I meant to put something up on this story yesterday, but we decided to go snowshoeing; keeping our priorities straight. So it’s old news now, unless you get CC delivered in print under your rock. But then this is as big of news as it gets; GM has taken the really big step, and said it plans to be out of the gasoline vehicle business by 2035, and be completely carbon neutral by 2040.
It’s quite a turnaround for CEO Mary Barra, who just four years ago egged on the Trump administration to roll back the CO emission targets set by the Obama administration, going against a coalition of other carmakers, including Ford and Honda. But the wind is blowing in quite a different direction now, and in the meanwhile, GM committed to a $27 billion investment in zero-tailpipe emission vehicles. So this isn’t just blowing hot air.
GM’s stock price has already been benefiting from their increasingly EV-oriented future, with recent highs above $50 being their all-time high since being reconstituted as the New GM. They’ve got a ways to catch up with Tesla, whose stock has soared off to Mars and left the rest of the earth behind. With a market cap of $791 billion, Tesla is being valued at eleven times GM’s valuation. But GM’s stock move is a validation of their strategy, we can assume, although assuming anything too concretely in the current (un)reality of the stock market is an iffy bet.
GM’s move should put some pressures on other carmakers, most specifically Ford, which some years ago tried very hard to put on the green mantle. Ford did respond with this wonderfully hedged comment:
A spokesman for Ford Motor declined to directly comment on G.M.’s move but said his company was “committed to leading the electric vehicle revolution in the areas where we are strong.”
That’s a real PR gem.
Several of the European makers, notably VW, Daimler and BMW have all made more tentative commitments. Daimler has said it would have an electric or hybrid version of each of its models by 2022, and VW promised an electric version for each of its models by 2030. Stellantis? Not so much so. I’m guessing that Ram and Dodge are going to hang around with gas vehicles a bit longer to pick up the slow adopters, or something like that. But then things could change quickly; we do seem to be on the cusp of some serious changes.
The Trump administration rolled back the standard to about 40 miles per gallon, essentially eliminating the need for companies to invest in EVs and other electrification. The Biden administration is expected to announce by April that it will introduce rules requiring cars to reach an average of about 51 miles per gallon by 2026. Additional provisions aimed at boosting the production and sales of electric vehicles are expected, along with a pledge to replace the federal government’s fleet of some 650k vehicles with EVs.
It’s all quite the turnaround from the bad old GM, purveyor of the gas-swilling Hummers and killer of their first EV. We’ve seen Volkswagen decide that Tesla was the model to strive for, with lots of praise by CEO Herbert Diess for “my friend Elon Musk”, and saying that they hope to catch up and beat Tesla. And GM was close behind, although Mary Barra has had few if any words for Musk. But clearly they’ve both seen the light.
That leaves Toyota, Renault-Nissan, Ford and Stellantis to still decide about how fast they want to jump in. So if you’re torrid about not being able to buy a gas engine GM vehicle in the future, there might still be a few other options. But predicting the future is a fool’s errand. Maybe you’ll want to stock up on a lifetime’s worth of ICE cars and store them in a sealed garage, like the guy with his brand new 1979 Lincolns. Maybe there will be a run on the last gas-engine Cadillacs, like there was on the last Eldorado convertibles in 1976.
Saw some of the new ads surrounding this new electric push and their new “refreshed” logo which looks like some kind of generic software company. Between this and BMW running their EV ad where they poke fun at their own Bangle-era V12 7 series, it’s all very [CURRENT YEAR]. Nothing about the ads makes me want to buy one of their cars. I found myself watching some old GM ads from the 80s for the 3rd gen Camaro, now THOSE ads are fun and make you want to buy a third gen.
For reference, I’m exactly the age/income demographic (I think?) that these type of ads cater to, and it’s all rather pathetic.
Buy one of our cars today and we’ll mock you for it tomorrow! Worked for Oldsmobile.
Is gm’s stock really up because of their direction, or is it because their trucks have been massively profitable over the last year?
Yes, GM’s stock is going up because of how far along they are in their development and transition to EVs, as well as their part-ownership of Cruise, their AV unit.
They’ve had high profits on trucks for a number of years now.
No, their new logo is original and fresh and original and creative and original and they came up with it all by themselves for the first time anything like it has ever been done. Um, except in 1955 by 3M.
It was a very interesting and provocative announcement. My wife is not a “car person”, but even she was in on the discussion in our house last night. Of course, we have seen similar “pie in the sky” pledges before, such as California purporting to outlaw the internal combustion engine by 1975, I think it was? Anyway, the tide is certainly turning toward the EV direction.
I don’t think EV’s will command the majority of the market in my lifetime (I’m 50), but who knows. It’s going to be very interesting to watch, that’s for sure.
The charging dilemma is my main hangup. I just don’t think there is going to be widespread adoption until the average person can pull into a charging station and “fill up” in about the same time it takes to fill up a gas tank. And of course there is the up-front cost of the vehicle. Maybe all that will be addressed sooner than we think though. None of us had a smart phone 20 years ago either.
EV infrastructure is the key. Tesla makes some quite advanced vehicles but that’s only half of the reason for their success. The other, maybe even more important part is the Supercharger network of charge stations.
Right now, there are only fringe players in the non-Tesla infrastructure game, with the leaders being outfits like ChargePoint and Electrify America. If GM (or anyone else, for that matter) really want the EV revolution to work, they have to make the commitment and investment to a ‘reasonably priced’ (at or less than equivalent gas/oil), widespread EV charging network, maybe even licensing access from Tesla to their Superchargers. Getting the major oil producing players like Shell, BP, etc. to offer EV charging would go a long way. Imagine DC Fast Charge (DCFC) stations located at gas stations. Currently, a DCFC station will recharge most EVs to 80% of their battery capacity in ~30 minutes.
Barring that, I’m not really feeling this EV revolution for mainstream America, even if GM actually goes all-in by 2035.
In Canada, Petro-Canada has committed to installing a comprehensive EV charging network. It is already possible to drive coast to coast. My neighbourhood already has several locations.
https://www.petro-canada.ca/en/personal/gas-station-locations?latlng=49.25882,-123.09234&zoom=14
80% in around 30 minutes. I get in line, say at Costco. Perhaps 3 cars in front of me. Each car takes about 3-4 minutes to gas up. So Costco goes electric in 5 years. 3 cars in front of me; what? 90 minutes before I get to the charging station. How is this supposed to work. Also, a query: Curbside Classic 2035. A Prius sitting curbside. How much it cost to replace the 20 year old battery. Is this kind of car cost efficient?
Ok boomer.
Someday you will be old, too.
It works because more than 95 percent of the time you’ll just charge at home. So there will be far fewer people needing a charge at Costco.
Cost to replace a Prius battery in a 20yr old Prius is under $2000 with a further lifetime warranty. How much to replace the transmission on a 20yr old Mopar Minivan?
A resourceful thrifty DIYer is going to easily replace his aged minivan’s transmission with good used for somewhere south of $300.
A discount transmission repair shop would probably do a “light rebuild” job turn-key for around a thousand.
Are there any such poor folk options for replacing what’s probably now the Prius’ third battery?
With 20 years on the books now I wonder how total net operating costs compare?
We know there are plenty of the mentioned minivan’s around that hit 20 years and 200,00 without engine or trans work.
Curious, has any Prius made 20/200,000 on the original battery?
“I don’t think EV’s will command the majority of the market in my lifetime…
None of us had a smart phone 20 years ago.”
When it comes to prognostication, My money is on your second statement. If I make it another 35 years, there may not be any gas stations for my El Camino. On the upside, there’s plenty of room in the bed for batteries.
Getting to the moon seemed pretty impossible at one time too.
I think the big deal here that people are missing is that this isn’t a city or state or country declaring it, but rather a COMPANY, and a rather large one at that.
I believe this (if they actually really start moving forward on it) will soon see other companies saying similar or the same and then the race will be on.
The power grid struggles to keep up with air conditioners being used during hot weather. It’s going to more than the will of one company to make this fly.
That’s the elephant in the room. Over here (UK) we’re committed to EVs only from 2030, but where all the E for the Vs is going to come from now coal has all but gone from power generation is unanswered. At some point they will start taxing electricity for EVs to make up for the petrol duty, of course. They haven’t said that, of course, but they will have to make the shortfall up somewhere.
It will come from mammoth off-shore windmills. The latest generation, just unveiled by GE, can generate 13 megawatts, enough to supply a town of 12,000. That’s from a single one.
And solar, which is now the cheapest power source.
Large battery banks will store the excess energy when not needed for peak usage times.
Clean energy is getting cheaper and cheaper by the year.
Just off the shore from where I live is the Gwynt y Môr wind farm, currently 576MW but they’re looking almost doubling that in the next few years; wind power is now the second largest source of electric power in the UK, but still supplies only half the amount that Natural Gas powered plants do. Nuclear isn’t far behind wind, though many of the older nuclear plants are nearing the end of their life, so the contribution they make may fall if new ones aren’t built.
At the moment only a very small proportion of cars are electric so in the next 20 years that figure is going to rise dramatically, which is all extra power demand on top of what is already used. Fuel duty (currently about 65% of the price of fuel is duty and tax) and road tax are not currently imposed on users of electric vehicles.
It’s not going to be easy and some hard, and probably unpopular, decisions will need to be made to avoid a shortfall in both generated power and government revenue.
I’m not saying it’s impossible, but there’s a lot of investment that will be needed and that will need to be paid for. At least interest rates are low at the moment!
Have you seen “Planet of the Humans”?
the energy isn’t clean
Too many questions here. My first thought was what are the logistics and infrastructure plans for recycling all these battery packs when the time comes. Second was why is she dressed like Marlin Brando in On The Waterfront? All she needs is the hat.
Kind of a hot Marlon Brando, though, in an old, senior, corporate way.
There is already a market and there are companies already doing this. One of Tesla’s senior people left recently to start another one on a large industrial scale. People haul aluminum cans to the recycling center, you can bet that a large battery filled with precious metals will absolutely have people falling all over themselves to make money recycling it.
Currently when a Prius or other hybrid gets junked it goes to the wrecking yard. After (or maybe even before) they drain the gas and other fluids they pull the battery and ship/sell it to the battery recycler. In a pick and pull yard, the Prius gets put out there for everything else to be picked off it and then the steel etc is recycled. They don’t sell the batteries to the public but they for sure sell them. EV’s are the same thing, just larger battery packs and thus more money for the junkyard. Three months after you sold your old Hybrid to the wrecking yard for $200 it’s in little pieces and being re-used in multiple ways. Did you think they just go to the landfill?
My question will be if the driving distance between charging will increase.
A family hops in the car for a 300 or 400 mile trip to Grandma’s for vacation.
Nowadays, this might require a stop for gas and a stretch of the legs.
Will electric vehicles be able to travel long distances like this without having to lay over somewhere for a few to several hours to recharge?
And….considering how many vehicles use the highways, especially during the holidays, etc, there would need to be charging access en-route to supply the needs of all these traveling vehicles or would travelers need to allow extra time on a trip to spend a few hours recharging along the way versus making a several minute stop for gasoline in the present day.
I’m trying to understand where you got the impression that a charge would take a “few to several hours”, implying 3-4 of them. You’re not running an extension cord across some dude’s lawn to plug into his 110V outlet (although you could).
A charge from a state of charge where you’d start to think about refueling as in a normal car (20%?) to around 80% takes approximately half an hour via a (very) common Tesla Supercharger. Some of the newer ones as well as some of the newer competition (Electrify America) for example can charge at significantly higher rates in some stations. The limiting factor is currently what the cars are built to accept. There are chargers that can charge at almost twice what many existing cars can accept. These recent very high speed ones are built for the cars being developed or recently released but older cars can access them too. The vast majority (95%?) of Superchargers can fill at speeds as I described above.
As time goes on (the next fifteen years, there were NO Teslas or Superchargers fifteen years ago) this will only increase.
In a Tesla for example (and other mapping systems are starting to get on board too), if you enter your destination into the nav system, it will monitor your level of charge and route you and direct you when and where to stop for recharging and for how long to recharge to reach your destination as quickly and efficiently as possible. It will adjust on the fly as well depending how you drive and if you take a different route. This is the kind of thing that takes a lot of the guesswork and frankly fake news (multiple hours recharging for a 300-400 mile trip) out of it.
As a real world example our Tesla Model Y has 325 miles of range. (some Teslas currently have over 400). Taking into account the way I drive (interstate speeds of 80mph or so and recent frigid temps) I’d expect to get about 250 miles of actual range out of it (My pickup gets nowhere its EPA fuel mileage at 80mph and freezing temps either). So to get to your Grandma’s house I would charge it to 100% at home overnight, hit the road in the morning, likely get to a Supercharger enroute with maybe 60 miles of range remaining 2.5 hours later, recharge for half an hour while getting a bite to eat, taking a piss, stretching my legs, and bundling the kids back into the car and then continue to Grandma’s house where I would plug into her garage charger. Or eventually go to a local charger, whatever. Note that generally an electric charge will do so very fast but for the last 20% of capacity, where the charge speed drops off and gets lower the closer to full you are. For fastest speeds overall you recharge to 80% and then do so again if needed, this is in aggregate faster than going higher when travelling. As you asked, holiday traffic in today’s terms would likely be worse than normal. However I and anyone in California who ever drove I-5 from SF to LA around the holidays is familiar with loooong lines of cars at gas stations in Kettleman City during the holidays too. Over time as speeds and range and stations increase this will get better as well. Where there is demand there will be an opportunity for someone to fill it.
Note that the Grandma scenario above is in TODAY’s tech availablity terms. Compare that to fifteen years ago where this was all basically nonexistent and then project it fifteen years into the future, the current state of affairs will hardly be standing still. Chargers will get even faster (they are every year), they will be more widespread (they are every year), batteries will be more efficient (they are every year), electric car prices are getting cheaper (they are every year).
It’s sort of (vaguely) like computers. Two decades ago most people had a desktop with a dial up modem (56K – so fast, the future!!!) and a laptop was an expensive extravagance. Now laptops are throwaway items given to kids in elementary school for free and your phone has vastly more power and speed than your desktop did back then.
Of course there seems to be a very vocal minority in this country that seems to want to see everything revert to the 1950’s. We already (still) have among the slowest internet speeds at the highest costs among major industrialized countries, local public transport is crappier than anywhere, our train system is a joke, our road/bridge infrastructure approaches third world levels, our energy providers could be vastly cleaner than they are (but in bulk even the dirtiest generation is better than each individuals own little powerplant in a car), and people that are otherwise intelligent continue to spread misinformation about pretty much everything from how and when windmills work to solar to battery storage to charging time.
I’ve (over the couple of months) cut down a bit on my commenting here on CC. Mainly due to not often having anything concrete to add, but the thing that will always get me is when there is rampant and obvious misinformation such as your current view. It’d be like me suggesting that driving a diesel car is very difficult as only truckstops carry diesel fuel or something like that. I’d suggest you look into it a bit more. It’s not difficult to find out the facts yourself with a few clicks.
EV’s are largely charged at night when demand is lowest.
Here goes GM again making a ‘Great Leap Forward’™️ that will leave the competition in the dust just like the Corvair, the Vega, the Citation, and Saturn did. And let’s not forget all those robots they put on the assembly lines. Billions will be spent to change -everything- again. It’s amazing how difficult it is to change corporate culture.
Speaking of the Vega:
https://www.cruisinclassicsinc.com/1971-chevrolet-vega-c-890.htm
$ 95k for a Vega? Ooof…
I’m no GM apologist but even I can recognize that they have in fact already built electric vehicles and offered them for sale. So they are already one big step ahead of many other manufacturers in that regard. The EV part of those vehicles (the difficult part) was in general highly regarded.
I’m pretty sure they have thousands of robots on every assembly line building millions of cars. I guess they figured that out, huh?
What’s the alternative? Head in the sand and wait for everyone else to do it while standing still and then just go under?
Clearly someone took a look and realized that Tesla is a real company with real products as well as profits and buyers that could just maybe, possibly, somehow, be won back. But not with conventionally powered products. Those buyers have left the farm, gone to the city, and are not coming back.
Change is necessary, and often good. However GM always leaps in with both feet rather than progressing methodically. It’s always Revolution rather than Evolution and revolutions often fail. You add a few robots, and see where the problems are, fix those problems and and then add more based on what you’ve learned.
Similarly, You roll out new EV’s in a few states for a year or so and see where the problems are and fix them…then you go nationwide. you don’t crank up the assembly line flat out and sell a million problems in the first year (see the Citation).
GM however, always bets the farm… every time. It’s the company culture.
THAT’s the problem.
They’re going to be rolling out EVs for the next number of years, and not getting rid of their gas-powered product until 2035, so this is hardly an overnight transition. I don’t know what gave you that idea.
As far as I can recall that’s what they did with both the Volt as well as the Bolt, neither were produced in volume at first or available in all states. In fact the public clamored to have them be more available quicker. In the end neither was a huge seller, not though due to any issue with their EV parts, it was more a vehicle format issue, most of the public didn’t want a four seat small sedan or a very small hatchback. Those that did buy them seem to be extremely pleased.
Their next vehicle is going exactly the opposite way in the form of a Hummer large truck, I personally don’t want one and am guessing the current Bolt owner isn’t going to get one either, but apparently others do. Eventually (over the next fifteen years) they’ll figure out what works and what doesn’t, nowhere did they say that everything is being switched out all at once. Assuming the Hummer thing works, then there’ll likely be a smaller truck and an SUV, then maybe a CUV, and then transition that across all of the brands over the next decade and a half as vehicles naturally come to the end of their cycles. I do not think that they plan to proceed as they are now until Jan 1, 2035 and then on that day everything somehow switches over.
Did they really introduce robots in every factory around the world at the same time or did they put them in one factory and realize they had a problem? I really don’t know, something about paint spraying everywhere from what I recall. Was their entire production shut down everywhere for months on end?
The Citation DID suck. In hindsight. But if you have a popular product you do absolutely crank up the line and sell them, they somehow managed to do it for five years. Clearly the engineering and/or oversight fell short there which then gets amplified by however many sell. It’s one car though, there were other vehicles introduced around that same time that people here consider excellent vehicles. Let’s go with that though. In the last couple of years they have introduced a new Corvette, a new pickup truck line, a range of new large SUV’s, and several smaller Crossovers. In addition they seem to be sticking with some of their sedans after their hometown competition is tossing them. Most of these recent products are being produced in significant volumes, which of them have had a million problems related to engineering and/or production? Lately that has really been more Ford’s thing from what I can see.
Something needs to happen tho. I’ve lived in Arkansas for 44 years and growing up here, snow was a real thing. The schools would build snow days into the schedule. The nights were cool and pleasant, even in the summer and a nice way to shake off the days heat was to sit outside and listen to the animals and insects while talking with family.
We’ve barely gotten below freezing this winter and last winter was a mild one. I’m a survey of one, but I’m perceiving changes here. I experienced a 500 year flood last spring where the river got within a mile of my home and was more than twice normal height. The usual zone on my seed packages has moved north and now my zone for plants that will do well here is the one that was over south Louisiana. It is definitely more humid, even in times of the year where it should be dry.
Look at it this way, if we do something and it doesn’t make a difference, that’s a whole lot better than us not doing something that could have made a difference. The gas stations need to invest in rows of superchargers or they will go the way of the landline answering machine.
I’m a survey of one, but I’m perceiving changes here.
Weather statisticians and meteorologists have been perceiving the changes for decades. Welcome to the party!
As a gardener, we’ve noted the changes in the length of the growing season here for years. It’s consistently 2-4 weeks longer than when we moved here in 1993.
And we saw daisies blooming last week. In January. That’s a first.
Same here some 30 odd miles west of Boston. I still had eggplants and tomatoes on the vine in the first week of November and the okra and zucchini were still alive. Also of note (again survey of one, and not entirely scientific) having spent most of my life in this area, I recall summers would typically have about 4 or 5 days of 90-degree weather generally in July. Now it seems as though 2 to 3 weeks is the norm. Don’t even get me started on the drought.
Most of this winter has been mild, although we’re getting the polar vortex now but only for a couple of days, and next Friday is forecast for 48 degrees.
Our home was built in 1996, design by John Bloodgood (https://www.bsbdesign.com/about) amongst a swirl of contemporary cookie cutter colonials. We bought it in 2013. It’s well insulated, all Andersen double pane glass, but doesn’t have AC. It does have a whole house fan, but after the past few summers, we might have to put in mini-splits. Window units are a no go, all the windows are swing-out casement style.
There’s no doubt in my mind climate change is real.
There is little or no doubt about this among the scientists who study the climate. Though I’m a teacher and not a climate researcher, I use their data to teach my students about the issue, and the data are quite convincing. It takes a healthy dose of ignorance, whether willful or due to naïveté, to conclude that it is not “real,” and the correlations with human-generated gases are not likely coincidental. Furthermore, hydrocarbon combustion produces a wealth of pollutants in addition to greenhouse gases.
Switching over to EVs won’t magically eliminate the problems brought on by vehicles powered by internal combustion engines, but it seems that they will be an important component of any solution. I am neither a basher nor a fan of GM, but I am happy to see them making a strong commitment to EVs. Government mandates in the US and elsewhere and the market will dictate the need for far more of them, and at lower prices, than Tesla is likely to be able to supply, so GM and the other major players, with their R&D and distribution capabilities, are logical candidates to make that happen.
There was an article in the NYTimes recently about GMs decision, and a few days before that, an article containing an economic analysis of the relative costs of ownership of electric and hydrocarbon powered vehicles. They concluded that the higher up-front costs of EVs would be more than offset by their lower operating costs after a few years. These analyses necessarily come with certain assumptions, but the information, and the inferences that were drawn from it, seemed reasonable.
I’m not ready for an EV yet because I buy used cars, keep them for a while, and perform my own maintenance and repairs. Besides, I just like older cars. Despite this, I think that a day will come when it will make sense for me, or I won’t have a choice. I like to think that I will be able to put my tools away and be happy that I have time and money to spend on other things.
I, too, wonder how we will make the charging thing work, especially for people in cities who don’t have dedicated parking spots.
Shell Oil for example just this week purchased Ubitricity, which has built the UK’s largest charging network using mainly public street infrastructure such as light poles etc exactly for those people you are wondering about.
https://www.ft.com/content/8e69d4da-00d2-4ada-96f0-b5dc5c7ca40a
Shell has also been installing charging stations in their UK gas stations for the last few years. They seem to understand that A) there is a market here that they can make money on and B) traditional gas stations are seeing less demand. Nobody goes to the gas station to buy a snack and drink when they don’t need to fill up.
Shell is actually named Royal Dutch Shell, the US branch is a subsidiary known as Shell Oil Company. I’d guess within the next decade that gets rebranded to Shell Energy Company, why keep all the eggs in the oil basket.
I lived in Portland Ore from ’62-’67 and remember the snowy winters well. And the freezing rain that would cover cars in a giant ice cube. And lots of rain even in the summer. Moved from SoCal to Vancouver Wa. in ’97 which is across the river from Portland. Freezing rain was rare then, and never saw cars coated in ice like in the ’60’s. Summers have quickly progressed to longer and drier, snow is rare now and what little we get quickly melts. Last strong snow that lasted about 3 days was in ’08.
Big time warm up over the last 50 years, temperature records are set almost every year.
And SoCal’s fire season is now 365 days a year.
Living in the Great White North I can tell you that fuel mileage goes down considerably in cold weather. My old Prius only got 33 mpg in winter but 53 in summer. Until they figure that out for EV’s they’ll be a poor seller in northern climates.
Oh, BTW, the last 3 winters have been some of the coldest I’ve ever experienced so by my survey of 1 I think we’re in a global cooling trend.
Almost 82% of Canadians live in cities. Even if cold weather were to reduce battery efficiency by 50% (which it won’t), a Tesla Model would still be capable of 200+ km.
You should look up where Norway is in relation to northerly climes and then look up what cars are selling there.
I know someone in MPLS that drives a Bolt for their commuter, year round, and gets 125 miles range on the deepest sub zero days.
The colder winters are an artifact of the increased variability. I bet if you looked at the rolling average for your location (and for more fun, the deviation from norm) it would be eye opening.
GM is banking on legislators to outlaw current efficient transportation or an EV tech miracle to occur. Corporations must predict the future to survive.
This may be a bold prediction, but I predict gm will be as successful at this as they have been at growing market share, satisfying customers, identifying new and profitable market niches, and developing class leading products and brand identities as they have over the last 30 years.
I also understand that we are being told that THE FUTURE IS ELECTRIC and I can understand that a lot of people may want this. But as several people pointed out, we don’t have the generating capacity currently in place to support that. Who is paying for these offshore wind farms and battery banks? I don’t think MOST people find their gasoline powered car deficient and are craving the switch.
Their cash cows are SUVs and trucks trucks trucks. This woman will sink GM again and the taxpayer will save the zombie again if inflation starvation doesn’t kill us off first.
Tesla will never make it. They will never be profitable. The stock is excellent for short selling because EV’s are just a fad that will go away.
Not.
Ms. Barra has apparently adopted the modern de rigueur appearance for big corporate annoucements, first pioneered by Steve Jobs – Black monochromatic casual attire, no podium, hands in the proper vertical open-palm stance. It’s getting a bit old.
The hand position is saying “This is the size of the fish I caught last week at the lake!” I get the “fully open and transparent- not hiding behind a podium” thing, but geez, why not just bring a puppy out with you.
I found it pompous when Steve Jobs did it.
I prefer the casual look to the pompous suits, ties, and podiums these people used to use.
+1
A few years ago, some genius told UK Conservative politicians that not only should they eschew podiums, but should adopt this “power stance” body language.
Quite disturbing really.
GM is now an electric truck company. Time to get some real car people in that place before Tesla or China buys the company and moves it overseas.
If they just keep trying to sell ICE powered vehicles they will eventually go bust and the Chinese can come in and pick at their bones, a la MG Rover.
Tesla does not need to buy GM, they seem to be opening factories across the globe to have the product where it sells.
China doesn’t need GM either, it in fact already has multiple purely EV companies with actual product ranges. GM, who does business in China, clearly sees that companies such as Li Auto, Xpeng, and Nio just to name a few are seeing big increases in business and if they want to be part of it, they need to step up their game. Besides Tesla, China is absolutely kicking the US’s ass when it comes to EV’s currently. Hopefully Rivian, Bollinger, and the rest of the US crew will soon introduce their products and then Game On.
I applaud GM making their planned changes, but I wonder why they didn’t do it in a way that makes more sense.
They should have split off EV tech into a new company, and kept the old company as the ICE company, with no shared lines. Why? To wind down the old without diluting the increasing value of the new.
The old ICE company will wind down. And as it does, the losses from that part will be combined with the new EV line. That is great for taxes, but little else.
The new, separate EV company would have competed against Tesla as a stock, just as much as Barra is hoping the EV cars compete against Tesla product. But the stock is the more valuable asset. Investors are putting money into tech EV startups, but not into manufacturing concerns. By carving out the old, carrying the R&D costs of the Ultium with it, the EV GM would be a more shiny investment to those investors currently putting money into the other EV companies. And in 15 years, when the ICE unit shuts down, no carrying cost for that, with factories easier to close or sell to the new company. True for the workers as well, sadly, but the legacy union workers have to realize that their prospects are not good either way.
GM did the “split the company off” with Saturn. The results are well known.
EVs are the future. I have driven a Tesla Model S, a Model 3, a Nissan Leaf and a Hyundai Ioniq.
After driving each one, I realised ICE’s days are numbered.
“Maybe you’ll want to stock up on a lifetime’s worth of ICE cars and store them in a sealed garage”
Done!!
I just hope the infrastructure is ready by the time all these EVs come online. Regulations may loom large at the moment, but I’m convinced it’s plain ol’ competition that will ultimately force the move to EVs, and I hope governments across the world don’t try to force things too fast. I don’t want the perception to be that EVs are inferior things the government is forcing us into. People should buy EVs because they’re awesome. They just have such advantage in power, smoothness, space efficiency, low center of gravity (and resultant ride and handling improvements), low maintenance, and ability to do things like fire up the A/C or heat from your phone without worrying about carbon monoxide filling the garage. ICE-powered cars in 2035 will seem as quaint as CRT televisions in 2015. If GM doesn’t go big into electrics now, others like Volkswagen that do will pass them by, as will startups like Rivian, Lucid, various delivery van companies, tech companies like Sony and Apple that have been teasing cars lately, and Tesla which is its own category (at least if they go back to round steering wheels :-o). Toyota isn’t sitting out the EV revolution; rather they think the limited batteries available in the short term are better used by widespread hybrid availability rather than a few all-electric cars in a mostly ICE lineup. The formation of Stellantis is all about having the economies of scale to get into EVs profitably. Their fossil-fuel vehicles will continue for awhile but not receive major updates like new platforms.
My opinion of Barra has gone up in recent years. She’s taking the long view even if it doesn’t please Wall Street this quarter.
So GM is planning for 20 ahead. Another very bright GM idea.
Just for a start: Please look at what GM planned in 1958 for 1978.
It’s not that I hate GM, but seeing them planning for 20+ years
just makes me wanna holler.
Planning for the future is not bad. It’s just that, historically, GM hasn’t been very good at it.
OTOH, they brought out the Volt in 2011 and stuck with it until the transition to the Bolt. And the Volt sold well enough that GM EV vehicles are no longer eligible for the $7500 federal tax credit.
Precisely not trying to plan for the next twenty years (or more) is what got them and many other companies into trouble to begin with. The problem is only planning for the next quarter and the report due then. It’s the rare CEO in this country that sees his company go bankrupt (or drives it there) and doesn’t somehow simultaneously manage to rake in piles of cash personally at the same time. In the meantime you have companies across the globe that have been around for literally centuries and are still going strong and getting stronger. Because they plan ahead like any well run business (or household for that matter to make it more personal) should.
My perplexity is the mythical belief that electric vehicles are “zero emission” vehicles, whereas the emissions come from the production of all that extra electricity that will be needed for charging (one way or the other.) Furthermore, our aging infrastructure will be hard-pressed to keep up with the distribution of so much extra electricity. In the rurals, some of our pole-mounted transformers are 40, 50, or more years old, as an example. Another consideration is the question of what will happen after, for instance, wild fires either cause a vast shut-down of the grid, or the grid is damaged extensively by an ice storm or similar occurrence, not to mention the limited ability of an electric to deal with cold weather inherently, or the added batteryload posed by space heat for the passenger cabin. If fossil fuels are still available then, I suspect the hold-outs who have preserved old mechanically injected Diesel vehicles will be, by default, the champions of the day when these future crises affect the totaly EV fleet. Just sayin’.
As offered in another forum, Mary can call me up as soon as she has an EV that can carry me, in reasonable comfort, from my home to Muskegon, or South Bend, or Auburn, and back, in one day, with a/c and stereo on all the way, and headlights for a share of the return trip, without stopping for an hour or more for a recharge.
Such a car is already available in your Tesla store. It can also cost less than a Ford F-150, the most popular vehicle in the world.
Well said. And even the cheapest lowest range Tesla could make any of those trips while recharging for well under an hour. Presumably Steve doesn’t just drive there and then make a U-turn at the first light and drive back. There is no logical, legal, or environmental reason why there can’t be a charger in every parking lot or accessible on every street spot for cars other than (and including) Tesla. See Shell and their new acquisition Ubitricity in the UK. Why is North America so far behind in this aspect?
Note that the F-150 itself will have an electric variant shortly. For all of Ford’s missteps and bungled launches, they too seem to be looking toward the future and realizing there is a competitive threat on the horizon instead of just pulling the shades and sitting in a corner.
A lot of doubt in the comments about the feasibility of this, but I think that’s the bet GM is making. GM is hoping that, by 2035, electric car charging will be available enough to be found everywhere.
Part of this is also supply of oil. Sooner or later, we’re going to start running out of oil. It’s finite resource; there’s no way around it. But “running out of oil” doesn’t mean all the gas pumps shut off one day and the ICE cars are left on the side of the road like an apocalypse movie; it means that, as our supply of oil goes down, the price goes up. There will be some oil around for a while yet, but will people be willing to pay $4.00 or $5.00 a gallon for gas? What about $8.00 or $10.00 for a quart of motor oil? Many people won’t be willing to pay that, and they’ll find a car that cuts that cost. GM doesn’t know when this happens; it could be 15 years in the future, it could be 100 years. But they don’t want to be caught with their pants down making technologically outdated products that don’t appeal to what people really need- like they were in the early 1970s. The theory is that, after 15 years, we will have improved charging accessibility, charging speed, and battery mileage. Not so far-fetched when you consider how cars like the Leaf and Volt from less than ten years ago stack up next to the electric cars of today.
Bring it!
The 1975 Eldollarado was the last convertible, too. Plans change.
First Guess: GM won’t make it to 2035. They’re sucking pretty hard now, and their only friends are looking for 1) Corvettes, 2) light-duty trucks, and 3) Moonbeams. GM is investing too heavily in Moonbeams, because people who want moonbeams are flakes who will always be chasing the next moonbeam.
Best possible situation for GM: Stockholder revolt leads to the mass-firing of the top three layer of Management for cause (incompetence.) And I mean “real” firings, that involve dirtbags getting escorted out the door, and no severance package.
Mary Barra needs to be eating from dumpsters.
Senile Joe wants us to charge these cars using…what, exactly for electrical generation? Solar and wind are most effective during the afternoon; and that’s when people want to be USING these vehicles.
Please show me the stockholder that is displeased that his GM investment is at the highest point it has ever been and has accelerated to that point in very recent times with GM’s significant uptalking of their electric future. The dirtbag that was shown the door was Rick Wagoner, how’d that “same old, same old” work out for GM and its investors the last time around?
The Corvette is irrelevant to the market as a whole, it sells in small quantities to a few people and mainly in the United States. Every real competitor to it has a genuine worldwide market. It does supposedly have sort of a halo effect but doesn’t even carry a Chevy badge. Nobody currently buys an Equinox due to the Corvette existing and nobody will buy an E-Quinox due of it either.
There are these things called batteries, Solar and Wind energy can be captured when produced and then drawn from when and as needed, i.e. time-shifting the use of the energy. Tesla for one produces them on an industrial scale and sells them to both individuals and governments. Others do as well but with less publicity. In the long term, this could end up being one of Tesla’s major products, cars are just more forward facing currently. Personal use electric cars are currently most often by far charged at night on the owner’s premises. Whether from the grid or from a battery doesn’t matter, there is plenty of excess capacity overnight and it is not difficult to add more.
LOLZ.
EVs are the future but not for me.
I’ll carry on enjoying gas powered vehicles until my time on the earth is up. We as a couple are downsizing and I might forced to only have one vehicle in our garage. If so, it will be something I can enjoy on a daily basis.
The move to electric cars is idiotic, and is being forced by politics rather than market demand. This is yet another reason not to buy anything from GM. Since CO2 is not a pollutant there is no reason to care about being “carbon neutral”. (I certainly will not reduce my “carbon footprint”, and I won’t be buying an electric car. Period.)
Shocking, you’ve stated so repeatedly. I won’t ever be buying or riding a horse either but generally keep quiet about it when on Quarterhorse.com.
The market demand is most certainly there for products that meet what the public wants. Nobody (except for the market) forced GM to make this statement/commitment. They don’t get any brownie points for doing so, just a chance to survive.
There is currently an electric car and a plug in hybrid (test car) in my garage, happily plugged in. If for no more simple reason than convenience it’s absolutely fantastic to reduce/eliminate those oh-so-enjoyable trips to gasoline stations as close to zero as possible with the odd times that I need to refuel the truck (which just sits unless needed). I’d much rather my money go to my local city owned utility than the oil company. Or could invest in my own energy producing devices to get off the city train too.
I made the switch to EV for my daily a few months ago (still have my 85 TA for fun). Like most EV owners (over 90% in a recent poll), I don’t think that I would go back. It is incredibly fun and pleasant to drive – silent, awesome acceleration, silky smooth. You change your habits – as said earlier in this post you charge at home at night or at public chargers while working or shopping- you won’t wait in line to fill up at the Costco unless you are doing a long road trip. With a 200+ mile range, it meets 95% of my driving needs, saves me serious cash, and it’s downright fun to not have to ever go to a gas station. I certainly understand not buying an EV until there are further developments, but to anyone that definitively says they will never own an EV, I’m sorry you can’t open your mind to new ways. You may eventually have little choice.
The grid will expand to meet the demand, its simple economics, and both range and charging speed will increase rapidly. Cleaner battery technology and recycling infrastructure will also improve geometrically. Studies show that EVs are already significantly better for the environment (most of the sources that say otherwise are funded by oil interests and/or rely on questionable data). They are not without environmental impact, but they are an improvement and they will continue to get more green. And to the comment that CO2 is not a pollutant- it is a greenhouse gas, and it’s not the only component of ICE emissions. Tailpipe emissions are the greatest contributor to local air quality, which is more detrimental to public health and quality of life than centralized pollution. Mounting statistical evidence is proving this out as serious respiratory ailments and cancers have declined as the pandemic drastically reduced tailpipe emissions.
I would love an EV to replace my daily driver for driving to work and back and around town. My concern is will driving 1000 miles in a day, as I do a few times a year, still be feasible? Maybe the interim solution will be one EV for everyday use, and one ICE vehicle which could be used for road trips.
That would be a stretch, and massive stress inducer. with current technology. Even before I bought the EV, I would sometimes rent a car if I had to make a high mileage trip, to spare my POV the wear and tear.
Rent one. We did just that, cannonballed to Tucson from Colorado a few weeks ago and taking the Tesla was not even a consideration. We rented a minivan which was perfect for the purpose for the five of us, saved 2200 miles of wear and tear on the Tesla in favor of putting it on someone else’s car, the kids spilled fries all over it, and I didn’t have to clean it. Well worth the $350 it cost for the four day weekend (more than usual due to the holiday season). This was all part of the calculus when we got the Tesla, as we were outgrowing our three row CUV at the time and realized that for the rare trips that we all went somewhere for long distances, renting would be better anyway.
Note that if we had bought a regular two row CUV or sedan instead of the Tesla we would have done the exact same thing, i.e. rented the Minivan. The way I do the math is I figure each mile driven is worth about 15cents, if a rental is even remotely close to that it’s worth it rather than driving our own newer cars.
I don’t see a problem with charging the elec vehicles. I highly doubt that the current electricity producer are just going to sit on their hands. There is money to be made charging cars! There has also been a fair amount of chatter lately about improved battery technology that will substantially reduce cost of the batteries, improve power output and reduce charge time. We will see where this goes but I am excited to see what comes of this.
We often lament the crappy output and performance of our beloved engines back in the 80’s. Who would have predicted that you would get 400-500 hp out of a 5L NA engine and better fuel economy and cleaner emission to boot.
Lastly would you have believed what thes private companies have done in the rocket business? This was stuff only the largest countries in the world could do.
The “regular use” EV hasn’t been around long enough to see how they’ll age. My hunch is that for the foreseeable future “bleeding edge” buyers will do well enough with battery cars. Meanwhile those further down the pipeline will be better off with engines for some time yet.
Some insight can be drawn from industrial trucks, where both battery and engine type have been available for decades.
For some front-line high dollar industrial truck applications battery drive is great. However, the further down the pipeline an application is, and the more intermittent the duty, the less desirable battery becomes and the greater the edge of engine drive.
Engine trucks age well and tend to just keep ticking. There’s seldom one “killer” powertrain failure that takes ’em out. Usually they can be economically patched to keep going and going. About the same way as many of the beloved Curbside Classics we scrutinize.
Meanwhile a battery truck has, well, that stupid battery. Battery maintenance or replacement cost can easily exceed the value of a truck. Of course today’s battery is on a timed countdown from the day its built.
If the engine truck’s not going to be needed for 30 days or even 30 months? No big deal, park it in the cold dark corner and close the propane valve. After the time-out the truck may need a jump start, other than that, twist the valve and it’ll be ready to go again on moment’s notice.
Not so a battery truck. An idle battery is a dying battery. Its expensive “fuel leak” is a use it or lose it proposition.
Although the main drive components of battery trucks seem robust enough, they can have expensive issues with controls, especially sophisticated high-amp solid state components. There’s no cheap fix for a lot of this stuff. Meanwhile the IC truck is still mostly KISS using mostly inexpensive on-the-shelf auto parts store components.
I suspect the aging battery car will be facing the same issues. In time no doubt more economical repair alternatives for BEVs will develop, but they’re not here yet.
It’s my guess that there’ll be no decent middle in BEVs for some time. Newer pricey top tier stuff, or aged out bargains for the diy tinkerer, not much in between.
In my opinion GM will fail this transformation. Its EV research is behind EV leaders like Tesla, NIO and BYD. If you look at electric motor design, Tesla design is very advance, no to mention it actually produces a very good vehicle and popular with people. In China it is a fashionable novelty item like LV bag. NIO approach is very innovative, its new vehicle claims to have the range of 680 mikes, its autopilot technology is arguably better even than Tesla. And BYD has been in EV for decades, it has its own battery technology and production capacity. GM is behind all these area maybe only with a reasonable good autopilot. GM also has structural cost as its obstacle, its manufacturing labor is highly unionized. In comparison NIO production is farmed out like Apple.
More dangerous, we are in the EV stock bubble. When the bubble bursts soon, the whole EV industry will feel the impact or even collapse. This can happen even under Biden administration. Any one needs to notice the recent stock market height is due to government policies, but government policies have been overextended. So we need to know the Biden green policy may not help the EV too much. If we are serious about carbon reduction, not carbon neutral or zero, we should drive small engine vehicles and sacrifice the performance and enjoyment for earth health and our children future. The idea of carbon zero is just like social progressive pursuit ideal communism — note I don’t mean the form of communism we saw in Soviet and China. Let us admit the fossil fuel in last 5 decades is still the polar of human energy sources.
By 2035 I’ll be 81 years old and as I grow closer to drawing my last breath I’m certain by then GM will be just as irrelevant to me as it is today… perhaps moreso.