Mary Barra Says By Mid-Decade GM Will Be Selling More EVs In The US Than Anyone — Including Tesla
General Motors CEO Mary Barra told Yahoo! Finance that the company plans to sell more EVs in the US than other automakers, including Tesla, by the middle of the decade. She also said that EVs are a huge opportunity for the company.
“What we’ve seen and what that represents is that people do believe in EVs and there’s a huge opportunity there.
“So, at General Motors, we’re just focused on executing well, really work to listen and understand what the customers are looking for, and remember, we’re not just necessarily selling at the premium end, we’re going to have electric vehicles affordable at $30,000 and then our joint venture — joint partnership with Honda — we’re going to be doing something even more affordable than that with our affordable electric vehicle.
“I think it’s a little bit longer game. We’re taking all the steps to do it right to make sure that we’re positioned to have a full portfolio of vehicles. And we have said that by mid-decade, we will be selling more EVs in this country than anyone else.”
When asked about Tesla, Mary Barra replied, “Including Tesla.”
For those of us supporting Tesla and its mission, it’s really hard to see GM keeping its promise to actually lead in the EV segment by mid-decade. However, it’s good to see them wanting to do so. I would rather GM beat Tesla at EVs than to try to kill EVs again, because although I support Tesla, it’s the mission itself that is forcing the legacy automakers to focus on EVs. That was Tesla’s original goal.
For the past few years, every automaker said they were coming for Tesla, and so far, they haven’t been able to successfully overtake Tesla. I think that it’s going to take more than a few polished interviews to do so. These legacy automakers really need to take EVs seriously, but I am of the opinion that they are trying now.
They are waking up and seeing the impact Tesla is having on the market in terms of demand. They see that this is what consumers want. They also see the stock price.
But I feel that if GM truly wanted to beat Tesla, it would have already — or even before Tesla was founded. It would have found a way to make EVs mainstream long before there was a need for Tesla. This goes for the other legacy automakers as well. It took Tesla coming onto the scene — with barely a factory to make its cars — to fore the auto industry to this point. If a newbie automaker with just a couple of factories can bring EVs to production and make more money than both Ford and GM, which are selling more cars in total than Tesla, then already-established automakers could have done it also. They just didn’t want to — until now.
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