this the biggest shift you've seen during your entire career? I would say so, Um, you know, thirty two years is a long time, and I think you know, I would say to somebody that there's been more changes in the automotive industry in the last five years than there were in the twenty seven years that I've experienced before that, and there'll be more changes in the next two years than there's been in the last five years. So the pace of change is absolutely dramatic

at the moment. And this is no doubt in my mind, the biggest shift that we would have seen in my period in the automotive industry. It's interesting what you know as we moved through this shift. What is it that I guess isn't the major risk to it progressing as you hope when you look at you know your timeline and as you said, you moved it up for the lyric. But what is the biggest risk to all of this? Yeah, I think you know one of the the challenges that you've got. I'm not sure if I describe it as

a risk. Is the pace of change and the rate of adoption, the rate of infrastructure, the range anxiety UH, customer's ability to be able to charge, etcetera. So I think there's a number of elements that peeped together in terms of the jigsaw, and I wouldn't say that it's a risk overrul in terms of the change. I would say it's a time and impact in terms of how aggressive is the adoption rate of EV is going to be UM So I think it's more in terms of a question as to when rather than if, Well, you

know what worry. One thing I do think about and there's something to be said like, oh wait, my brother just got an e V, right and you start to see it and you understand it. I do wonder what's the tipping point? Ultimately? Is it that all of a sudden you see I mean, I've certainly seen a lot more evs on the road that I have in a long time. I felt like I used to go to California and I'd see a fair amount, But now I'm seeing them, I feel like all over the place, and

there's a variety. Um, but what do you feel like will be that ultimate tipping point for Do we need the governments to continue to give some kind of you know, tax incentive or tax breaker? What is it? Yeah? I think again, I don't think it's one thing that's going to do the tipping point. I think you're absolutely spot on, you know, seeing other people in the vehicles, hearing other people's experiences in terms of the vehicles, look at the

penetrations of e vs over in California. Tax credits are obviously something that will help us take in terms of being a tipping point for some. Infrastructure will help in terms of being a tipping point for some. And I think it's a culmination of all these factors. And then it's just really a question is to the rate of momentum and the rate of change. So I'm just trying to think about the rate of change and how fitting that into the context of what we think about when

it comes to the environment. Is it Is it happening fast enough? Certainly from our perspective, you know, from a from a Cadillac point of view, from a selfish perspective, I would like it to happen very aggressively. And that's part of the reason that we're thinking about other things that we could do to support. So as an example, I mentioned, you know, the week before last, we're doing an agreement with our dealer partners in terms of how we can get more charging out in the local communities,

et cetera. So we have a number of things that we're doing to sort of act as a attists to try to help support that change and that that growth in them or what is the role of dealers and mean Tesla's obviously done it differently you recently, I think told writers at GYM expects to have only five D sixty dealerships by the end of the year. That's a drop from three years ago. What's the role of dealers? Does it change and do they need to be all in on evs as well in order for this to

make sense for you guys. Yeah, I think that's a great question, and yes, they need to be all in on e vs UM. You know, if you go back three years ago now, we had close to nine d CATALAC dealers in the US. By the end of this year, we'll be down to five hundred and sixty six dealers, so it will be about a thirty six percent production.

And I guess the reason for that was working with our dealer partners, explaining the future, in explaining the changes in terms of customer requirements in change, explaining the the investment that's required, et cetera. And you know, on the basis of that, we've rationalized our dealer network. We think that we've got a great footprint of dealers, which mean that customers should be able to get top level service

wherever they are in the US. But absolute you, our dealer partners need to be all in and we see our dealer partners as a competitive advantage. Right back to where we started. Carol's question, is there a chance that we can see an all electric portfolio before? Oh, that's a that's a leading question and not one that I'm going to give anything away on this particular point in time, but I would give you just a snippet of encouragement

in terms of that I mentioned earlier. That is when we will be selling sort of the last of the ICE variants, So we will have a significant proportion of the portfolio that is ev available in advance of that time scale, and I guess a little competition in the industry will keep everybody on their toes. Rory, thank you

so much. We so enjoyed this, and be well, have a good, happy and healthy holiday season, and hopefully we can check you in with you again on the other side of or in there early in the new year. That would be really great. Rory Harvey, he's global vice president of Cadillac, on the phone in New York.