General Motors is abandoning its BrightDrop electric delivery trucks, just four years after the vehicles were introduced.
The company was announced On Tuesday along with third-quarter earnings he made the decision because “the market for commercial electric delivery trucks grew much more slowly than expected.” GM also blames the “changing regulatory environment and the elimination of tax credits in the United States” – the result of the second Trump administration’s hostility to electric vehicles.
BrightDrop production has been suspended at GM’s CAMI Assembly facility in Ontario, Canada, since May, when the company also cut 500 jobs. GM said Tuesday it needs to have “substantial discussions” with government leaders in Canada about “opportunities” for the plant. Meanwhile, GM told TechCrunch that BrightDrop dealers “will continue to sell and service vehicles as we work through the remaining inventory.”
The decision to kill BrightDrop comes at an odd time for electric vehicles in the United States. Companies like GM posted new record sales of EVs in the third quarter, although that enthusiasm was partly due to the expiration of the federal tax credit, which Republicans in Congress decided to end.
Meanwhile, major automakers like GM have spent much of the past year walking back once-lofty promises about how many EVs they plan to build and sell in the coming years. GM, which once pledged to have an all-electric fleet by 2035, boasted on Tuesday that it is “well positioned to meet strong, sustained demand” for internal combustion vehicles. (Investors have rewarded this decision. GM’s stock price is up 14% at press time.)
BrightDrop’s short existence was chaotic. GM unveiled the program as a pseudo-startup in 2021. The automaker created BrightDrop in its “Global Innovation” organization (where OnStar was built) and spun it off as a private company.
BrightDrop was launched at the Consumer Electronics Show that year. The automaker touted lower total cost of ownership and less frequent maintenance as advantages over internal combustion counterparts. BrightDrop trucks seemed poised to quickly capitalize on the fact that big companies like FedEx were pushing to be carbon and emissions neutral. BrightDrop was also created at a time when the pandemic was fueling a huge surge in e-commerce, increasing the need for delivery trucks.
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Just two years later, GM absorbed BrightDrop into its fleet-wide business, GM Envolve. The unit’s CEO, Travis Katz, resigned. Some of the trucks caught fire, prompting a recall in early 2024. GM then moved BrightDrop again, this time to in the commercial division of Chevrolet. The automaker continued to struggle to sell BrightDrop trucks this year, it was just over 1,500 sales in the first half.
It’s unclear why, exactly, GM fought so hard to sell its BrightDrop trucks. And while there were plenty of indicators that the unit was struggling, the decision seems to have come somewhat abruptly. Earlier this month, GM Envolve vice president Ian Hucker touted BrightDrop’s trucks in a press release about a partnership with delivery driver organization Frontdoor Collective and EV infrastructure company Circuit. This collaboration is supposed to provide 50 BrightDrop trucks for Target to use in the Dallas-Fort Worth area.
GM is not alone. Sales of Ford’s E-Transit truck are much lower than in 2024. But Rivian has put more than 25,000 electric trucks on the road with Amazon in recent years. And Los Angeles-based startup Harbinger sold more than 200 electric truck chassis from start of production in April. On Tuesday morning, Harbinger also announced that it is expansion of sales in Canada.
