General Motors writes down $6 billion as domestic EV sales plans change

American automakers who got overenthusiastic about electric vehicles continue to pay the price—literally. Yesterday, General Motors told investors that building and selling fewer EVs will cost the company $6 billion. Still, things could be worse—last month, rival Ford said it would write down $19.5 billion as a result of its failed EV bet.

GM is not actually abandoning its EV portfolio, even as it reduces shifts at some plants and repurposes others—like the one in Orion, Michigan—into assembling combustion-powered pickups and SUVs instead of EVs. The electric crossovers, SUVs, and pickups from Cadillac, Chevrolet, and GMC will remain on sale, with the rebatteried Chevy Bolt joining their ranks this year.

But GM says it expects to sell many fewer EVs than once planned. For one thing, the US government abolished the clean vehicle tax credit, which cut the price of an American-made EV by up to $7,500. That government has also told automakers it no longer cares if they sell plenty of inefficient vehicles. Add to that the extreme hostility shown by car dealers toward having to sell EVs in the first place and one can see why GM has decided to retreat, even if we might not sympathize.

Back in October 2025 GM recorded a $1.6 billion charge due to the above and shut down BrightDrop, the brand that was building electric delivery vans for the likes of FedEx and Walmart. As for Q4 2025, GM says it must write down $6 billion, $4.2 billion of which will be payments and cancellation fees to suppliers for components the company no longer needs. The company even says it will feel the loss of emissions credits, which have previously helped cash flow.

Despite these costs, 2025 wasn’t a terrible year for the company. It managed to grow sales by 6 percent in the US, and in China more than half of the 1.9 million vehicles it sold were New Energy Vehicles, which grew by 22.6 percent. NEVs are EVs and plug-in hybrids—in GM’s case, mostly locally developed vehicles sold under the Buick and Electra brands, as well as joint ventures like Wuling, with some Cadillac Lyriqs, too.

Build that camper van you always wanted

Even though BrightDrop is no more, Chevrolet dealers are sitting on more than 2,500 unsold electric vans, slightly more than half of which are the shorter BrightDrop 400, which starts at under $47,000, according to Chevy’s website. The larger BrightDrop 600, with the same offers, is still less than $50,000.

And since these no longer seem to be in high demand by big box retailers and the package delivery companies, now’s the time for people to start picking them up and turning them into camper vans.

I have to believe the demand is out there; any time we’ve covered the BrightDrop, or any other electric van for that matter, most of the comments concern just this kind of conversion. It needn’t be insanely expensive, although depending on your budget you could easily spend twice as much (or more) as the BrightDrop cost on the uplift. But short of spending silly money to EV-restomod one of those six-wheel GMC Motorhomes from the 1970s, you’d definitely have the coolest electric camper out there.