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NEWS
GM EV rumours strain credibility
GM is rumoured to be working on a 320km, $30K EV – or someone's just blowing a lot of greenhouse gas"GM Developing Car to Rival Tesla" declared the headline on a story in the Wall Street Journal early this week.
Coming from the Journal, it's given rise to a rash of "GM planning $30K EV with 200-mile range" stories in the days since, fuelled by non-denials from the likes of Doug Parks, the company's global product development head. It comes alongside GM's announcement that its newly expanded battery design and testing lab in Detroit is open for business.
GM's supposed Tesla-crusher has been getting loads of traction ever since, notwithstanding Mr Parks' warning to the Associated Press and others that the car may never make production.
Nevertheless, breathless rumours abound, embroidered with conjecture about the effect an EV with high-end Model S range for less than half the price would have on Tesla.
It all sounds suspiciously like something often referred to in the 1980s and 1990s as FUD. It stood for fear, uncertainty and doubt, a marketing and PR tactic mastered first by IBM, who subsequently passed the mantle on to names like Microsoft and Apple.
FUD amounts, simply, to the dissemination of material, normally through news-hungry media outlets but also through whispered asides at industry conferences and the like, designed to sow FUD in the industry. You sow the seeds of an idea and let fevered imaginations do the rest. No other discipline this side of the pornography industry has benefited as much from the growth and diversification of digital media.
Closer inspection of the claims reveals little or no substance among the mights and the coulds. A 200-mile (320km) range would bring it close to the top-end 85kWh Model S, while a price tag of $US30K would blow the $70K-plus Tesla out of the water. It also doubles the range of the Chevrolet Spark EV (pictured), currently on offer for about $28K on the road.
"[Tesla's] pricing is up there for a real unique customer," Mr Parks told media. "The real trick will be who can do a 200-mile car for more of the price range I'm talking about."
And then the kicker: "We're all in the race to do that."
Exactly. And nothing of substance in the public domain suggests GM is any closer to the 200-mile, $30K EV than anyone else.
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Written byJeremy Bass
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