As was said in the 1950's, "What's good for General Motors is good for the
USA." Interesting that Fiat Chrysler has said nothing yet. Eric
G.M. Will Sell Only Zero-Emission Vehicles by 2035
The move, one of the most ambitious in the auto industry, is a piece of a
broader plan by the company to become carbon neutral by 2040.
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[General Motors plans an electric Hummer pickup, with a high-end version due in
showrooms this fall.]
General Motors plans an electric Hummer pickup, with a high-end version due in
showrooms this fall.Credit...General Motors Company, via Associated Press
By Neal E. Boudette<https://www.nytimes.com/by/neal-e-boudette> and Coral
Davenport<https://www.nytimes.com/by/coral-davenport>
* Jan. 28, 2021
The days of the internal combustion engine are numbered.
General Motors said Thursday that it would phase out petroleum-powered cars and
trucks and sell only vehicles that have zero tailpipe emissions by 2035, a
seismic shift by one of the world’s largest automakers that makes billions of
dollars today from gas-guzzling pickup trucks and sport utility vehicles.
The announcement is likely to put pressure on automakers around the world to
make similar commitments. It could also embolden President Biden and other
elected officials to push for even more aggressive policies to fight climate
change. Leaders could point to G.M.’s decision as evidence that even big
businesses have decided that it is time for the world to begin to transition
away from fossil fuels that have powered the global economy for more than a
century.
G.M.’s move is sure to roil the auto industry, which, between car and parts
makers, employed about one million people in the United States in 2019, more
than any other manufacturing sector by far. It will also have huge
ramifications for the oil and gas sector, whose fortunes are closely tied to
the internal combustion engine.
A rapid shift by the auto industry could lead to job losses and business
failures in related areas. Electric cars don’t have transmissions or need oil
changes, meaning conventional service stations will have to retool what they
do. Electric vehicles also require fewer workers to make, putting traditional
manufacturing jobs at risk. At the same time, the move to electric cars will
spark a boom in areas like battery manufacturing, mining and charging stations.
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Electric cars today are the fastest-growing segment of the auto industry, but
they still make up a small proportion of new car sales: about 3 percent of the
global total<https://www.iea.org/reports/global-ev-outlook-2020>, according to
the International Energy Agency. Sales of such cars jumped last year in Europe
and China, but they remain niche products in the United States. They are bought
primarily by affluent early adopters who are drawn to the luxury models made by
Tesla, which dominates the business, and by environmentally conscious consumers.
A spokesman for Ford Motor declined to directly comment on G.M.’s move but said
his company was “committed to leading the electric vehicle revolution in the
areas where we are strong.” Several other automakers, most of them European,
have previously pledged more modest steps in the direction that G.M. says it is
headed.
Daimler<https://www.daimler.com/innovation/case/electric/10-facts-eq.html#:~:text=By%202022%2C%20the%20entire%20Mercedes,with%20battery%20or%20fuel%20cell.>,
which makes Mercedes-Benz cars, has said it would have an electric or hybrid
version of each of its models by 2022, and Volkswagen has
promised<https://www.bbc.com/news/business-41231766> an electric version for
each of its models by 2030.
G.M. said its decision to switch to electric cars was part of a broader plan to
become carbon neutral by 2040. “General Motors is joining governments and
companies around the globe working to establish a safer, greener and better
world,” Mary T. Barra, G.M.’s chairman and chief executive, said in a
statement. “We encourage others to follow suit and make a significant impact on
our industry and on the economy as a whole.”
G.M.’s announcement comes just one week after Mr. Biden signed an executive
order directing the Environmental Protection Agency and the Transportation
Department to quickly reinstate tough auto fuel-economy rules put in place
during the Obama administration, and one day after he signed a follow-up order
directing the federal government to purchase all-electric
vehicles<https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/27/climate/biden-climate-executive-orders.html?action=click&module=Spotlight&pgtype=Homepage&utm_campaign=Carbon%20Brief%20Daily%20Briefing&utm_content=20210128&utm_medium=email&utm_source=Revue%20Daily>.
He is also pushing for a new economic recovery package to include funding to
build 500,000 electric vehicle charging stations, and to create a system of
rebates and incentives for purchasing electric vehicles.
On Thursday, a White House spokesman, Vedant Patel, welcomed G.M.’s new
commitment. “We applaud efforts by the private sector to further embrace
renewable and clean energy technologies,” he said. “As the president and many
others have said, efforts like this will help grow our economy and create
good-paying union jobs.”
Editors’ Picks
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How Do We Regain Trust in Institutions?
<https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/24/health/resolutions-dry-january.html?action=click&algo=use&block=editors_picks_recirc&fellback=false&imp_id=411086969&impression_id=3aed7d81-623a-11eb-bf7f-0b64620fbc4e&index=1&pgtype=Article®ion=ccolumn&req_id=424199821&surface=home-featured&variant=2_use&action=click&module=editorContent&pgtype=Article®ion=CompanionColumn&contentCollection=Trending>
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Welcome to the Graveyard of New Year’s Resolutions
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The Talk of the Super Bowl Is Quarterbacks, Except One
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G.M.’s move appears to follow a pattern by Ms. Barra of responding quickly to
changes in the White House. It was Ms. Barra who, in the early days of the
Trump administration, met with the new president in the Oval Office and asked
him to roll back the tough Obama tailpipe pollution rules.
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Four years later, her company’s evident about-face has won her the good will of
those working to put those rules back in place.
“This move by G.M. is a big deal,” said Margo Oge, a former Obama
administration official who played a lead role in developing the tough fuel
economy standards and now informally advises the Biden administration and auto
companies. “This helps the Biden-Harris administration to focus on long-term
decarbonization of vehicles rather than just cleaning up the Trump mess.”
The chief executive of Audi, the luxury car company owned by Volkswagen, said
customers would ultimately determine the speed of the transition to electric
cars. “Ten years ago, nobody would have been able to foresee the enormous speed
of change,” Markus Duesmann, the chief executive, who is also head of
technology for Volkswagen, said in a statement.
Ferdinand Dudenhöffer, a veteran industry analyst, said that even if European
carmakers had not put a date on internal combustion’s demise, there was a
consensus that electric cars would dominate within 10 or 15 years. “Mary Barra
is a good C.E.O.,” Mr. Dudenhöffer said. “She has the right strategy.”
Mr. Biden made clear on his first day in office that he intends to make
tackling climate change one of the driving forces of his agenda. Chief among
them are the federal standards on auto tailpipe pollution, which is the
nation’s single largest source of heat-trapping greenhouse gases.
The Obama-era standards had required automakers to achieve an average of 54.5
miles per gallon by 2025, which would have eliminated about six billion tons of
planet-warming carbon dioxide pollution over the lifetime of the vehicles, and
required a large-scale transition to hybrid and electric vehicles. The Trump
administration rolled back the standard to about 40 miles per gallon,
essentially eliminating the need for companies to invest in such technology.
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The Biden administration is expected to announce by April that it will
introduce rules requiring cars to reach an average of about 51 miles per gallon
by 2026. The proposal is also expected to include additional provisions aimed
at boosting the production and sales of electric vehicles.
The American Petroleum Institute, which represents oil and gas companies, said
automakers would do what they felt was right for their businesses. But the
group’s senior vice president, Frank Macchiarola, said policymakers ought to
protect the right of consumers “to choose what kind of car they want to drive.”
The vision of an all-electric future represents a dramatic shift in thinking at
G.M. Just over 20 years ago, it developed an experimental electric car called
the EV1 and leased it to a select group of customers. The car was praised by
environmentalists. But seeing little profit potential in the EVI and American
tastes shifting toward S.U.V.s, the automaker ended the effort. It even went so
far as to take cars back from customers and destroy them, an episode chronicled
in the documentary “Who Killed the Electric Car?”
G.M.’s reputation was further damaged in environmental circles in the 2000s as
it produced larger and larger S.U.V.s. None engendered more scorn than the
hulking Hummer H2, introduced in 2002. It weighed more than 6,600 pounds —
twice the weight of a Honda Accord — and had a fuel economy of just 10 miles
per gallon.
But by 2008, gas prices were rising and G.M.’s focus on trucks and S.U.V.s left
it especially vulnerable just as the financial crisis hit. Its lack of
fuel-efficient cars was a contributing factor in the troubles that led the
company into a government-backed bankruptcy.
That history continues to dog G.M., and some experts said they were not
convinced that the company would make the transition to electric cars as
quickly as it had promised, in part because Ms. Barra or her successors could
simply change their minds.
“To borrow a phrase from Thomas Edison, what consumers and the climate need are
commitments that are 1 percent inspiration and 99 percent perspiration,” said
David Friedman, a vice president of Consumer Reports. “Strong aspirations are
important and inspirational, but firm production plans and strong policies are
what move the market and the climate.”
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But some in the environmental movement said they trust G.M. The company is
working with the Environmental Defense Fund to develop a “shared vision” of
leaving internal combustion vehicles behind. “E.D.F. and G.M. have had some
important differences in the past, but this is a new day in America,” the
group’s president, Fred Krupp, said in a statement.
G.M. said it would increase the use of renewable energy, and would eliminate or
offset emissions from its factories, buildings, vehicles and other sources.
The company plans to spend $27 billion over the next five years to introduce 30
electric vehicles, including an electric Hummer pickup truck that it expects to
start delivering to customers this year. Currently its main fully electric
offering in the United States is the Chevy Bolt, a small car. The company sells
several electric models in China.
“This is a guardedly bold move,” said Erik Gordon, a business professor at the
University of Michigan who follows the auto industry. “It’s not that risky.
Fifteen or 20 years from now, who knows where we might be? Mary Barra won’t
even be C.E.O. But right now it’s hugely symbolic. This is very
forward-looking.”
G.M. stock jumped after its announcement and closed up 3.5 percent, reflecting
a growing consensus among investors that electric cars represent the future,
and that Tesla and other electric carmakers will eventually dominate the auto
industry, while businesses that do not make the transition to electric vehicles
will do poorly.
Of course, even if G.M. and other automakers are able to move to an
all-electric fleet by 2035 or 2040, combustion engine cars and trucks are
likely to be on the roads for at least several decades to come in the absence
of a huge government program designed to encourage people to replace them more
quickly. There are more than 250 million vehicles on U.S. roads; the vast
majority burn gasoline or diesel, and are on average about 11 years old.
Jack Ewing, Clifford Kraussand Ben Casselman contributed reporting.
The
