General Motors’ new chief executive officer Dan Akerson is looking to at least triple the company’s target for electric car sales, according to Bloomberg.com.
Secret plans to expand the market for GM’s electric models were revealed to the business publication by a number of staff at the firm who asked to remain unnamed.
According to Bloomberg, a number of interviews with key executives at GM tell of a meeting back in September when Akerson first took over, when he instructed them to find ways to sell three to four times as many electric cars planned for 2012 by the mid-decade. Plans are now said to include boosting production of the Chevrolet Volt and adapting current GM models to run on battery-electric power.
GM has said it expects to sell 10,000 Volts in 2011 and 45,000 the following year, when capacity may reach 60,000.
Increasing Volt sales and developing other models with electric drive would help reduce the cost of developing the electric car technology and could help to reduce ticket prices of such models. However the plans could also back-fire if electric car production exceeds public demand.
Web publication Drive On is reporting that GM’s plans could include producing an electric version of a Cadillac.
