General Motors has been slow in rolling out plug-in hybrid vehicles (PHEVs) as it still says electric vehicles (EVs) are the endgame.
The company’s CEO Mary Barra also pointed out an inconvenient truth about PHEV technology: a lot of owners don’t use them as they’re intended to be used.
“What we also know today with plug-in hybrids is most people don’t plug them in,” Ms Barra said at an Automotive Press Association conference this week.
“So that’s why we’re trying to be very thoughtful about what we do from a hybrid and a plug-in hybrid perspective.
“We’re mainly investing and continuing to work on EVs because we think that’s the endgame, and we want to be prudent with our owners’ capital.”
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Ms Barra noted that one of the statistics GM has seen is that once a customer buys an EV, they’re 80 per cent likely to buy another EV after that.
The company offers a wide range of EVs in the US under the Cadillac, Chevrolet and GMC brands, with more offered in China under Buick and its Chinese joint-venture brands Baojun and Wuling.
However, GM doesn’t currently offer any hybrid or PHEV models in its home market, apart from the Chevrolet Corvette E-Ray supercar.
Early in 2024, the company announced it would roll out PHEVs to meet both federal regulations and consumer demand, and scrapped its aspiration of moving to an entirely electric lineup by 2035.
GM had previously said in 2018 it wouldn’t invest in hybrids and would instead focus on combustion and electric vehicles.
Of course, the return to office of US President Donald Trump following the 2024 election has resulted in upheaval within the automotive market, with tougher tariffs on imports to the US, the waiving of penalties for automakers failing to meet fuel economy targets, and the removal of federal EV incentives.
These policy changes have been a mixed bag for GM.
While the removal of penalties for not meeting fuel economy targets helps GM’s bottom line, as the company offers a wide range of V8-powered full-size pickups and SUVs, the removal of EV incentives has affected demand for its new, sprawling lineup of EVs and the imposition of tariffs is also a negative for a company that produces vehicles in markets like Mexico.
GM still hasn’t locked in launch timing for its previously confirmed PHEVs, which overseas reports have suggested will be derivatives of its existing full-size pickups and SUVs.
Ms Barra cited the uncertainty as to what the regulatory environment will be beyond 2028; the next presidential election will occur in November that year, and should a Democrat take office instead of a Republican it’s possible policy changes made under the Trump administration could be reversed.
“In the past, plug-ins were the only hybrids that actually counted from the regulatory perspective. So we have plans to do those, and we’ll have hybrids where we think we need to,” said Ms Barra.
“We’re continuing to evaluate both, watch what the market has. But you probably remember a decade ago, or not even a decade ago, hybrids went up and then, almost as fast as share grew, share went down.”
GM’s hybrid and PHEV efforts have been spotty, despite the rising popularity of the former in its home US market and the popularity of the latter in its second largest market, China.
It was earlier than most to the hybrid space, launching its first conventional hybrids in the 2008 model year, shortly after launching its first mild-hybrids.
However, its first hybrids – all full-size SUVs and pickups – lasted only a single generation.
Shortly after it launched its first hybrids, GM introduced the Chevrolet Volt for the 2011 model year – a plug-in hybrid hatch with the brand’s Voltec technology – which spawned the rebadged Opel/Vauxhall Ampera and Holden Volt, and the related Cadillac ELR.
Only the Chevrolet Volt got a second generation, rebadged in China briefly as the Buick Velite 5, and by the end of the decade all PHEVs on this platform were gone.
Other than the Volt and the Cadillac CT6 and ELR PHEVs briefly sold in the US, GM hasn’t offered any other PHEVs in the US.
There have been a handful more in China, including a recently launched PHEV version of the latest Chevrolet Equinox, but GM can’t match the likes of BYD in terms of the breadth of its PHEV lineup.
When Ms Barra was asked whether she would launch hybrids if she could go back in time, she said “no”.
“I think as I go back and look, with everything we knew at that point in time, we’d make the same decision, because again, we have to be very thoughtful with our capital and how we deploy it,” she said.
“And you know, frankly, a lot of our internal combustion engine vehicles are more efficient than a hybrid. So, we’re going to continue on that path.”