Photo: GMC
The biggest of the Big Three in Detroit wowed the American car-making industry in January 2021 with an eyebrow-raising announcement. General Motors said that it aims to eliminate tailpipe emissions from new light-duty vehicles by 2035, but as expected, that’s not exactly true.
Steve Carlisle, the executive vice president and president of General Motors in North America, issued a correction that confirms the survival of internal combustion if the legislation doesn't get as prohibitive as initially thought. “We intend to win wherever we’re competing and irrespective of the propulsion system,” he told Automotive News. “At the same time, we’re setting ourselves up for this pivot [to electrics], which is inevitable.”
Loose language has always been a part of General Motors, and this quote reveals how the automotive industry feels about new-energy vehicles as a whole. The switch from internal combustion to electric propulsion is too dramatic based on the current limitations of the power grid and charging infrastructure of the United States. Nevertheless, waxing lyrical about environmentally-friendly goals is a sure way of winning over customers.
Former Chevrolet general manager Pete Estes pretty much paved the way for loose language at the Detroit-based automaker when introducing the first-gen Camaro in the 1960s. As the story goes, Estes told the U.S. media that a Camaro “is a small vicious animal that eats Mustangs.” Almost six decades later, the Mustang outsells the Camaro by a huge margin. For example, in the first quarter of 2021 the Blue Oval's pony sold 17,274 units compared to 7,089 examples of the General Motors pony.
Turning our attention back to electric vehicles, take a wild guess how many GM electric vehicles are currently offered in the United States. The answer is two, and the upcoming EVs are way costlier than the currently available Bolt siblings. The GMC Hummer EV pickup truck serves as the perfect case in point at $112,595 for the sold-out Edition 1 and $79,995 for the entry-level EV2 specification.
On a related note, the Ford Motor Company is far more ambitious than its rival. A press release from February 2021 reads “completely electric by 2030,” although that refers to the Dearborn-based automaker’s European arm.
Loose language has always been a part of General Motors, and this quote reveals how the automotive industry feels about new-energy vehicles as a whole. The switch from internal combustion to electric propulsion is too dramatic based on the current limitations of the power grid and charging infrastructure of the United States. Nevertheless, waxing lyrical about environmentally-friendly goals is a sure way of winning over customers.
Former Chevrolet general manager Pete Estes pretty much paved the way for loose language at the Detroit-based automaker when introducing the first-gen Camaro in the 1960s. As the story goes, Estes told the U.S. media that a Camaro “is a small vicious animal that eats Mustangs.” Almost six decades later, the Mustang outsells the Camaro by a huge margin. For example, in the first quarter of 2021 the Blue Oval's pony sold 17,274 units compared to 7,089 examples of the General Motors pony.
Turning our attention back to electric vehicles, take a wild guess how many GM electric vehicles are currently offered in the United States. The answer is two, and the upcoming EVs are way costlier than the currently available Bolt siblings. The GMC Hummer EV pickup truck serves as the perfect case in point at $112,595 for the sold-out Edition 1 and $79,995 for the entry-level EV2 specification.
On a related note, the Ford Motor Company is far more ambitious than its rival. A press release from February 2021 reads “completely electric by 2030,” although that refers to the Dearborn-based automaker’s European arm.
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