It may be late to the game, but the maker of Hummer vehicles says it wants to become the global leader when it comes to green cars.
And General Motors Corp. recognizes that means squaring off against the early leader and maker of the Prius hybrid vehicle, Toyota Motor Corp.
“We need to transition to vehicles that have little or no fossil fuels,” Robert Lutz, GM's vice chairman of product development, told the Globe and Mail's editorial board. “The only solution is the reinvention of the automobile and basically converting to electric drive.”
Mr. Lutz acknowledged that the auto maker had fallen behind competitors in developing fuel-efficient technology. A few years ago, such a switch would have been deemed too costly and risky by the company's board of directors, he said.
Times have changed. Last month, GM unveiled the Volt electric car on what it calls its e-flex architecture, which it hopes to have in production by 2010. The company's board of directors is fully behind that move and the creation of other costly technologies that might not provide a payoff for several years, he asserted.
“There's been a complete transformation at all levels of the corporation,” he said.
“We cheerfully announced to the board that many of these technological initiatives — like fuel cells, the early stages of the hybrid system, the e-flex architecture in the first few years, all of these are going to be money losers. And the board said, yup, we understand that, but these are all things we absolutely have to do.”
He wouldn't say how much it will cost to bring the Volt to market by 2010, but he noted that some costs will be reduced by using a version of the body and chassis system that provides the basis now for GM's compact cars such as the Chevrolet Cobalt in North America and the Opel Astra in Europe.
The move comes as GM and other auto makers face the prospect of tighter emissions regulations, both in Canada and the United States amid a growing consensus among the general public that greenhouse gas emissions need to be reduced. The challenge for GM is to adopt more fuel-efficient technology without driving car prices higher or sacrificing safety requirements.
Canada will have a piece of GM's plans to go green, with fuel cells and hybrid SUVs under development at the company's regional engineering centre in Oshawa, Ont.
That's not to say that more Canadian jobs won't be lost in the auto sector as car companies continue to shift production to cheaper regions, Mr. Lutz warned.
Canada is “arguably a bit more cost-effective than the United States, but when you start the global comparison, it doesn't look so good,” he said.
As for consumer demand, North Americans will continue to buy large vehicles as long as gasoline prices stay low, Mr. Lutz said.
With files from reporter Greg Keenan.
© The Globe and Mail
