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.

Enlarge (credit: Cadillac)

In 2020, Ars tested the then-new Cadillac Escalade. The big SUV is Cadillac's best-seller, and while we might not have enjoyed the way it drove, or its thirst , it did feature some interesting driver assistance technology. There's a chance we might prefer driving the next Escalade, though—on Monday afternoon Cadillac revealed that it is working on an electric Escalade, called the Escalade IQ, and it will show off the new electric SUV later this year.

There's quite a lot riding on the electric Escalade. The regular version accounts for about a third of Cadillac's total sales each year, and automakers in general make the most money from large, loaded, and expensive vehicles.

That probably explains why the electric version will still be called an Escalade—you'd be silly to throw away that brand identity—although appending an "IQ" to the end creates a corporate link with Caddy's other EVs, the $60,000 Lyriq and $300,000 Celestiq . (No, that's not a typo.)

Enlarge / The Honda e is adored by journalists, but it's small and expensive. (credit: Honda)

By all rights, Honda should be further along with its electrification strategy. The Honda Insight beat the Toyota Prius as the first mass-market hybrid to be introduced into the US market by seven months. Instead, other manufacturers seemed to have jumped on the EV train while Honda was still buying a ticket. After appearing to languish, the company announced that its first modern EV in the US would be the fruit of a team-up with GM. But under new leadership, it's working with partners and striking out on its own for its long-term EV strategy.

At its research and development facility in Tochigi, Japan, Honda is working on what it believes will be the breakthrough that brings solid-state batteries to the market. While Honda is happy to work with General Motors and Sony on electrification efforts, the automaker is working solo to bring the technology to the masses by the end of the decade.

"In the springtime of 2024, we will start a pilot line (for manufacturing). Then if we can be successful, we believe we can launch a vehicle with a solid-state battery in the latter part of the 2020s. 2029, 2028," Shinji Aoyama, Honda's global leader of electrification, told Ars Technica during a roundtable interview at Honda headquarters in Tokyo.

Enlarge / The GMC Sierra EV will be the brand's third EV after the Hummer EV truck and SUV. (credit: GMC)

In January, Chevrolet showed off its first fully electric pickup truck, the 2024 Silverado EV . And on Thursday it was the turn of General Motors' stablemate GMC, which opened the order books for its new Sierra EV, which will arrive in dealerships in early 2024. Like the Silverado and the GMC Hummer EV , the Sierra EV uses GM's Ultium Drive motors and Ultium batteries, as well as GM tech like Super Cruise.

It's no surprise that's there's a family resemblance to the Silverado EV, although to my eyes GMC's nose treatment looks a little more successful—definitely a little more futuristic. It looks like quite a versatile pickup, with a big locking frunk, GMC's clever multi position tailgate, and a midgate between the cabin and the truck bed like the old Avalanche and Escalade EXT trucks.

As we've come to expect now, the first trucks off the line will be the most profit-laden for GMC; fully loaded Denali Edition 1s with an estimated range of 400 miles (640 km). That means a battery pack somewhat near in size to the Hummer EV—GMC is not giving out those specifics now—and helps explain an msrp of $107,000.

Enlarge / The Cadillac Lyriq is the first expression of the classic American luxury brand's future as an electric automaker. (credit: Jonathan Gitlin)

Cadillac provided flights from DC to Salt Lake City and back, plus a night in a hotel so we could drive the Lyriq. Ars does not accept paid editorial content.

PARK CITY, UTAH—They say—accurately, in my opinion—that nothing focuses the mind like a deadline. I'm not sure what the amplification factor is when that deadline suddenly shrinks by nine months, as was the case for Cadillac's new Lyriq, but the result is an extremely competent new battery-electric SUV.

As we've covered in the past , General Motors is at the start of an electrification plan that it hopes will mean no more tailpipe emissions from any of the group's vehicles by 2035. The key to that is a family of batteries and electric motors (named Ultium) to be used across everything from big body-on-frame trucks to small crossovers . We've actually sampled a couple of early Ultium-based BEVs already—the bombastic Hummer EV truck and BrightDrop Zevo 600 delivery van . Both of those are rather niche applications, but the Lyriq is much more mainstream, given America's love for the SUV.

At launch, the Lyriq is available in a single-motor, rear-wheel-drive configuration, with a twin-motor, all-wheel-drive version coming early in 2023. The RWD Lyriq uses a 340 hp (255 kW), 325 lb-ft (440 Nm) version of the Ultium Drive motor, which is powered by a 102 kWh lithium-ion battery pack.

Enlarge / The taillight of the Celestiq show car is one of the few images Cadillac has released of its next flagship. (credit: Cadillac)

Cadillac's transformation into an all-electric vehicle brand is about to get underway. The first new Cadillac EV will be the Lyriq , which has just entered production; Ars is driving it next week, and we'll be able to tell you about it on June 28.

With a starting price of $59,990, the Lyriq looks reasonably priced to enter the competitive luxury EV SUV space. But the Cadillac EV that follows will be a much more exclusive machine. It's called the Celestiq, and so far, details are scarce ahead of a formal reveal of the show car in late July. Cadillac has said that "from first approach, the striking silhouette of the Celestiq show car leaves a lasting impression, challenging the ultra-luxury space with the spirit of futurism and the avant-garde."

On Wednesday afternoon, Cadillac revealed that it will hand-build the Celestiq and will spend $81 million to set up production at General Motors' Global Technical Center in Warren, Michigan.

Enlarge / This Buick Wildcat EV concept is not destined for production, but it is supposed to tell us something about how future Buick Electra EVs might look. Just squint and imagine it's an SUV. (credit: Buick)

Good news, Buick fans. Rather than suffer the fate of former General Motors brands like Pontiac, Saturn, Oldsmobile (as well as Holden, Saab, Daewoo, etc), Buick is getting a revamp as it prepares for an all-EV lineup by 2030. These new Buick EVs will sport a famous name from Buick's past as the brand revives the Electra name.

The first Buick Electra EV is due in 2024, and other than the fact that it will use GM's family of Ultium batteries and drive motors, it's not sharing too many specifics. But it has unveiled a new concept called the Wildcat EV that it says shows the brand's new body language, including a low-mounted grille, turbine-look wheels, and tick-shaped light elements at the front and rear.

"The Wildcat EV concept represents the real design future for the brand," said Global Buick and GMC Design Executive Director Sharon Gauci. "Buick has always been forward-looking and this expression is a glimpse of where we’re going, and the optimism we have for the limitless possibilities of an electric future."