GM will hire 3,000 people to help create high-tech future vehicles

On Monday, GM announced it's going on a hiring spree to bolster future-vehicle development. Through the first quarter of next year, the Detroit-based automaker is looking to bring some 3,000 new employees onboard, specifically people with experience developing infotainment software, folks familiar with the Android and iOS platforms and individuals that can work with Java.

With electric vehicles, self-driving technology and the Ultium battery system at the heart of what it's working on these days, GM is looking to pick up its product development pace. "General Motors wants to put everyone in an EV," Ken Morris, vice president of electric and autonomous vehicles at GM, said while speaking with media during a conference call Monday.

"It's amazing what we're able to do today versus just five years ago," Morris said, but even that's not enough. He noted that "extra horsepower" is needed to make the automaker's ambitious EV plans a reality, which is why they're aiming to hire so many tech-savvy people. And the beauty of this sort of work is that it can be done remotely, so people won't, for instance, have to live in the Detroit area to take one of these positions. It also means GM can hire the brightest and the best, regardless of what ZIP code they live in.

Morris also said the company's people have been "enormously effective working from home" over the last seven months as the coronavirus raged across the country. They've done such a good job, he said, they were able to pull two electric-vehicle programs ahead, though he declined to mention which ones.

It's likely future EV work will move even faster. Not only do they take less time to develop than internal-combustion vehicles, Morris said GM has front-loaded much of the heavy-duty work. Of course, having built conventionally powered vehicles for more than 100 years, GM has loads of manufacturing knowledge, experience that he added is "not only transferable, but advantageous" as it switches over to making electric cars, trucks and utility vehicles.

So far, the new Hummer EV pickup and Cadillac Lyriq have already been announced, but Morris said, "There will be plenty of other Ultium-based vehicles to come." This powertrain technology supports front-, rear- and all-wheel drive layouts and even high-performance applications. Its modular design provides some 19 different configurations, enabling Ultium to power a huge range of vehicles.

Putting its money where its proverbial mouth is, GM has already transformed its Detroit-Hamtramck manufacturing facility to solely build electric vehicles, it's invested in its Orion, Michigan factory, home of the Bolt EV and upcoming Bolt EUV, and it's spent $2 billion at its Spring Hill, Tennessee, assembly plant to build the new, all-electric Cadillac Lyriq.

"Our zero-emissions, all-electric future is underway right now," Morris said and GM is accelerating toward this goal. Additional manpower next year should help it ramp things up even more.