June 12, 2018—General Motors on Tuesday announced that it will increase production of its Bolt electric hatchback this year. According to the Detroit Free Press, GM’s sustainability report, presented during its annual shareholder meeting Tuesday, announced that the OEM will launch more than 20 new zero-emissions vehicles around the world by 2023.
“We are committed to an all-EV future, and continue to work in that direction,” GM chairman and CEO Mary Barry told reporters. “It’s a very exciting time.”
The company is on solid footing these days, Barra added.
““We have a strong core business and are in a transformative era,” Barra said.
The sustainability report also said GM now has 180 autonomous vehicles in test fleets in the U.S.
Craig Van Batenburg, the founder and CEO of the Automotive Career Development Center, said the rising popularity of EVs should be of concern to collision repair shops, which largely don’t understand how to properly handle EV batteries.
According to the International Energy Agency, there were 2 million EVs on the road as of 2016. And with automakers such as Volvo going fully electric by 2019 and Ford investing $11 billion in EV technology, that number is only increasing.
