New GM Logo Part of New Upcoming EV Push

A more laid back, lower case and redesigned GM logo will launch on Monday, as part of a company-wide multi-faceted marketing campaign to highlight GM’s push for bringing electric vehicles to the masses, even though the first of its newest generation of Ultium-battery-powered EVs are not scheduled to arrive in Canada until the first half of 2022.

The new logo will be featured on GM’s revamped gm.ca Canadian consumer website that launched this week, redesigned as part of the broad marketing campaign with the tagline “Everybody In,” which intends to highlight how the company intends to bring EVs to the masses, and features its Ultium battery platform, with families and spokespeople that include Canadian journalist Malcolm Gladwell standing on the platform’s skateboard chassis.

GM also says will unveil details on a new EV-related business on Monday morning as part of the company’s shift to becoming a more EV-focused company overall, but provided no other details on what the new initiative involved.

While the new marketing campaign launches in the US now, it will gradually roll out in Canada and other global markets throughout the year, said GM. It will only be the fifth time in GM’s 113-year history that it has revamped its corporate logo, said Deborah Wahl, global CMO at General Motors.

“It’s the most progressive logo change we’ve done since 1964,” she said in a media briefing on the campaign and logo change. “Our traditional logo is more severe – we needed to show the world a different aspect of what we’re doing, and how we’re changing all of our approach on how we design and move forward,” designing products quicker than ever before.

She also said there was a push to distance themselves from main EV rival Tesla, which they planned to do by highlighting that EVs are not only luxury vehicles.

“Our message here is that we believe there should be an EV for everyone, and we need the scale to make that happen.”

The lower case ‘gm’ logo is part of that more inclusive, less formal effort, with a line underneath the ‘m’ that represents the skateboard chassis with batteries underneath that will underpin the vast majority of their next generation of EVs. Look carefully at that same letter, and the white space in it along with that above the line is meant to look like a subtly stylized plug.

GM’s next new EVs to launch later this year will be on the affordable side of their EV efforts, with an updated 2022 Chevrolet Bolt and an all-new Bolt EUV (Electric Utility Vehicle) available in the second half of 2021. The Bolt EUV will be a longer and more spacious version of the Bolt, and also offer Super Cruise technology, while the regular Bolt hatchback will receive an updated interior with much improved interior materials.

Ironically, these two EVs won’t use the advanced Ultium batteries that will be featured in the campaign, and will underpin the vast majority of the 30 EVs GM plans to launch globally by the end of 2025. Not all these vehicles will make it to Canada, but the company says it will spend US$27 billion on these EVs and autonomous vehicle development in those five years, underlining its commitment to EVs perhaps as much as the new logo – or more.

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