Whatever the reason - I hadn't heard the "American labor" theory - the statistics I've seen make it pretty clear that LG ran into quality control problems sometime in 2018 that it hadn't experienced before and hasn't experienced since it started making Bolt batteries in its new Michigan factory. Senior corporate executives like Reuss use language a lttle differently than most people, but to my ears it sounds like he's suggesting that the battery fiasco might not have happened if GM had been more involved in the manufacturing process. In that sense, it seems plausible that it would have been easier for GM to be more involved if the batteries were being manufactured here, though Reuss seems to be saying that the real problem, in hindsight, was that GM was ambivalent about how involved and invested the company was prepared to be, regardless of where the batteries were being made.
I agree, Bolts battery issues are largely (not exclusively) due to Korean made LG cells. Surely, GM Korea had a hand in QA, but likely not to the degree that they can oversee things in the US.
As I stated above, the real problems seemed to occur in late 2018 when the 2019 model year vehicles were being built. Since model years tend to go August-July, and Holland, MI plant started producing in early 2019, the biggest chunk of the fires occurred in late 2018 calendar year cell production. While there were a handful of fires in earlier (and later) Bolts, those may have been a low enough occurrence to fly under NHTSA radars.
So, going back to that time period, there were two things concurrently happening. SKI was in the middle of stealing LG tech and people (according to the Intellectual Property suit than SKI settled for some large $$$). In my career, anytime there is a high turnover period, things slip through cracks. Second was LG announcing the work they were performing in Korea would shift to US. You have to wonder what moral was at the factory during this period, I suspect that had a lot to do with quality becoming slack. Those details may not emerge in public for years, after their impact will fade and not cause reputation damage due to many solid years of performance following... Time will tell. But you can bet GM execs know exactly what the nature of the problem was and don't want to air their dirty laundry.
In an increasingly complex world, specialization has some distinct advantages. You don't expect heart surgeons to be liver transplant experts... LG has deep experience with design and manufacturing of batteries, GM did not, and may still not have the degree of expertise that LG has. The strategic partnership is continuing with the 3 new Ultium plants, so GM apparently still sees value in the relationship. Sure, costs might be cut (eventually) by GM taking on more of the cell production, but would lack of expertise cause challenges, perhaps even quality issues until they build up the expertise? GM is instead focussing on securing the raw materials for cell production, they presumably have more influence and resources to secure adequate supplies of the raw materials than LG does. So, GM is more active in the whole process, and can drive LG to produce the volumes they need of finished products.
The other thing the experience did for GM is act as an insurance policy. Ultimately, nearly all of the Bolt replacement cell cost is being handled by LG. But, again, good strategic partners don't criticize each other. Hyundai did, but by then, they apparently were already shifting focus to a new vendor (SKI). So Hyundai had little to lose by criticizing LG.
I read Reuss comments not thinking GM could have done this better, but that GM could have anticipated issues given what was happening around that time and demanded greater attention to detail. The fact that GM/LG are continuing their partnership into the future begs to differ that GM thinks they could do what LG does better than LG can.
My takeaway was, the biggest regrets he sees are that GM as a company didn't have complete faith in the Bolt program. The future of EVs was quite uncertain in the 3-5 years Bolt was being developed (2012-2016). Marketing and supply chains were never optimized for high volume production and sales, because not everyone was convinced this was the way to go. Imagine if GM went all in on the Bolt and EV demand didn't catch on, their wager would have been a significant risk to the long term health of the company. So, in hindsight, knowing EV demand is catching on, it is easy to say they should have been bolder in the past. But hindsight is always better than foresight. So, my take on the lessons learned is, had they had more faith and been more committed to Bolt, they might be in a better position now, that is the regret.
