Posted on 02/20/2021 3:49:17 PM PST by MinorityRepublican
General Motors Co. GM 0.79% is betting its future on electric cars. By mid-decade it plans to spend $27 billion on manufacturing 30 electric models and developing driverless cars. By 2035, it expects to have phased out gasoline-engine options completely and to be selling only electric vehicles, a technology that currently generates about 2% of sales and no profit for the company.
Planning for this transformation at the factory level is the responsibility of Gerald Johnson, a GM lifer who took over global manufacturing operations in 2019, and who is spearheading a $2.2 billion gut rehab of a factory in Detroit, recently renamed Factory Zero, to serve as GM’s electric-vehicle hub. Two more conversions of North American factories for production of electric vehicles, or EVs, are in the works.
Mr. Johnson, 58 years old, calls it the most far-reaching strategic shift he has seen in his career at GM, which he began 40 years ago as an intern.
“There has always been incremental change,” he says. “This is transformative.”
GM factories around the world employ more than 100,000 workers. Some plants exist solely to assemble gas-powered engines and transmissions that won’t be needed if the company successfully reaches its 2035 target, portending big changes for both workers and GM’s factory footprint.
(Excerpt) Read more at wsj.com ...
I expect GM to close all US factories and move all production to China.
And still carry the idle bums that have been out since the 90’s ?
I have absolutely no problem with this. None. But, if after a decade, they are insolvent, I don’t want them crawling back to the taxpayers to bail them out.
GM won’t be insolvent. They are doing this because they know government will mandate EV.
How do these EVs operate in below zero weather? Asking for a friend.
At some point, it'll be against the law for us to drive our vehicles that run on gasoline (by 2035 or so).
“How do these EVs operate in below zero weather? Asking for a friend.”
before or after the grid goes down.
Woke Corporate Suicide.
Mary Barra was interviewed a few years ago. Asked about this decision given the fact that given a choice very few choose EV’s. Her answer, in the future they will have no choice. Ford’s management appears to be following GM’s lead in this.
the last time GM made a major corporate turn which ignored their customers and dealers and followed the advice of “experts” was in the 1980’s.
Their “expert” advisors told them that oil prices were going to rise without limit. So GM downsized all their largest, most profitable cars, even though dealers and customers at clinics hated the cars.
The downsized cars where introduced in 1985-86 when oil prices were under $10 / barrel.
Brilliant !
Ford and GM might be right though. If people like Joe Biden remains in charge of our government and that appears to be likely. Most millennials believe that climate change is a major threat so they will support us transitioning to EVs.
what just happened in texas may be a wake-up call to stop this insanity...
Slave labor is cheaper
And what is going to power these EV’s? We are seeing how well wind and solar are working just to keep people WARM and ALIVE. Add to this, millions of folks charging their passenger sized AFX / TYCO vehicle batteries.
Why is it so hard for people to contemplate the easily seen consequences of this folly? It’s like giving the car keys to a 4 year old and expect things to turn out well.
Never trust GM. I heard a Michigan radio story and the pat BS carefully worded answers included "we hope to plan on taking our workers with us into this new future." In other words, don't throw rocks at us yet, don't riot at the auto plants, until we actually sell you out later on and move to China for EV at low labor costs and no environmental limits on us.
The new "partnership" of corporations and socialist government in the US must include a promise of big money to GM or why risk so much?
If all they manufacture is EVs, it’s all you can purchase.
That’s the plan.
Good thing electricity is magic.
It's going to suck. There will be some "growing pains" as we deal with this transition.
The only wild card is if people just plain refuse to buy EVs just like what happened in the '70s when Americans refused to adopt the metric system.
I don't think that's a likely scenario though. Tesla is hot and look at the stock price. Americans will be ready for the transition. Yes, some people will complain. But so what?
EVs that rely on battery power alone simply will not operate at all in very cold weather, as the batteries rapidly become inefficient in supplying power.
Fuel cells, which make electricity voltage as needed from the combination of hydrogen gas with oxygen, would be relatively unaffected by very low temperatures, and they shall be available just as soon as we open up all the hydrogen mines, and get the hydrogen pipelines running all over the US. By the way, has anybody yet worked out the cost/benefit ration of this expected conversion to all-electric vehicles? Please consider the necessary infrastructure that must be put into place.
Government Motors?
I’ll be 79 in 2035. Perhaps time to retire my 1999 F150.
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