Battery shortage forces GM to pause commercial EV production
Enlarge / In March BrightDrop shipped the first 500 vans built at its factory in Canada. (credit: BrightDrop)
General Motors has idled production of some of its electric vehicles due to a battery shortage. BrightDrop—a GM startup brand that's building last-mile delivery vans for companies like FedEx and Verizon—has stopped building EVs at its plant in Ingersoll, Canada, due to a lack Ultium battery cells.
GM debuted BrightDrop and its delivery van during chairwoman Mary Barra's keynote address at CES in 2021. The van was developed in record time—just slightly quicker than the electric Hummer, and like that EV, it leverages GM's new Ultium batteries.
Production began later in 2021, at first being conducted under contract in Michigan with an unnamed company as GM refitted its CAMI plant in Ingersoll. CAMI started production in December 2022, and BrightDrop has years of orders to fulfill, but some of those customers will end up waiting longer due to a lack of batteries to power the electric vans.