General Motors said on Thursday it was reorganizing its BrightDrop electric commercial vehicle unit to make it less independent and reduce costs, and that the unit's head, Travis Katz, would be leaving. GM said CEO Katz was leaving at an unspecified date, but did not elaborate on the reason for his departure. GM said BrightDrop, the unit it launched in early 2021, will no longer operate separately from the parent company.
Honestly was continually baffled this operation was freestanding so I don’t really see this as a bad thing so long as they keep their own R&D team (knowing GM though, they probably sadly won’t).
Creating a weird pseudo freestanding brand can’t have been confidence inspiring to procurement people looking at getting an EV fleet. At least now they’ll be able to leverage existing commercial customer relations and offer the vehicles with a badge that has 100 years of history behind it and not one from a team out of Detroit larping as a Silicon Valley startup.
Honestly was continually baffled this operation was freestanding so I don’t really see this as a bad thing so long as they keep their own R&D team (knowing GM though, they probably sadly won’t).
Creating a weird pseudo freestanding brand can’t have been confidence inspiring to procurement people looking at getting an EV fleet. At least now they’ll be able to leverage existing commercial customer relations and offer the vehicles with a badge that has 100 years of history behind it and not one from a team out of Detroit larping as a Silicon Valley startup.