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Shane Peever- Leading The Charge At GM Canada

Long before EVs became trendy, General Motors released one of the first mass-produced plug-in hybrid vehicles with the Volt nearly a decade-and-a-half ago. Recently, the brand just announced Tesla Supercharger access for customers via an in-house NACS DC adapter. We sat down with Shane Peever, GM Canada, vice president of vehicle sales, service and marketing, to chat about being appointed to his new role earlier this year, and how the company is currently innovating in the zero emissions space.

The following interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Shane Peever
Shane Peever, Shane Peever, GM Canada, Vice President of Vehicle Sales, Service and Marketing

Can you tell us a bit about yourself?

I’ve been with GM for 20 years now, and I [currently] head up basically all of our products across our portfolio. So, Chevrolet, Buick, GMC, and Cadillac sales for both retail and fleet in Canada, our dealer network, customer experience and service operations.

I understand you previously spent some time at GM Energy?

I had a chance to do an assignment in the US. And basically, GM Energy is a start-up within our company that is designed to offer home energy management systems and energy freedom for our customers. For example, your vehicle can actually power your home. So not only can the vehicle accept a charge from your home, but it can actually send energy back.

GM Energy has a series of products including a bi-directional charger that would enable you to do that. It’s just getting started now — I set up all the sales operations and e-commerce platform behind that, but our vehicles are now capable of it and it’s available in 50 states right across the US.

How about Canada?

All of our vehicles are actually capable of bi-directional power in Canada. We’re working on certifying the products and bringing that product here. Timing is still to be determined.

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Shane Peever, Shane Peever, GM Canada, Vice President of Vehicle Sales, Service and Marketing

Are EVs something you’ve always had a passion for?

I had the cool opportunity to work on some of GM’s first EVs. Early in my career, I was the marketing manager for Chevrolet cars when we launched the Volt, and kind of got a first chance at seeing the enthusiasm behind them and just what it could do, and the different type of buyer it started bringing into the GM family and the GM household.

So, for me, it was kind of a passion point. I’ve always loved sustainability. Also, I like the idea of the zero emission, zero congestion, zero crashes mission that we have behind this to sort of transform the world one vehicle at a time. It’s a great opportunity, especially now that we’re leaning into EVs in such a big way.

Can you talk about how GM fits into the modern EV landscape?

We have an EV for every budget and every customer lifestyle. And I think that’s the beauty of General Motors and the range of brands that we have, from Chevrolet to GMC to Cadillac. We have entry level EVs like the Equinox EV, with over 500 kilometers of range starting at $47,199, all the way up to a range-topping super truck in the Hummer EV. You know, 1000 horsepower, and off-road capabilities like no other.

And then all the way into the luxury space with Cadillac — whether it’s the Lyriq or the Escalade IQ, our first foray into true luxury. Then, I don’t know if you’ve caught up with Celestiq, which is our hand-built ultra-luxury fully electric sedan, which is completely customizable by the customer. You can choose everything.

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Shane Peever, Shane Peever, GM Canada, Vice President of Vehicle Sales, Service and Marketing

What about efforts to push EV adoption and getting more education out to the masses?

What we’ve tried to do is create some advertising campaigns, marketing materials and FAQs for our customers, through a series of digital videos and shorts, that are kind of targeting these common questions that people have. Because before they even get into a General Motors product, they have questions about what life is like with an EV. What is range? How is it effective in winter? How do I charge at a home, and how do I charge publicly? And what are the tools that are built?

One of the things we did was actually start with own our own team and our own staff. If we’re going to go on this mission of triple zeros, we need to make sure that our own staff, our own dealers and our own team are educated and really EV advocates. We’ve got programs in place to ensure that our team are driving EVs — they’ve got full days experiencing them and access to home charging. Same for our dealers.

One last question: what is the latest news on the NACS adapter?

We just opened it up a couple weeks ago. So, anybody in North America that has a GM vehicle can take their vehicle and charge it at a Tesla Supercharger network and actually pay in our app. If you own a vehicle, you have a myCadillac or myChevrolet app — put a credit card on file and it’ll automatically work so that when you plug into a Tesla supercharger the experience is pretty seamless.

Our supply of adapters has been ramping up. We should have good supply, I would say, by mid-November. We have them in very small quantities right now, but everything is working as planned. We’re already logging a significant number of hours in charging and starting to see consumers take advantage of it. So, it’s pretty exciting.

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