GM Aims To Be First Automaker To Sell EVs That Are Both Affordable & Profitable

Originally published on CleanTechnica.

The head of global product development at GM, Mark Reuss, was recently quoted as saying that the company was aiming to be the first auto manufacturer to sell an affordable electric vehicle that makes a profit.

This sentiment echoes other recent comments from GM Chairman and CEO Mary Barra, who was quoted as saying: “Our internal focus is to make GM the first maker of profitable, highly desirable, range-leading, and obtainable electric transportation.”

While it shouldn’t be too surprising that the company wants to sell vehicles that make a profit, the comments are interesting because they perhaps shed some light on the company’s apparent reluctance to push the Chevy Bolt EV too much — it sounds like the profit margin on the model currently isn’t where the firm would like, maybe? I suppose with the design now in place, all that GM really has to do is wait for battery prices to continue falling and the model will become profitable, or more profitable — whichever is closer to the truth.

Of course it may also be the case that the Bolt EV actually does make a decent profit already, but that execs don’t consider the model’s price tag to be an affordable one? (I certainly don’t.)

Notably, commenting on the company’s expectation that EV battery cell costs will fall below $100 per kilowatt-hour (kWh) by 2022, Reuss was quoted as saying: “We’ll be there before then, I know we will.”

With regard to the ambiguity of Chevy Bolt EV profitability, while the company has yet to reveal whether the model is profitable or not, it does seem that many of the original analyst estimates weren’t quite accurate as regards production costs — so it stands there’s a fair chance that the model is already profitable.

Reprinted with permission.