GM to stop building petrol and diesel cars by 2035

January 29, 2021February 14, 2022 Stephen Corby 2127 Views cadillac, electric car, ev, GM, Holden, hummer

Where America leads, the world follows, and if that is the case then it seems an EV future is approaching more rapidly by the day after first President Joe Biden committed his government to buying electric cars in huge numbers and now GM, one of the world’s biggest car companies, has committed to making millions of them.

In a move that would have been unimaginable under climate-change hoax promoter Donald Trump, GM chief executive Mary Barra – who previously applauded Trump’s loosening of fuel-efficiency regulations – has committed the company to ending the sale of all petrol and diesel cars and light SUVs by 2035.

Of course, the Hummer military machine is about to go EV and the overnight announcement adds weight to our recent story that the iconic Chevrolet Corvette would eventually go electric.

In what has accurately been described as a “historic” move, Barra said the company would eliminate tailpipe emissions from its “light-duty vehicles” by that year. It’s the next step in a radical EV transformation from Holden to Hummer – and something that will include luxury brand Cadillac, which is planning to reassert its former glory at the top end of the market.

“As one of the world’s largest automakers, we hope to set an example of responsible leadership in a world that is faced with climate change,” she said.

If it sound like there’s some wriggle room there, you’re right, because pick-up trucks, which make up a huge amount of GM volume, are more like medium and heavy-duty vehicles, and the pledge will not effect them, or not yet anyway.

One critic, Dan Becker, of the Safe Climate Transport Campaign at the Centre for Biological Diversity, said that given GM’s polluting track record, its announcement was “just blue smoke and mirrors“.

The company is moving rapidly into the EV space, however, and investing heavily. GM will manufacture as many as 30 different types of EVs, with 20 of those modest being sold in its biggest market, the US.

GM will, according to reports, spend US$27 billion on EVs between 2020 and 2025, which will far outstrip its spending on conventional vehicles.

The announcement comes in the same week that President Biden signed an executive order calling for the US federal fleet of more than 645,000 vehicles to be converted to electric power.

Stephen Corby

Stephen is a former editor of both Wheels and Top Gear Australia magazines and has been writing about cars since Henry Ford was a boy. Initially an EV sceptic, he has performed a 180-degree handbrake turn and is now a keen advocate for electrification and may even buy a Porsche Taycan one day, if he wins the lottery. Twice.