GM announces two new EVs / Plans 20 All-Electric Models by 2023

GM announces two new EVs / Plans 20 All-Electric Models by 2023

General Motors Co. joined a growing group of automakers promising an emissions-free future for cars by pledging to sell 20 all-electric vehicles by 2023.

The largest U.S. automaker, which generates most of its profit with large sport utility vehicles and pickup trucks, plans to have a lineup of both battery-powered cars and hydrogen fuel-cell autos, which also run on electricity. Two new EVs will debut in the next 18 months to follow the Chevrolet Bolt that’s been on sale for less than a year.

General Motors believes in an all-electric future,” GM global product development chief Mark Reuss said on Monday during a briefing at the company’s suburban Detroit technical center.

Future generations of GM electric vehicles “will be profitable,” Reuss said, but added it was not clear when GM could make all its new vehicle offerings zero-emission electric cars.

Regulators in China and some European countries have floated proposals to ban internal combustion engines by 2030 or 2040.

The planned lineup demonstrates GM is doubling down on electrification despite the Bolt’s slow start in U.S. showrooms and companies’ inability thus far to profitably sell EVs. The automaker has delivered fewer than 12,000 units of the battery-powered Bolt, which goes about 238 miles between charges. Deliveries have primarily been concentrated thus far in California, which mandates sales of emissions-less vehicles.