Dan Akerson
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You almost have to pity the Cadillac ELR range-extended electric coupe: It's a very pretty car with luxurious appointments, but no one wants to buy it. And if the rumors that now-departed General Motors CEO Dan Akerson personally set its initial price at $75,000 are true, you have to wonder how it might have done if launched at a considerably lower price. Regardless, the ELR is now a product on Death Row, and it will likely vanish sooner than later--making it even rarer than the Chevrolet Spark EV among GM electric cars. DON'T MISS: 2016 Cadillac ELR: More Performance, More Range, Lower Price...
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GM To Add Plant Jobs, Invest $450 Million For 2016 Chevy Volt
New jobs and plant updates by carmakers often get little attention outside the towns involved, but sometimes they telegraph information about future models. The Detroit News said Saturday that GM is expected to announce it will update its Detroit-Hamtramck assembly plant, spending $450 million and...
John Voelcker -
2015 Chevrolet Impala To Be Offered As Bi-Fuel Model With Natural-Gas Tank
Natural gas has so far made little impact in the automotive sector, at least when it comes to passenger vehicles. As new extraction techniques such as fracking increase domestic supply of the gas, that could change--and Chevrolet will become the second manufacturer to sell a production passenger...
Antony Ingram -
GM CEO: Cadillac To Take On Tesla, One Day--With Plug-In Hybrid Sedan, Perhaps?
It looks like the success of the Tesla Model S all-electric luxury sedan may be starting to get under GM's skin. CEO Dan Akerson told the Detroit News that General Motors will compete with Tesla Motors--"ultimately"--through its Cadillac luxury brand. But, Akerson said, he remained unconvinced that...
John Voelcker -
It's Official: General Motors Now Sees Tesla As A Threat
"History is littered with big companies that ignored innovation that was coming their way because you didn’t know where you could be disrupted." General Motors will be hoping those words, from vice chairman Steve Girksy as the automaker begins to study electric upstart Tesla Motors...
Antony Ingram -
GM Working On 200-Mile Electric Car, Says CEO Akerson
Last summer he dropped a hint that it might be possible. Now Dan Akerson has confirmed it: GM is working on an electric car with a 200-mile range, according to its CEO. The chief executive officer of General Motors made the comment yesterday at an energy conference, as reported in Reuters. He...
John Voelcker -
After being flayed for not achieving its 2011 sales goal for the Chevy Volt, you might think General Motors would shy away from further volume predictions for its innovative range-extended electric car. Not so. CEO Dan Akerson said in late June that the company thought it would sell 35,000 to 40,000 Volts globally this year, including European sales of its Opel/Vauxhall Ampera variation. His comments, in a speech to the Executives' Club of Chicago, were reported by Bloomberg in late June. Akerson contrasted that projection to the original 2012 sales target of 60,000, made up of 45,000 Volts...
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GM CEO: Electric Car With 200-Mile Range Within 4 Years Possible
In the world of plug-in cars, making an affordable car with a range equal to that of a conventional gasoline car is something of a Holy Grail. According to General Motors CEO Dan Akerson talking at a GM employee meeting last night, that dream could become reality in the next two to four years...
Nikki Gordon-Bloomfield -
GM CEO Akerson: We're Staying The Course On The Chevy Volt
If the Chevy Volt is a sales failure, you'd never know it from the guy who runs General Motors. At a meeting of Volt owners in San Francisco yesterday, GM's CEO Dan Akerson said unequivocally that the company was standing behind its halo plug-in electric car. "We are not backing away from this...
John Voelcker -
Volt Hearings: Volt Is Safe, NHTSA "Acted Proportionally"
"Although we loaded the Volt with state-of-the-art safety features, we did not engineer the Volt to be a political punching bag. Sadly, that is what it's become." That's how General Motors CEO Dan Akerson described the furor surrounding the Chevrolet Volt battery fires. A pack demolished in NHTSA...
Antony Ingram -
Cadillac's Volt-Based Converj Electric Car Gets Green Light: Exclusive
Sometimes, like Lazarus, dead cars rise again. We've learned from an inside source at General Motors, a person close to the project, that the electric Cadillac Converj luxury coupe is now back in the GM product plan. The Converj was recently approved for production by GM product executives. It will...
John Voelcker -
Gas Taxes Should Go Up To Boost Green-Car Sales, Says GM CEO Akerson
The CEO of General Motors, Dan Akerson, told a Detroit newspaper that the Federal tax on gasoline should be raised by 50 cents or $1 a gallon to encourage consumers to buy more fuel efficient vehicles.. In an interview last week with the Detroit News, Akerson said a higher gas tax should be part of...
John Voelcker