https://www.designnews.com/automotive-0/gm-produce-20-new-electric-cars-2023/112631672857573
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GM to Produce 20 New Electric Cars by 2023
Future GM battery-electric vehicles will include coupes, sedans,
crossovers, SUVs and possibly even pickup trucks.
By: Charles MurrayAutomotiveSustainability, Electronics & TestOctober
03, 2017
General Motors raised the stakes in the auto industry’s ongoing
competition to build more affordable, long-range electric cars this
week, announcing it would roll out two more all-new EVs in the next 18
months, and 20 more by 2023.
The giant automaker said that the first two vehicles will be “based off
learnings from the Chevrolet Bolt EV.” The others will include coupes,
sedans, crossovers, and SUVs. GM told Design News that it would also not
rule out the possibility of a pickup truck. To underscore its effort, GM
released a photo including eight different vehicles silhouetted
underneath drapes, clearly exhibiting different sizes and shapes. The
silhouetted figures represent the array of pure, battery-powered cars
that the company will release in the next five-and-a-half years, all
designed from the ground, up.
“The Bolt EV was the first, affordable, long-range all-electric
vehicle,” said GM spokesman Kevin Kelly. “We’ve cracked the code. We
know how to do it.”
GM’s statement comes at a time when much of the entrenched auto industry
seems as if it is racing to make bigger and bigger announcements about
electric cars. Today, Ford Motor Co. said it has formed an internal
unit, called Team Edison, whose charter it is to accelerate development
of electric vehicles, while forging partnerships with other auto
manufacturers and suppliers. Similarly, Toyota Motor Corp. said last
Thursday that it is teaming with Mazda Motor Corp. and with supplier
Denso Corp. to “jointly develop basic structural technologies for
electric vehicles.”
The announcements provide a broad signal that traditional automakers
have accepted electrification, but it’s still clear that most of them
are unsure how fast it will take place. Industry analysts, such as
Navigant Research , have predicted that approximately 4% of vehicles
sold worldwide in 2025 will be battery-electric. Other analysts,
however, have forecast figures in excess of 20%.
“If you try to guess anything out to about 2030, your crystal ball will
be pretty fuzzy,” Kelly told us.
Analysts today acknowledged that no one’s sure whether consumers, even
the younger ones, will embrace pure electric cars. “Engineers are
starting to see a pathway to electrification that maybe they didn’t see
until recently,” noted Brett Smith, program director for the Center for
Automotive Research (CAR). “The question is whether it’s just that the
technology is advancing, or if it’s because the companies need to make
these statements so they don’t get left behind on the public relations
front.”
At CAR’s Management Briefings Seminars in August, many industry
executives expressed skepticism about the near-term future for pure
electric cars, Smith said. In 2016, only 0.4% of the new vehicles sold
in the US were battery-electric. Even the much-publicized Chevy Bolt has
turned lukewarm numbers, with just 11,670 sold through August, according
to InsideEVs.
Smith said that part of the motivation for the recent spate of
announcements is the industry’s need to keep up with Tesla, Inc. “Tesla
has changed the game,” he noted. “In the past, the auto industry never
talked about future product. Now, though, they realize they have to play
the long-term game.”
(Senior technical editor Chuck Murray has been writing about technology
for 33 years. He joined Design News in 1987, and has covered
electronics, automation, fluid power, and auto.)
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