GM Developing a Full Line of Electric Vehicles
DETROIT — General Motors Corp., which will begin selling its first electric car this fall in California, is developing a family of electric vehicles that it hopes to market around the world, GM’s chief executive said Friday.
GM Chairman John “Jack” Smith Jr. said that there is probably a bigger market for electric vehicles outside the United States, especially in Europe and developing areas of Asia, particularly China and India.
Speaking at an auto show here, Smith also said that GM expects to make a profit on electric vehicles within 10 years as technology improves and demand increases. GM says it has spent $350 million developing electric vehicles since 1990.
GM announced this week that it will become the first major auto maker to sell electric vehicles to consumers in California and Arizona. The company’s new EV1 is a sporty two-seat commuter car powered by advanced lead-acid batteries. It will be priced in the mid-$30,000s and have a range of 70 to 90 miles.
“We are making a statement that we are going into this as a business in hopes of making a market,” Smith said in an interview at the North American International Auto Show here.
He added that GM’s effort should convince the California Air Resources Board that Detroit is serious about electric cars and should provide impetus for the agency to postpone its electric vehicle sales mandate to 2003 from 1998.
Smith said that although there is a market to be developed in certain parts of the United States, particularly Southern California, he expects electric vehicles to prove more popular, profitable and acceptable abroad.
“I would expect a bigger push in Europe, where gasoline prices are so much higher,” he said. Gas in Europe costs about four times what it does in the United States.
Congestion and pollution in some parts of Europe have become so bad that some cities, such as Amsterdam, have declared car-free zones. In addition, the French government is subsidizing research on electric vehicles.
Electric vehicles also may be attractive for China and India, Smith said. These emerging markets are heavily urbanized and need low-pollution vehicles for short-distance driving on congested streets.
“There are countries that may go directly to electric vehicles for their big cities,” he said. “There will be a real need for short-distance, clean, energy-efficient vehicles.”
GM is already developing a number of electric vehicles. In 1997, it will introduce a battery-powered Chevrolet S-10 pickup truck that will be sold to utilities and other businesses. Others will follow, he said.
“This is going to be a family of vehicles,” said Smith, who declined to provide details of other models being developed.
The EV1 is expected to be the first in a new generation of fuel-efficient cars that could revolutionize the auto business, GM officials said.
Eventually, hybrid vehicles--propelled by both electricity and gas--may emerge.
GM, long recognized as the technological leader in electric propulsion, said it has about 400 employees working on electric vehicle development, including a small group in Germany. “We work very closely with our European team,” said Robert Purcell, GM’s electric vehicle director.
It is unlikely that GM will take the EV1 abroad, Purcell said, but the company is exploring other vehicles that could be built for foreign markets.
