American consumers aren’t quite ready to give up on the internal-combustion engine, and automakers know that. But, across the world, China is aggressively pushing battery-electric cars with a range of incentives on EVs and restrictions on fossil-fuel-powered vehicles.
Bloomberg published its latest outlook for the electric-car industry on Monday, and it will be China that leads the way on said “new-energy vehicles.” Thus, General Motors’ future product plans don’t reflect the U.S. market—it’s all about Asia.
“China will continue to be the pivotal factor that drives the fast popularization of electric vehicles globally,’” said Nannan Kou, a senior associate at BNEF in Beijing and an author of the forecast.
GM has plans to introduce 20 new battery-electric cars by 2023, and the aggressive product onslaught has China in its sights. While China will lead the market, the U.S. will slowly, but surely, pick up steam, too. Bloomberg’s report predicts the mid-2020s will bring a seismic shift in new-car sales that skew toward electric vehicles as they reach cost parity with traditional vehicles. By 2040, half of new cars sold will be electric.
The shift is already present today. In China, consumers bought 72,000 EVs in April this year. In the U.S., EV sales rang in at 19,700. And with the EV strategy, China will prepare to set up shop as a world power in the automotive and battery industry.
Will we likely see all 2o electric cars GM has planned here in North America? Potentially, but the focus is, and always has been, on China.
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China wants electric vehicles in hopes it will help their air quality over a decade; but little has been said whether China has done anything to their country’s power grid to support the potential of millions of electric vehicles or recharging stations to recharge the cars since most people big cities live in apartments.
It won’t be a problem for countries with one party Governments to quickly fix any issues…For the most part, most people don’t drive very far on an average day so the overwhelming majority of the time, EV owners can get away with slowest charging speed option which puts the least strain on the grid…However in China, GM sells a very popular EV there, the $5000 USD (after incentives) Baojun E100 which has a range of 96 miles and has a 0-100% 220v charging speed of 7.5 hours…Installing a few a dozen standard outlets in a complex is far cheaper, quicker and easier on the grid than installing DCFC chargers…
“American consumers aren’t quite ready to give up on the internal-combustion engine”
Wow. So much wrong in so few words —
1. No car market is ready to ‘give up’ on gas cars but nowhere on Earth does everyone have access to plug in their cars
2. Big oil isn’t willing to give up on gas cars in America, lobbying against incentives and restrictions
3. Prices are nowhere near tempting to switch to all electric
China already has the Buick Velite 5, which is a luxury version of the Chevy Volt. I doubt it will be sold in the U.S.
Don’t forget; what the Chinese Communist Party says, goes.
If they decide that only electric vehicles will be sold by 2030 – you can pretty much guarantee it WILL happen!! When key politicians don’t do what they sign up to with their Party, they quietly disappear!
One thing to be said for communism in China, it is results-focused, and not hamstrung by whiny PC “beaching” (sic).
The Velite 6 is beautiful. I hope GM has the wisdom NOT to sell electric Chinese Buick vehicles as Chevrolet.
Volt and Bolt are failures because they are uncool EVs. Buick is a blank slate for many Millennials and Gen X buyers especially with Avenir. An EV line up could give Buick an energized identity.
Globally, especially in India, Chevrolet is damaged so again the Buick nameplate has potential.
This is mostly politics. china is trying to do as all communist countries do and put on a show. They might redact in 10 years when its burden will become to detrimental on their economy. plug ins already are expensive and even with LION batteries to have their price cut in half over the next 10 years due to max production, they still will be twice the price of a gas motor. also the efficiency of gas motors could easily double in the next 10 years making the switch to electric less appealing. it will be interesting to see how it pans out, but my guess is that electric cars wont ever make it to the predicted market share of half of all automobiles. even in Europe where it will be illegal to buy a gas car by 2040 I predict will be removed. Many economy cars over there are in the spark and sonic price range, and I dont see consumers caving easily to bolt price range just for electrification, even If mass production brings the average price of a bolt style vehicle from 40k down to 30k, that still double a compact or subcompact transaction price of 15k
You may want to google your claims…GM sells a very popular EV there, the Baojun E100 which has 96 miles of range, its $14K USD but can be had for $5K after incentives…Who knows what breakthroughs EVs will have with lower costs and faster charging 5-10 years from now…GM has already touted their next generation batteries which are rumored to be cobalt free solid sate…We don’t have to like it yet we can’t ignore that globally, new solar, wind and renewal projects come online every day, coal plants are either shutting down entirely or being converted to cleaner and cheaper natural gas…ICE vehicles aren’t the greatest source of a counties total pollution yet it’s still a major factor…China provides free healthcare and the country has admitted that up to 400K people die from pollution related cancer per year which is unsustainable…Some of its populated shore lines do not have any marine life, pollution affects the drinking water and can greatly affect tourism…In order for a communist country to remain one, its uber expensive address all those issues…
China is presently building 700 new coal fired power plants, obviously using the latest clean HELE technology. Altogether world-wide, over 1600 new technology coal fired power plants are under construction.