Report: GM’s electric vehicles accelerate plug-in hybrid adoption

Stephen Edelstein – Green Car Reports

2 months ago

General Motors has scrapped plans for more electric pickups and electric pickups the size of the Ford Maverick as it embarks on a “crash plan” to launch hybrid pickups, Car week it was reported on Tuesday.

The automaker has replaced the electric vehicles of the old Chevrolet Express and GMC Savana with the BrightDrop electric transmission vehicle, according to the report, which cited unnamed sources familiar with the matter.

BrightDrop EV600

It’s not clear where this places GM’s BrightDrop unit, which originated as a smaller model under its Zevo 400 (First name EV410) GM has stopped production at the Canadian electric vehicle plant since last year, due to a lack of its Ultium battery cells, but is due to restart soon.

As GM moves away from mass-electric vehicles and small electric pickups under the full-size Chevrolet Silverado EV and GMC Sierra EV, it is reportedly developing hybrid versions of the Silverado and Sierra. This follows GM’s announcement last month for add plug-in hybrids for its American lineup, reversing the previous EV-only policy.

2013 Chevrolet Silverado Hybrid

GM has made it clear to Green Car Reports in a previous interview that it is unlikely to engineer plug-in hybrids—or a variety extension—as part of its Ultium platform. On the other hand, GM offered the Chevy Silverado and GMC Sierra as hybrids until the 2013 model year, then he left them quietly. The system, called the Two-Way Hybrid, brought impressive capabilities when discontinued. While abandoning its hybrid strategy, GM also built a small number of trucks to test the third generation of its eAssist hybrid system for the 2016 model year.

At that time it made a decision kill its Two-Way Hybrid trucks, GM was already developing a cheaper version of the system with plug-in hybrid capabilities. So it’s unclear whether GM can revive the project, or choose to buy something off the shelf to quickly get plug-in hybrid images into showrooms.

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