General Motors plans to introduce a new hybrid model every three months for the next four years and says the auto industry is entering an era where it will "shift significantly to a different model of propulsion" because reliance on petroleum "is not going to work"
That's an aggressive timeline and bold statement from Chairman and CEO Rick Wagoner Jr., and it offers some of the most compelling evidence yet that GM is serious about recasting itself as an environmentally conscious company while reinventing the auto industry.
As we reported last week in "GM: We're Going Green! No, Really, We Are..." General Motors plans to invest in a suite of technologies, including hybrid drivetrains, ethanol and hydrogen fuel cell vehicles. The company unveiled several hybrids at last week's L.A. Auto Show, including versions of the Chevrolet Silverado pickup and Cadillac Escalade SUV.
In an upcoming episode of the CNBC program "Beyond the Boardroom," Wagoner outlines a plan that, if realized, could make GM the world's leading producer of hybrid vehicles and he says the automaker must embrace new technologies that will supplant gasoline.
Find out more after the jump...
CNBC hasn't said when the episode will air, but in a story this morning about the hybrid Silverado played a clip from the program in which Wagoner says, "We'll have one new hybrid coming out every quarter for the next four years. We've got four on the market now. We're getting in the game with a range of technologies."
American consumers can currently choose from 17 hybrid models. Wagoner's plan would nearly double that figure and make GM the world's leading producer of gasoline-electric vehicles by 2012.
A lot of those vehicles will appear in the Chevrolet lineup, which GM Vice Chairman Bob Lutz has said will be the centerpiece of GM's green campaign because it is GM's broadest and best-selling line. It's also a safe bet many of those models will be developed in China, where GM recently announced it is establishing the GM Center for Advanced Science and Research in Shanghai to develop hybrid technology like the two-mode system the automaker created with Daimler. The program will work independently of the research center GM shares with the Shanghai Automotive Industry Corp., which recently vowed to produce more than 10,000 hybrid vehicles by 2010.
China is a huge market for GM, which expects to sell 1 million cars there this year, and vehicle sales in China are expected to exceed U.S. sales within 10 years.
Although much of the green-tech will appear in Chevrolet models, Wagoner said GM plans to introduce it all of its product lines. The two-mode hybrid drivetrain in the Silverado and Escalade also appears in the Saturn Aura and Vue and will be added to the Chevrolet Malibu.
In another clip from "Beyond the Boardroom," Wagoner addressed the issue of where and how GM will use hybrid and other technology:
He also made it clear that GM knows it has to move aggressively into alternative fuel technology and wants to lead the entire industry into a new era:
