Major Automaker Invests $854 Million into WHAT Amid EV Push?

Jenson / shutterstock.com
Jenson / shutterstock.com

If you hadn’t noticed, there’s a massive push for Americans to buy electric. Electric everything. Biden wants to ban gas stoves. Oil and gas pipeline projects have been shuttered. And, of course, your gas-guzzling vehicle is being hammered as an enemy of the planet and something that needs to be done away with.

Naturally, the government, under Biden’s not-so-attentive eye, is helping to further those moves. And with liberal states like California and New York completely buying it, new laws have said that only electric vehicles will be allowed to be sold come 2035.

So why, then, is one of America’s largest auto producers spending millions to put out a new internal combustion engine (ICE)?

No, I’m not kidding.

According to Fox Business News’ Gary Gastelu, who recently spoke with General Motors CEO Mark Reuss, electric may be the future, but it certainly doesn’t mean ICE is out.

Like most automakers today, Reuss sees the trend of electric cars and, as far as he can tell, knows they are what everyone is moving towards. However, he’s also a practical man who sees reality. And reality says that the world might want electric, but it isn’t equipped for it yet.

For starters, there are problems en masse with just about any EV on the market. They don’t do well in the cold, towing is an issue for battery life, as are uphill climbs. They aren’t all that cost-effective. They lose power while sitting and being plugged in. Let’s face it, they aren’t all that environmentally friendly.

Then, of course, there is the fact that most nations’ infrastructure, including that of the US, just isn’t set up for everyone to own an EV. Our power grids are already maxed out. And there are nowhere near enough charging stations in most states.

Suffice it to say that there are enough problems that EVs just aren’t all that profitable yet, which is exactly why Reuss and his company can’t afford to give up on ICE-powered vehicles.

In fact, as he told Gastelu, GM is in the process of designing an all-new V8 engine – the most anti-planet engine on the market. And they’re spending a whopping $854 million to do it, according to Fox Business News.

Basically, it all comes down to profitability. And what’s profitable now is ICE. So GM is going to continue to manufacture those and even create a new generation of them in order to fund their $35 billion investment in the future of EVs.

As Reuss explained, “Every segment, every buyer is going to want electric vehicles, but we’re not going to abandon our internal combustion engines segments either.” After all, GMC and Chevrolet have what Reuss calls ICE “truck leadership,” from their mid-sized trucks to their full-sized ones and beyond.

To give up on those in the hopes that one day EVs will really take off and be profitable just isn’t a good business plan. And at the end of the day, GM is a business like any other.

But, of course, the company can’t completely walk back its promises of being fully electric by 2035, either. After all, that’s the trend and what the world supposedly wants to see them doing.

In fact, Reuss was pretty adamant that EVs are growing and rather quickly, despite not being profitable yet. However, unlike with the growth and success of ICE vehicles, he couldn’t give exact numbers.

It’s just another indication that EVs are apparently the future but not our present and that until that future arrives, internal combustion engines will be what makes the world go round.