General Motors (GM) has already gone all-in when it comes to electric vehicles. Earlier this year, the automaker announced that it would only be selling these kinds of vehicles by the year 2035.
To help bolster that effort, the company announced on Wednesday that it will increase its spending on electric and autonomous vehicles to $35 billion through 2025. The company said the commitment represents a 75% increase from its initial commitment to these technologies.
“We are investing aggressively in a comprehensive and highly-integrated plan to make sure that GM leads in all aspects of the transformation to a more sustainable future,” said CEO Mary Barra.
Opening new battery factories
As part of its new investment, GM announced that it will be opening two new battery cell manufacturing plants in the U.S. The company is moving quickly to ensure it’s ready for what it believes will be a larger adoption of electric vehicles in the near future.
“GM is targeting annual global EV sales of more than 1 million by 2025, and we are increasing our investment to scale faster because we see momentum building in the United States for electrification, along with customer demand for our product portfolio,” Barra said.
“There is a strong and growing conviction among our employees, customers, dealers, suppliers, unions and investors, as well as policymakers, that electric vehicles and self-driving technology are the keys to a cleaner, safer world for all,” she added.
While GM is certainly making a bid to become a leader in the electric vehicle market, it has plenty of competition from other automakers. Tesla is still regarded by many as a leading automaker in the electric market, and other companies like Ford and Volvo are making their own investments to shore up their electric offerings.