Small personal history of my car brands is I swore off ICE American cars back in the 90's and went Japanese which were much more reliable, but I've wanted an EV since I was a kid. Fast forward to 2017 with the announcement of the amazing Bolt, which would do the magic >200 mile range for under $40k (we got a maxed out version for $30k after rebates).
Well now EV's are growing up, and so for our second car (mine) I gave myself the choice of whatever I wanted within reason. After a lot of research, not just into the cars but the technology behind it, the corporations and their strategies I've concluded that GM is the long term winner in the EV market. Since you all have reservations presumably I recommend reading Fins – Harley Earl, the Rise of General Motors and the Glory Days of Detroit by William Knoedelseder, probably available from your local library.
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I never knew the amazing history of this company, my only experience being the financial crises bankruptcy so I wrote them off and typical old American corp. But yet they made this amazing little EV called the Bolt that is really fun to drive that we bought.
The book details how while Henry Ford kicked off the era of mass produced vehicles, it was GM who owned it. In fact Ford at the time reminds me a lot of Tesla now. GM was a distributed bottoms up organization that Alfred P. Sloan created, compared to Ford which was dictated by the man in charge. Where GM recognized what people wanted and created the first corporate design department ever, to their detriment Henry still thought all people wanted was a black Model T. Ford and Musk have a lot of similarities, and I'm struck by how little design variation you see in Tesla. They have three models or whatever, and they basically all look the same. Cybertruck will never be a big seller, and again looks plain jane to my eye.
Anyhow for design, R&D and vision it looks to me like GM is on top and I think is being underestimated, but they are playing the long game. Regardless you folks might enjoy a great read on the history of how they got here, and the parallels of this 'second great shift' in the automobile industry, and how I at least think now, like back then, GM has the right cards in their hand.
tl/dr here's my back of the envelope history of GM and EV's
Well now EV's are growing up, and so for our second car (mine) I gave myself the choice of whatever I wanted within reason. After a lot of research, not just into the cars but the technology behind it, the corporations and their strategies I've concluded that GM is the long term winner in the EV market. Since you all have reservations presumably I recommend reading Fins – Harley Earl, the Rise of General Motors and the Glory Days of Detroit by William Knoedelseder, probably available from your local library.
The book details how while Henry Ford kicked off the era of mass produced vehicles, it was GM who owned it. In fact Ford at the time reminds me a lot of Tesla now. GM was a distributed bottoms up organization that Alfred P. Sloan created, compared to Ford which was dictated by the man in charge. Where GM recognized what people wanted and created the first corporate design department ever, to their detriment Henry still thought all people wanted was a black Model T. Ford and Musk have a lot of similarities, and I'm struck by how little design variation you see in Tesla. They have three models or whatever, and they basically all look the same. Cybertruck will never be a big seller, and again looks plain jane to my eye.
Anyhow for design, R&D and vision it looks to me like GM is on top and I think is being underestimated, but they are playing the long game. Regardless you folks might enjoy a great read on the history of how they got here, and the parallels of this 'second great shift' in the automobile industry, and how I at least think now, like back then, GM has the right cards in their hand.
tl/dr here's my back of the envelope history of GM and EV's
- 1996 EV1. Revolutionary car ahead of its time. They get knocked for discontinuing it but what to people expect? GM probably lost a ton of money on each one, the time wasn't ready yet for the electric car
- 2000's R&D If you do a search on whitepapers from the GM research arm you see work being done on batteries, motors, cooling and everything having to do with EV's. You also see designs and patents that GM cars have, such as bar magnet wiring for efficiency and power density (Tesla uses stupid magnet wire design), and the revolutionary Ultium with BMC/module with wireless.
- 2010 Volt. After the bankruptcy the company pivots to an EV strategy, and as a bridge to that future release the Volt. Everybody I know who has one loves it.
- 2017 Bolt Another bridge to BEV's. Loss leader, not meant as a long term vehical, but battery technology now is becoming practical
- 2022 Eight announced or released BEV's
- 2035 Their entire line electrified, with the HD trucks coming in last.
