Like it or not, Tesla is nearly an unrivaled leader in the electric car segment. The company has spent years developing luxurious electric cars that showed the public electric powertrains aren’t only for greener lifestyles, but can also be full-blown performance machines.
As an early adopter, Tesla has built a cult-like following, and General Motors recognizes the company’s significance. Speaking at an Axios event in Boston, Massachusettes, GM CEO Mary Barra told the audience Tesla is a “capable” rival to GM. She made the comment speaking of her company’s efforts to ramp up its presence in the electric-car market.
“[Tesla has] very capable electric vehicles. When we look at the landscape of competition from a car company perspective, whether it’s Tesla or whether it’s some of the global [equipment manufacturers], there’s very capable competition and that’s what kind of drives us. That’s why we’ve been so aggressive on investing in technology and moving quickly,” she said.
Numerous other automakers have begun investing in electric cars to tackle Tesla’s hold on the market. However, GM is one of a few companies with mass-market brands that have committed to electrifying its portfolio. GM plans for 20 electric cars by 2023, though it’s unclear how many will be sold in North America. China is a major reason for automakers’ rapid investment in electric cars.
Other makes bolsterings their presence in the electric-car segment are Volkswagen, Mercedes-Benz, Nissan and Volvo.
It’s not entirely clear where GM will move its focus to next. Previously, the automaker was tipped to launch a more luxurious electric car for the Buick brand based on the Chevrolet Bolt EV. However, slow adoption has reportedly led Buick to hold off on future electric car introductions. Before former Cadillac President Johan de Nysschen’s ouster, he said to expect many of the future electric cars to arrive as Cadillacs in North America.
Comments
Mary Barra is pulling a page out of the Tesla PR strategy/ bad news deflection playbook. When bad news is coming out from your company, get people to look the other way by talking about something totally different and pulling out an “amazing” future product that never materializes.
Mary needs to do less talking and more fixing GM which just reported horrible sales and profit results.
Judging by the lack of comments on here, obvious people are not interested in Mary talking…
gm is just fine. There will be two electric cars in 18 months on buick, one Chevrolet.
Cadillac XT7, XT8 BEV and more to follow.
Tesla is one forward thinking, innovative American company. That would change if the UAW’s greasy fingers were in the pie.
I have a Tesla sales location one mile away from my home. The parking lot is stuffed with new Tesla vehicles. If Tesla is hitting higher production numbers, I’m concerned about true customer demand, since Tesla is making mostly sedans.
Hybrid still looks like a good alternative to boost both horsepower and mileage, at a competitive price.
You’ve got to wonder whether Mary Barra has been smoking weed because Tesla isn’t competition to anyone given it’s low sales volume; once the industry goes all electric with competition from BMW and Mercedes.. Tesla will disappear.
tesla may be down to the last of its nine lives but it did outsell all of BMW in the US market for august.
who knows if they actually made enough to pay the bills that are coming due.
What Tesla seems to be ahead of the curve is:
– battery technology (US-made)
– a head-start on a network of high-speed recharging stations.
With (maybe) less ego, he’d be content with the ‘intel inside’ business model …
or Qualcomm patenting chip technology instead of making handsets (to start).
Then, do high-end cars, or solve EV AWD, and rockets.
The Tesla lot near me is full of 300-series sedans, not many CUVs, for whatever that’s worth.
*’Where’ Tesla seems …’
Sorry, not ‘what’ –
A friend drove his Tesla SUV to Santa Fe, with charging stations pre-plotted for him … again, ahead of the curve in certain areas.
In a recent survey among 18000 UK car drivers, Tesla came in as absolute last with most reliability issues. Japanese brands came in on top. See: http://uk.businessinsider.com/survey-uk-drivers-say-tesla-model-s-most-unreliable-car-2018-9?r=US&IR=T