General Motors (GM) announced today it will be increasing its investments in electric and autonomous vehicles, planning to spend $35 billion by the year 2025.
The announcement is a 75% increase on the $20 billion commitment made before the COVID-19 pandemic, which the automaker hopes will make it an industry leader in electrification.
“We are investing aggressively in a comprehensive and highly-integrated plan to make sure that GM leads in all aspects of the transformation to a more sustainable future,” said GM Chair and CEO Mary Barra.
GM detailed some of their plans, saying the new investments will allow to accelerate the rollout of EVs to retail and fleet customers.
In November 2020, GM announced it would deliver 30 new EVs by 2025 globally, with two-thirds available in North America. Through the additional investments announced today, GM will add to its North America plan new electric commercial trucks and other products that will take advantage of the creative design opportunities and flexibility enabled by the Ultium Platform. In addition, GM will add additional U.S. assembly capacity for EV SUVs. Details will be announced at a later date.
The automaker will also be able to advance their battery technology and accelerate plans to build two new battery call manufacturing plants in the US.
GM is accelerating plans to build two new battery cell manufacturing plants in the United States by mid-decade to complement the Ultium Cells LLC plants under construction in Tennessee and Ohio.
Also included in their plans is to commercialize Ultium batteries and HYDROTEC fuel cells, as well as deploy self-driving technology at scale through its subsidiary Cruise.
