GM is very very far behind, but they are now deadly serious about owning a majority of the EV market.
It’s like a blackberry vs an iPhone X right now.
Can they catch up? Sure maybe? But no signs of it yet.
Bluetooth is unreliable and balky. Speech recognition doesn’t work. The touchscreen is unresponsive - it can take a minute to type in an address. And sometimes the main touchscreen computer freezes and I have to manually reboot it, which means no A/C or radio or navigation for 5 minutes.
I understand that the computer in my Model S isn’t as good as their newer ones. But I have to say the overall experience is terrible. My Volt had a more functional and reliable computer. I’m tempted to buy a new Model S just to upgrade the computer.
All of this is to say that Tesla may have great technology but it is unevenly applied and they are terrible at support.
Buy another $140k car?
It's a shame the "Volt" was discontinued because it was a great concept and the car works well. Unlike the fake "Plug-in Prius" -- which can't go faster than about 30 MPH without the gas engine kicking in -- the Volt is 100% electric on its ~ 50 mile range before the ICE will turn on. I got it for the occasional long drive I need to do.
Their technology however, is mind blowing.
Of course, the Bolt is neither a particularly (universally) attractive car, nor is it produced and distributed to dealerships in quantities sufficient to make a difference.
The charging network is obviously Tesla's cup of tea.
So GM will (almost certainly) make a bunch of appealing electric cars, and they'll get them to dealerships. That alone will make waves, but the charging network will likely need work so that reviews of their cars aren't littered with experience complaints.
It's also easy to debate items like software, updates and driver aids. GM is probably average with software (good enough) and average with updates (terrible). They have plenty of good investments with driver aids though they promise a lot less than Tesla (for now).
With the limited maintenance, regular servicing and less things to break where dealers have historically made their margins. EVs are a threat in this regard and you've already seen this play out with the Bolt/Volt to a degree.
Heck, they wanted ~$300 to run a DPF regen on our truck when it went into limp mode(yay for open-ish OBD protocols so we could do it ourself).
I just don't see them wanting to sell them and without a channel it doesn't matter how good of a product you make.
Great, I wish them well in that endeavour though I doubt they will ever get a majority of the Market share at this point given all the horrible mistakes they've made since the 70s, but they have a lot of catching up to do to get even close to its main US competitor (Tesla) and Hyundai, who also partnered up with LG and has a national interest in seeing each other succeed, has made a lot of progress in EV market. Perhaps a possible partnership with Apple could give them a much needed jump start since Apple thinks it wants to get into the Auto Industry.
But if Toyota's miracle battery comes to fruition and meets expectations then that could be the real dark horse and make all but maybe Tesla the only real competitor anymore.
It's very clear to see that other than some mainstays like the Charger/Hellcat variants, a high end Cadillac SUV and Corvette GM don't seem to be doing much in the ICE department worth staying in that game long term to keep the brand(s) alive and even the Hummer is being offered as an EV.
I've only been in a late model volt during a lyft and to be honest it all felt incredibly cheap, like a base model Jetta assembled in Mexico cheap. Nothing seemed to be remarkably good about it and the driver said he got under a 100 miles of range so he hung around the local college bars and charged on campus until the next hail, and while Teslas aren't exactly amazing when it comes to interiors either, the Model 3 I drove months earlier was far superior.
I'd decry there bailout in 2008, but if they're really taking EV seriously and the Biden administration is pushing for EV then maybe it was all worth it in the end for this perfect storm situation, as so much of GM's lineup were mainly disposable cars that ended up in the scrap heap after 7-10 years due to unreliability. I will say their LTX V8s engines were being swapped in every imaginable chassis up until a few years ago, so they probably could just keep making crate engines and parts with existing infrastructure and still make a profit. Otherwise its game over for a ton of people who will need to buy multiple engines/chassis just to keep one running until they pull a Cuba and create their own backyard OEM parts supplier alternative.
Edit: Mopar stuff is not Chrysler.
This company was just created and listed on the NYSE on Jan. 19th, 2021.