General Motors announced Thursday it would fall short of its goal of having 500,000 electrified vehicles on the road by 2017.
GM said 180,834 EVs, PHEVs, two-mode hybrids, and vehicles equipped with the automaker’s eAssist hit the road in 2014, up from 153,034 in 2013 and 39,843 in 2011, The Detroit News reports. The census counts vehicles from MY 2010 forward.
Regarding the future, GM said it would fall short of its 2017 goal alongside the industry as a whole as demand for electrified vehicles haven’t kept up with the automaker’s initial forecast. The automaker pointed to lower gas prices and increased demand for trucks, crossovers and SUVs as the cause behind the lukewarm progress.
Despite this, the automaker said it would continue with its electrification program, which includes the upcoming second-gen Chevrolet Volt, Cadillac’s new CT6 PHEV variant, and the Bolt EV aimed at Tesla’s Model 3, which GM expects to sell in all 50 states for $30,000 after federal tax rebates.
In the meantime, GM believes it can best handle both low fuel prices and ever-tightening fuel economy standards by improving upon the internal combustion engine and lightweighting.
The statement follows a similar instance from U.S. Department of Energy secretary Ernest Moniz made earlier this year, who stated the U.S. wouldn’t have 1 million electric vehicles on the road by the end of 2015.
[Photo credit: Chevrolet]
And no one is surprised.
I’m surprised.
But only because I’m surprised that they would remind us of this. Nobody expected they’d make 500K, anyway. Why not just keep mum and hope we’d all forget it?
GM’s done a lot of “keep mum and hope everyone forgets” in the past few years. It’s good to see them address the issues and be up front. They’ve got semi-legitimate excuses, though I think they’d have done better or maybe even made the prediction had they started with the Bolt and then moved on to the Volt and ELR and the likes.
“… maybe even made the prediction had they started with the Bolt…”
Started with the Bolt? Was a 200 mile BEV for $37.5K feasible in 2011? I’m still skeptical they can pull it off any time soon.
Now what is that gorgeous gold’s colour code? I’d like to paint something else in it…
Now what is that gorgeous gold’s colour code? I’d like to paint something else in it…It’s the 90s all over again:
http://www.otopicture.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/Volvo-C70-Coupe-Exterior.jpg
Both are orange as the day is long, not gold. #calibrate
Stupid goal. Lightweighting and downsizing are not compatible with adding battery weight. Plugs only make sense if you’re trying to capture tax subsidies and CAFE credits. I suspect that was GM’s goal. Help themselves to $2.5B in taxpayer credits.
Me thinks we need a big pick up tax. Disincentivize some of those GM buyers out of the big trucks and into those glorious environmentally friendly EV vehicles we’ve all worked so hard to pay for. This is the kind of thing that will make this country great once again.
Sarc?
As GM makes no vehicles which are competitive in a market of any volume other than trucks and Chinese Buicks, yes.
@Superdessucke,
The simplest way is to remove CAFE and all of those weight based standards for FE.
Base emissions on fuel used by volume. That means for every gallon of fuel burnt only a certain amount of emissions able to escape into the environment.
I would then use a levy on fuel to influence the vehicle market. This would be fairer for the manufacturers by allowing for a greater use of existing technologies.
These EVs and Hybrids are a huge waste of taxpayer/consumer money that could be better spent expanding the US economy more effectively and efficiently.
This would also give the government more tax dollars without increasing the cost of vehicle ownership.
“Base emissions on fuel used by volume. That means for every gallon of fuel burnt only a certain amount of emissions able to escape into the environment”
Not sure what you mean here due to no chemistry specific label was attached to the term “emissions”. If you are talking CO2 , or CO for that matter, the amount emitted per gallon is fixed by the “recipe” of two (CO2) or one (CO) oxygen atoms joins with a carbon atom in the gasoline. Unless sequestering of the CO or CO2 on the vehicle is possible……
Or, we could stop trying to influence people’s behavior by manipulating the already insane tax system. We could let the market decide what types of cars people drive.
Look at how much is spent on fuel over the life of a vehicle. Compare big pickups to an efficient car or to be even more extreme, an EV.
Let’s say a big truck averages 19 mpg & gas is $3.50. Over 150k mi, that’s over $27,600 spent just on fuel. An efficient car averaging 30 mpg costs $10k less–that’s basically a $10k ‘tax’ paid although it doesn’t go to the govt. An EV would cost an further $10k less than that car, or $20k less than the truck to fuel over the same 150k mi.
The thing is people don’t do math, and that means they make decisions without all the info. Increasing taxes/costs without getting them to do the math won’t change their decisions.
Not that people really give a damn about this, but another mathematical reality is how much CO2 a vehicle vents into the atmosphere.
Example: my little hybrid that is returning 54mpg overall, if driven 200,000 miles will have produced 35 TONS of CO2.
And just by the simple act of breathing for the last 15 years, your little body has
vented about 5 TONS of CO2 into the atmosphere…
Offer tax credits for holding your breath?