GM President Mark Reuss thinks that the company has one big lesson to learn from China’s EV upstarts — and a few to avoid.
The auto executive said Western carmakers needed to match the speed at which BYD and its rivals build new models, but warned that they shouldn’t try to copy China’s EV playbook.
“I would say we can learn a lot from the speed. I don’t think that copying each other and trying to price each other out of the market is necessarily a great thing,” said Reuss, who was speaking on InsideEV’s “Plugged-In” podcast.
Chinese EV companies like BYD and Xiaomi are known for bringing new vehicles to market far quicker than their Western rivals.
A recent report from automotive consultancy AlixPartners found that the typical product development cycle for a Chinese EV firm was 22-28 months, compared to 32-48 months for global carmakers.
Reuss said Chinese automakers often use the same base of suppliers and are willing to rapidly adopt new innovations, allowing them to roll out new vehicles quickly and cheaply.
“They benchmark the heck out of each other, and then they will copy it and put it into production, so it’s a very rapid cycle because of that,” he said.
Reuss, who has worked at GM for 40 years, warned that Western automakers should be wary about trying to copy China’s EV blueprint.
“There are a lot of companies that come and go, and they come and go often. Unless you’re selling batteries, it’s a pretty tough financial deal to make money over there,” he said.
When it comes to electric cars, China has raced ahead of the rest of the world, with electric car sales expected to overtake conventional gasoline cars this year.
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By contrast, the US has lagged behind, with major automakers rolling back their EV plans amid fears of slowing demand. Earlier this month, GM took a $1.6 billion charge due to its own EV strategy shift, having previously walked back plans to only sell electric vehicles by 2035.
However, only a handful of the 100-plus companies fighting for a piece of China’s red-hot EV market are profitable, and industry figures have warned that many will not survive the next few years.
Some carmakers have resorted to slashing prices to drive demand, sparking a government crackdown on aggressive discounting.
Even BYD, which sells more cars in China than anyone else, is feeling the heat. Profits slid in the last quarter due to the escalating price war.
Reuss said that GM had “a ton to learn” from China’s EV upstarts, pointing to their voice control integration and advanced infotainment systems.
He added that GM was “absolutely” thinking about the prospect of competing with Chinese carmakers in the US, which has introduced high tariffs to keep out BYD and its rivals.
“I think R&D technology investment in our company in this country is the way to compete. We can’t go copy the way they do things and expect to win, so we have to be better,” said Reuss.
