Massive American Automaker Reveals $854 Million Investment Into V8 Engines Amid Shift to EVs
Electric vehicles! Electric vehicles! ELECTRIC vehicles!
That’s where the world is going says — says — well, just about everyone.
Automakers continue to tout their moves into the brave new world of vehicles powered by rich, clean electricity.
Government is helping, of course, with California outlawing all new internal combustion engines (ICE) by 2035. After all, those ICE powerplants are destroying the planet, we’re told.
Except the ICE age is not going away, according to General Motors CEO Mark Reuss.
True, Reuss was in New York City last week to tell investors how GM plans to have one million EVs on the road by 2025.
But he told Gary Gastelu of Fox Business News that sales of ICE vehicles are funding development of the so far unprofitable EVs.
And, Reuss said, GM is in the process of developing what some would describe as the ultimate anti-planet, carbon-emitting, villainous, infernal combustion beast of them all.
The V-8 engine. GM is designing a new V-8.
The horror! The humanity! The evil of it all!
And the reality.
GM is a business, right? And they have to be seeing ongoing problems with EVs as well as skepticism on large portions of the buying public.
Not to mention environmental impacts and supply chain issues involving battery production coupled with problems with the power distribution infrastructure for charging all the new EVs.
And they need the smoky, petroleum-based engines to fund EV World.
So while GM is spending $35 billion to develop an EV fleet, it’s putting $854 million into four factories to produce a new generation of V-8 ICEs, according to Fox Business News.
To date, GM has in production several versions of the EV Hummer and the EV Silverado.
Asked by Gastelu when EVs would be profitable for GM, Reuss was noncommittal.
“If we look at the industry experts on EV adoption, they’d say about 17 percent by the 2025 timeframe. I think it’s going to be more than that,” he said.
“Every segment, every buyer is going to want electric vehicles, but we’re not gonna abandon our internal combustion engines segments either,” according to Reuss.
“We’ve got [ICE] truck leadership, with GMC and Chevrolet, we’ve got it across our mid-sized trucks, our full sized trucks and beyond,” he said.
“We’re seeing the registrations for things like the Silverado EV [which] really have conquesting growth opportunities for General Motors, so that’s on top of our number one ICE,” Reuss said.
“In fact, we ran 52 to 56 percent of the heavy-duty market here these last few months, so we’re positioned well not only to fund our future but also add growth to those big high-profit, high-volume segments.”
In interviewing Reuss, Gastelu was quick to detect a shift in the auto making narrative as Reuss gave praise to ICE profitability.
“This sounds a little different from what you’ve been saying the last couple of years,” Gastelu noted. “Is the EV growth not happening as quickly in the U.S. as you expected for the market?”
Reuss quickly switched to EV mode: “No it’s happening. It’s grown a hundred percent over the last couple of years,” was the reply but with no definite number: 100 percent of five vehicles or 100 percent of tens of thousands of vehicles?
Three years ago, Reuss said GM considered hybrid vehicles but decided against it, choosing instead to go straight electric.
GM currently is developing its own battery cell plants and will design vehicle manufacturing facilities after that, Reuss said.
GM has committed to be one hundred percent EV by 2035, but introduction of a new V8 ICE may be an indication the company not only is committed to alleged issues of climate protection but also on which way market winds might be blowing.
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