Going green and saving the environment has been a lofty goal many companies around the world have started to take seriously. While there have always been alternative environmentally friendly product and business strategies in the world, only when major companies and manufacturers start taking the planet’s health seriously will we see true progress in reversing the devastating damage we have already done.

Car companies have been making a serious trend out of going electric and it seems these green cars will be the future of automotive travel. Companies like Tesla have sparked huge interest and passion in the electric vehicle space, drumming up excitement with what an electric car can be and challenging the norms of conventional cars we’ve all driven. Electric cars have grown tremendously and are only getting bigger each year. Additionally, government programs such as “cash for clunkers” have helped people transition away from environmentally harmful junkers into greener vehicles.

GM however has made some lofty promises about its goals to supply electric cars. GM has issued a Press release saying that by 2035, the only vehicles to be manufactured and offered by GM will be all-electric cars. With GM’s previous failures in mind, I imagine we all take this with a grain of salt. Can GM realistically reach this goal and is it even impactful for the environment?

If you have a vehicle and want to get in on this new all-electric “space race”, don’t worry about figuring out how to get compensated. There are websites online that will buy your car, even if it is damaged or totaled. Now is an exciting time for the automotive industry as new and real advancements are being made to completely change the game of cars.

What Does GM Promise?

GM has stated in a press release that they are beginning to phase out petroleum powered vehicles and are beginning a plan to sell only all-electric vehicles by the year 2035. Many companies have been moving to introduce more and more all-electric alternatives to their already well known models and creating new models as well.

Tesla first started this trend as launching with only all-electric vehicles, focusing on high tech functionality and features to make their cars seem futuristic. This has seemed to jumpstart a trend in the automotive industry to create all-electric vehicles after seeing the great success Tesla has had.

GM has also made the promise to go carbon neutral by the year 2040. This is a pretty confident number to bet on as other competitors like Volkswagen and Nissan have claimed they will be carbon neutral by the year 2050.

Carbon neutral will mean that the effect GM has on the environment through carbon dioxide output will be canceled out. Many Companies have been claiming to push for carbon neutrality and even carbon negativity recently as climate change is becoming more and more a real concern.

Too Late for Change?

The claims GM are making sound good on paper, but are they actually enough to have any real effect on the environment before it is too late? With rising sea levels and increasing pollution in the air, the world could sadly be on a track towards never recovering. The world has already lost 2/3 of its entire wild in just 50 years, can we magically reverse it all by finally taking the situation seriously enough to do something about it.

Of course, there are numerous debates and arguments about how far down the hole we are in regard to the health of our planet. Each side is passionate about either the efficiency of an industrial world and the luxury it brings, or the perversion and exploitation of natural resources to create a ticking natural disaster time bomb. Conservation is a very polarizing subject with theories and predictions on both sides that can be justified.

Another important topic to consider is GM even capable of making the move to an all-electric, carbon neutral business model. Of course, the push towards greener cars will be helped through government programs and subsidies but GM has had some catastrophic failures in the past which would allow any skeptic of them to be forgiven. 

Also, is the excitement from this radical change and plan enough to make GM the respectable, American automaker it needs to be. Almost every automotive company is heading in the all-electric direction, so what is going to make GM stand out? Will eccentric ideas like the new electric Hummer be enough to give GM success? 

This is another one of those scenarios where a complicated question requires a complicated answer. All we know for sure is that GM has made a claim that they will be all-electric by 2035 and carbon neutral by 2040. Who knows for sure if this will actually happen and if the environment will be able to heal itself after so many years of abuse. Could the damage we’ve caused to the planet reach a point of no return, and how do we know when we’ve gotten there?

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