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EVs, racing and tariffs: Mark Reuss on how GM is remaking its brands
Posted by Talbot Payne on July 14, 2025
Le Mans, France — With race-licensed president and product guru Mark Reuss at the wheel, General Motors Co. has put the pedal to the metal in a race to reinvent itself.
In an extensive interview with The Detroit News, Reuss detailed the General’s ambitious product revamp — from electric vehicles to motorsports to SUV models — beginning with its luxury jewel.
“We’re excited to be here again as we build up Cadillac from an electric propulsion standpoint — but also an ICE (internal combustion engine) standpoint,” said the 30-year GM veteran while V8-powered Cadillac Hypercars thundered by behind him on the course that hosts the 24 Hours of LeMans. “We’re not going away with our ICE — this (race car) happens to be a hybrid. Cadillac’s on a real roll. We’ve invested a lot of money (and) I think that’s starting to pay off.”
Cadillac is indicative of a sprawling GM strategy overhauling its four brands — all while navigating a complicated and shifting government landscape of green regulations and tariffs.
“Overall they are in pretty good shape,” said Sam Abuelsamid, an auto industry analyst for Telemetry Insight. “Their EV sales have remained surprisingly strong, particularly at the lower end with the (Chevy) Equinox — and Cadillac Optiq and Lyriq are doing well. They’re spending $4 billion to retool three plants to reposition products — in response to tariffs — that have been built in Mexico and in under-utilized U.S. plants.”
Amplifying the product blitz is the most aggressive push into international motorsports in GM’s history. Cadillac will enter Formula One (with engine partner Ferrari) in 2026, raising Cadillac’s profile (along with the V-Series.R Hypercar entries here) as it enters European showrooms with a historic all-EV lineup. Chevrolet’s Corvette has also gone international, selling GT3-class race cars to global teams.
Cadillac Hypercars lead the field at the opening of last month’s 24 Hours of LeMans. The GM luxury brand is making a big racing push that includes competing in Formula One starting next year. Cadillac, Cadillac
In North America, the same V8-powered Caddy Hypercars and ‘Vettes compete in the IMSA Weathertech Sportscar series, while the Chevrolet brand provides engines for IndyCar and over a dozen V8-powered stockers for the NASCAR Cup series.
That’s a lot of V-8s, and Reuss underlined the importance of consumer choice in the U.S. market as the Trump administration has rolled back EV mandates from California and the Environmental Protection Agency. But Reuss reiterated the company’s commitment to a zero-emissions future, a cornerstone of its “Zero Zero Zero” strategy (zero crashes, zero emissions, zero congestion) even as it has shelved its autonomous vehicle ambitions.
“No matter what happens, the end game is zero emissions,” he said. “If we can also sell EVs to be able to sell the V-8s, that’s a pretty powerful thing. We sell a lot of V-8 and diesel pickup trucks. We’re able to do that because we have a successful EV portfolio.”
Cue a nearly $1 billion spend on next-gen V-8s, Abuelsamid said: “GM has made a big investment in its Buffalo Tonawanda propulsion plant for the next-gen V-8s, which was previously going into Mexico.”
Assisting that V-8 future are near zero-emission synthetic fuels, lackluster consumer demand for EVs and fears of battery dependence on Communist China. Millions of gas-powered autos will ply the byways for decades, and manufacturers like Porsche are investing heavily in synfuels to keep those vehicles going while meeting government mandates.
“(Synthetic fuels) would be great. Anything that helps the consumer who wants a car,” Reuss said. “The question is infrastructure — just like EV charging, right? You need a big, big, big supply of regular fuel. We have research and development going on in all those fields.”
The technology appears to be a factor in GM’s Formula One investment as it pushed its power unit (F1 speak for drivetrain) debut to 2029 — reportedly to give the sport time to make up its mind between heavy, expensive hybrid-electric power units — or synfuel.
Whatever the outcome, Reuss is bullish on GM’s investment in a motorsport that boasts a staggering global fanbase of 750 million people.
GM President Mark Reuss enjoys the Cadillac team’s front row position on the front row for the start of last month’s 2025 24 Hours of Le Mans in France. He says racing’s importance for the automaker stretches into marketing, technology and psychology: “I believe it’s important for our employees to understand what it feels like to win.”Nick Dungan, Drew Gibson Photography/GM
“I thought it was important when we started, three years ago, (to enter) Formula 1. But I never imagined that a video of a (Cadillac F1) brand reveal (at the Miami Grand Prix), would get 10 million people” on social media, he said. “It’s just extraordinary. So whatever we thought it was, it’s actually much bigger than that.”
Crosstown rival Ford Motor Co. is also entering F1 in parentship with England’s Red Bull. But Caddy’s entry is more comprehensive as a full works team overseeing chassis and power unit development — a first for an American manufacturer.
“We’re here to win, we’re not here to participate,” Reuss said of expectations for 2026, Cadillac’s first year in F1. While GM develops its 2029 power unit, Ferrari will supply an engine for next year.
In addition to glory, the F1 goal is to establish Cadillac as a credible global performance brand like Ferrari, Mercedes, Porsche.
Cadillac’s glitzy Paris showroom is part of the luxury brand’s efforts to reintroduce itself to European buyers as a high-tech, all-electric marque. Henry Payne, The Detroit News
“We haven’t sold cars (in Europe) in a long time, and so people don’t know what Cadillac is,” Reuss said. “How do you start that? You have to have a brand that people believe in. What it stands for is important, (so) we’re going to race Cadillac.”
Telemetry analyst Abuelsamid said Cadillac wins in F1 and Le Mans could boost GM’s global profile and interest in its products: “It raises the awareness of some of those brands in markets where they really haven’t had a presence in recent years.”
All that, plus Reuss just thinks racing is healthy for the company. “We’ve been racing for a while,” he smiled. “I believe it’s important for our employees to understand what it feels like to win.”
A Cadillac Lyriq EV glides along the streets of Paris. It’s among a stable of new battery-powered models GM’s luxury brand is selling in Europe as the automaker remakes itself amid a shifting maze of trade, emissions and tax credit regulations.” Henry Payne, The Detroit News
Cadillac isn’t the only GM brand to embrace electrification. Chevrolet has been remade with parallel ICE and EV lines — complete with distinct design identities. There’s an ICE Silverado pickup and an EV Silverado. An ICE Blazer and an EV Blazer. ICE Equinox, EV Equinox. There even appears to be an EV Corvette on the horizon, judging from a recent design study from the General’s London studio.
Yet, Reuss did not bemoan recent government EV policy reversals eliminating the $7,500 federal consumer tax credit, federal Inflation Reduction Act subsidies, and California zero-emissions mandate.
“The strategy that we put in place on electric vehicles was prior to any of the Inflation Reduction Act stuff,” Reuss said. “We’re capacitized to vertically integrate cells, which no one else is really doing. We’re the number one producer of cells, modules and packs. There’s a lot of cool stuff happening that is to plan, so long-term capital investment is the way we want to structure our business.”
He welcomed the elimination of California’s regulatory exemption, which had created market uncertainty and threatened big industry fines for noncompliance beginning in 2026.
“The amount of money that we have spent — that the whole industry has spent — around a non-harmonized regulatory environment is very large,” Reuss said. “The harmonization of that, however it happens, is really good. We can concentrate our spend, because some of those regulatory things were in direct opposition to other ones.”
Tariffs have also introduced uncertainty, echoing federal import quotas on Japanese imports in the 1980s. But this time, tariffs are aimed at Detroit Three manufacturers as well as foreign brands. Like Japanese automakers 40 years ago, GM is scrambling to bring production stateside — including bringing pickup and large SUV production to Orion Assembly in Oakland County.
“We’re looking at (hiring) around 3,000-4,000 people and 1,000 retained,” Reuss said of Orion’s reboot, which has received bipartisan support from the White House to Michigan congressional leaders to UAW President Shawn Fain. “Probably 2,500 new jobs. That’s just us — not the supply chain around us.”
GM’s Orion Assembly complex, which closed after Chevy Bolt EV production ended there in late 2023, is getting new life building large, V8-powered trucks and SUVs, part of the automaker’s strategy of investing in multiple powertrains. Andy Morrison, The Detroit News
Analyst Abuelsamid said Orion will benefit from the “move of full-size pickup production from Mexico to Orion while adding additional capacity for the full-size SUVs that they’ve already built in Arlington.”
Reuss said the move will relieve pressure on the Texas assembly plant where Chevrolet Tahoe/Suburban, GMC Yukon and Cadillac Escalade mega-utes are produced: “We run that plant flat-out. It’s not sustainable for our people, so that’s a big deal.”
For all of GM’s big moves, Reuss still reserves a soft spot for a smaller piece on the chessboard: the Chevy Camaro, an icon shelved in 2024.
“My first car was a Camaro — a 1967 Camaro that my dad and I went and found in southern Illinois. It was $1,300,” he mused. “It was high school, I was 16, and it brought so much joy to me. Not because I was racing the car, but because it was a really pretty car.”
Reuss was asked if it would return.
“I think that formula of beauty — and a little bit of functionality and fun — all of that is important. If we were getting back into Camaro, that piece of it is really important. That segment is declining — I think they sold more Mach-Es than they did Mustangs. I think that would be a great formula, and we have the ability to do that.”
Henry Payne is auto critic for The Detroit News. Find him at hpayne@detroitnews.com or @HenryEPayne.