The global auto industry is changing rapidly and General Motors will do its best to please every corner of the globe with a particular strategy. Such a split in policy and regulation, especially between the United States and China, could make for two very different GMs on opposite sides of the globe.
Reuters touched on the point in a report published on Tuesday, which iterated the possibility that China could lead GM’s global business for electric cars, mobility and self-driving vehicles, while North America and the United States sit back as a traditional business case for pickups, SUVs and gasoline-powered cars.
Right now, that outlook seems pretty clear. China will require battery-electric and plug-in hybrids to represent 10 percent of cars sold in the country beginning in 2019. That figure will climb in the years following its implementation. It marks a challenge for GM: even if consumers aren’t ready for electric cars, they’re needed to meet future regulations.
In the U.S., that’s hardly the case. Electric-vehicle infrastructure lags behind other countries and large utility vehicles with gasoline-powered engines flood the sales charts. Without regulations, the U.S. could be a very different market from China.
That is, unless China sparked global change. GM could simply move to introduce its electrification strategy in the U.S. and noting the automaker’s earlier announcement of 20 new EVs by 2023, that seems just as likely.
We won’t know until we get there, but things can certainly change between now and then. California has introduced legislation to ban cars powered by internal-combustion engines by 2040, for example. What does seem clear is the tale of two GMs is only beginning.
Comments
As long as the government commits oil subsidies to keep gasoline prices down, and the top Administration protects these oil producers with their campaign sponsorship and lobbying, there will be little motivation to increase EV acceptance and sales in the U.S.
China will surpass the U.S. in EV production and then the U.S will be left in the dust!
china is powering those ev’s with coal. i hope they start addressing that problem. i’d bet driving a fuel efficient gasoline powered car is better for the environment than a coal powered ev.
If you googled before posting, you would have not lost that bet…
https://www.transportenvironment.org/press/electric-cars-emit-less-co2-over-their-lifetime-diesels-even-when-powered-dirtiest-electricity
Do you think China solely relies on coal? Do you think they will 20 years from now?
The American market is not a one fuel fits all.
It will take a mix here of different types to meet all the needs. People here are free to choose outside California that is.
GM needs to meet the. Reds of all markets.
Where we live we could not live on electric alone without a major lifestyle change and more than one type vehicle
I think this will work out perfectly for GM they can start flooding the Chinese market with EV cars and sprinkle the EV cars in the US while still providing ICE cars and trucks until the demand becomes so great that GM go to a fully electric company!
China loves Buick, Buick appears to be cannibalizing U.S. Cadillac sales…Solution? Turn Buick into the exclusive EV/PHEV brand for GM…Offer zero EVs/PHEVs for Chevy/GMC/Cadillac; even if they greenlight a PHEV Silverado, slap a Buick badge on it…
At the end of the day still Chicoms!