The market continues to pivot as GM cancels BrightDrop production.
A few years ago, you couldn’t go too long without seeing news of a new electric van hitting the scene. Automakers — including GM — pitched them as the star of the last-mile delivery sector, where commercial EVs like the Rivian RCV (or Amazon EDV) truly shine. That isn’t how things panned out for the BrightDrop brand, though, so it’s dropping the venture altogether. General Motors CEO Mary Barra announced the decision during the company’s third-quarter earnings call.
“The commercial van market has been developing much slower than expected,” she notes, “and changes to the regulatory framework and fleet incentives have made the business even more challenging.” Translation: No more tax credits means no more BrightDrop vans. The Qualified Commercial Clean Vehicle Credit, which businesses could leverage to purchase EVs for their fleets, expired on September 30 along with the $7,500 retail EV tax credit.
Now, GM already idled the CAMI plant in Ingersoll, Ontario, Canada back in April. It also laid off 500 workers at that time. Fast forward a few months, however, and its apparent not even a single shift arrangement will return to build more electric vans moving forward. Barra also cited the impact on employees as a critical factor in its decision making process, though it ultimately decided to scrap building BrightDrop vans anyway. To-date, major delivery fleets including DHL, FedEx and Walmart were using BrightDrop vans.
So, what is the company doing instead? It is doubling down on gas-powered Chevrolet Equinox production, bolstering its best-seller in an effort to keep up with its demand. It already committed resources toward Fairfax Assembly in Kansas City, Kansas, as part of a $4 billion spend over the next two years to boost U.S. production. American automakers, in particular, are leaning into the continuing hunger for internal combustion vehicles, though Barra contends GM is still sticking to most of its plan to support consumer EVs like the Equinox EV, Blazer EV, Silverado EV and the recently revived Bolt.
Short-lived as it ultimately became, our last video on the BrightDrop van is linked below (as a historical piece, if nothing else):
