The past 12 months have been tough for EVs in the US, with a change of government leading to not only the repealing of tax incentives for buyers, but also emissions penalties for car companies.
With no carrot on a stick or gun to their heads, carmakers have been slowly winding back EV investments and sales targets, choosing to capitalise on the market as it stands rather than plan for the regulatory environment to revert to how it once was.
Last month, Ford said it’d take a huge US$19.5 billion (A$29.4 billion) hit on changing course for its future EV plans, while last week General Motors said it would lose US$6 billion (A$9 billion) by repealing investments into battery-powered cars.
However, speaking to the Automotive Press Association, General Motors CEO Mary Barra said EVs remain “the end game”, while pumping up the future role that plug-in hybrids can play across the car giant’s lineup.
“We are evaluating plug-in hybrids. We have plans to do some,” Barra said, as reported by Automotive News.
“In the past, plug-ins were the only hybrids that actually counted toward the regulatory perspective. So we have plans to do those, and we’ll have hybrids where we think we need to.
“But again, we’re mainly investing and continuing to work on EVs because we think that’s the end game.”
Barra added “it will take longer without the incentives” to reach that ‘end game’, however she said “I still think we’ll get there over time”, due to dropping battery costs and better infrastructure.
Despite winding back its EV investments, GM hasn’t said whether it’ll change course on its plans to ditch internal combustion engine-powered passenger vehicles and pickups by 2035, though this is an increasingly unlikely target to be met.
In the US, General Motors doesn’t currently offer a plug-in hybrid across any of its four brands – Chevrolet, Buick, GMC, and Cadillac – though each has at least one EV in their lineups.
Following the cancellation of Ram’s upcoming EV pickup and Ford killing off the F-150 Lightning, General Motors is the only of the ‘Big Three’ carmakers left with an offering in the segment, across both the Chevrolet Silverado EV and GMC Sierra EV.
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