General Motors has announced that it is doubling the amount of resources it will allocate toward the development of electric and autonomous vehicles over the next two years.
The announcement came as part of the promotion of former head of product at General Motors, Mark Reuss, to president of the company.
“Reuss has also been leading the transformation of the company’s global product development workforce and processes to drive world-class levels of engineering in advanced technologies and improve quality and speed to market,” GM said in a prepared statement. “He is doubling the resources allocated to electric and autonomous vehicle programs in the next two years.”
GM CEO Mary Barra said Reuss has also “played a critical role in leading the development of the company’s award-winning vehicles while transitioning his team to prepare for growing electrification and autonomous technologies.”
While no official monetary figure was provided by GM, the automaker is dumping quite a significant amount of money into the development of electric and autonomous vehicles. Late last year, the automaker announced it would invest $28 million in its battery development and test lab.
It has also spent more than $1 billion to acquire and expand its self-driving car subsidiary, Cruise Automation.
GM recently axed one of its plug-in hybrid vehicles, the Chevrolet Volt, in order to make way for more battery electric vehicles. It also got rid of other aging, slow-selling product in order to free up cash to invest in EVs and AVs. GM models set to be discontinued include the Chevrolet Cruze, Chevrolet Impala, Buick LaCrosse, Cadillac XTS sedan and Cadillac CT6 sedan. GM Canada is rumored to be killing off the Chevrolet Sonic as well – a move that GM will eventually copy, we imagine.
The American automaker recently passed the 200,000 EVs sold milestone, which means its EV customers will no longer be eligible to receive the $7,500 tax credit. The government will phase the tax credit system for GM out over the next 15 months.
Comments
Tesla better watch out. GM’s TOTAL electric vehicle portfolio is one (1) battery electric city vehicle whose whole drive train is manufactured by LG in South Korea. So how is that Billions or even Hundreds of Millions of Dollars? Now GM will double down and come out with two (2) vehicles with drive trains from China, maybe? And this is GM’s future? No one is buying the Bolt now, why would anyone buy another half hearted, phoned in, mediocre plastic GM electric vehicle?
I would like an electric version of the new Blazer, and an electric Camaro. Would be an awesome combo, and I could charge them both up in my garage. Bring it, GM!
I would hope that the only EV’s we see are rear drive focused. The powertrain sizes and constraints are entirely different for IC engines.
I’d love to see a Model X and Model S competitor from Cadillac. A Camaro-based EV sports car (Chevelle?) could be really cool.
We’ve been hearing this kind of crap for years but so far we’ve only seen 1 full EV from General Motors (Bolt).
The Volt has been canceled and the Bolt isn’t selling particularly well. All this while Tesla’s Model 3 still has a wait list and the electric vehicle tax credit is unlikely to be extended.
Electric Cars are a luxury item right now. Where are the “cool” electric cars from General Motors? Why haven’t we seen any kind of suggestion that General Motors is pursuing an electric Cadillac sports sedan or Camaro?
Even though EVs have been talked about for years, GM doesn’t seem to have leveraged the Volt and Bolt powertrains to take advantage of them on other models in different segments of the marketplace such as crossovers (Equinox, Blazer).
Given that there is some resistance to EVs among ICE owners, the Volt powertrain seemed to have an edge with consumers who are adverse or reluctant to purchase a pure EV.
All of the money will be spent for China and the product won’t see NA. GM is only building electrics where they are forced to.
It’d be nice to see some concept cars/work in progress stuff.
Right now, though, the message seems to be ‘we’re gonna spend on this.’