In this Jan. 16, 2019, file photo, Cruise AV, General Motor's autonomous electric Bolt EV is displayed in Detroit. General Motors' self-driving car company is sending vehicles without anybody behind the wheel in San Francisco as it navigates its way toward launching a robotic taxi service that would compete against Uber and Lyft in the hometown of the leading ride-hailing services. The move announced Wednesday, Dec. 9, 2020, by GM-owned Cruise come two months after the company received California’s permission to fully driverless cars in the state. (AP Photo/Paul Sancya, File)
By Michelle Chapman
General Motors has set a goal of making the vast majority of the vehicles it produces electric by 2035, and the entire company carbon neutral, including operations, five years after that.
The Detroit automaker's push into electric vehicles has gone into overdrive this year.
GM has already announced that it will invest $27 billion in electric and autonomous vehicles in the next five years, a 35% increase over plans made before the pandemic. It will offer 30 all-electric models worldwide by the middle of the decade. By the end of 2025, 40% of its U.S. models will be battery electric vehicles. The company plans to include crossovers, SUVs, sedans and trucks in its electric vehicle lineup.
GM said Thursday that it will source 100% renewable energy to power its U.S. sites by 2030 and global sites by 2035. That's five years faster than its previously announced global goal.
And it has a goal of making all new light-duty vehicles, the vast majority of its fleet, fully electric within 14 years. The company will concentrate on offering zero-emissions vehicles in different prices ranges. It's also working with others, including the Environmental Defense Fund, to build out the necessary infrastructure to power its electric vehicles and to promote their use.
To account for carbon emissions that it cannot eliminate, GM expects to invest in carbon credits or offsets
The 112-year-old auto giant unveiled a new corporate logo this month to signify its new direction as it openly pivots to electric vehicles. It wants to be seen as a clean vehicle company, rather than a builder of cloud-spewing gas-powered pickups and SUVs.
GM scrapped its old square blue logo for a lower case gm surrounded by rounded corners and an ‘m’ that looks like an electrical plug.
It also announced a new partnership with Microsoft this month with hopes of accelerating its rollout of electric, self-driving cars.
GM's push for carbon neutrality comes a day after President Joe Biden signed executive orders that include moving to an all-electric federal vehicle fleet. His goal is to transform the nation’s heavily fossil-fuel powered economy into a clean-burning one.
So far, Wall Street has cheered the shift by GM which says the industry has reached a history-changing inflection point for mass adoption of electric vehicles.
Its shares this year have outpaced even high-flying Tesla, rising more than 20% to date. Shares rose almost 2% Thursday.
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A Michigan judge is putting sponges in the hands of shoplifters and ordering them to wash cars in a Walmart parking lot when spring weather arrives. Genesee County Judge Jeffrey Clothier hopes the unusual form of community service discourages people from stealing from Walmart. The judge also wants to reward shoppers with free car washes. Clothier says he began ordering “Walmart wash” sentences this week for shoplifting at the store in Grand Blanc Township. He believes 75 to 100 people eventually will be ordered to wash cars this spring. Clothier says he will be washing cars alongside them when the time comes.
The State Department had been in talks with Elon Musk’s Tesla company to buy armored electric vehicles, but the plans have been put on hold by the Trump administration after reports emerged about a potential $400 million purchase. A State Department spokesperson said the electric car company owned by Musk was the only one that expressed interest back in May 2024. The deal with Tesla was only in its planning phases but it was forecast to be the largest contract of the year. It shows how some of his wealth has come and was still expected to come from taxpayers.
At 100 years old, the Goodyear Blimp is an ageless star in the sky. The 246-foot-long airship will be in the background of the Daytona 500 — flying roughly 1,500 feet above Daytona International Speedway, actually — to celebrate its greatest anniversary tour. Even though remote camera technologies are improving regularly and changing the landscape of aerial footage, the blimp continues to carve out a niche. At Daytona, with the usual 40-car field racing around a 2½-mile superspeedway, views from the blimp aptly provide the scope of the event.
