Is GM’s EV Kill List Getting Too Long?

General Motors has a bad habit of killing groundbreaking electric vehicles. Seminal EVs that met an early death include the EV1 (killed circa 2003), the Chevy Volt (killed 2019), and now the resurrected Chevy Bolt (first killed in 2023) is headed for the boneyard by mid-2027. To recap:

  • EV1 (1996): first mass-produced electric vehicle in the U.S.
  • Chevy Volt (2010): first mass-produced plug-in hybrid (PHEV).
  • Chevy Bolt (2016): first battery-only EV (BEV) to seriously compete with Tesla. Considered first viable affordable EV (i.e., EV with adequate range).

GM ‘Evaluating’ New PHEVs

“We are evaluating plug-in hybrids. We have plans to do some,” GM CEO Mary Barra said on January 12, 2026 in remarks to the Automotive Press Association, as reported by Automotive News . “Yes, we are developing hybrids but we haven’t gone into a lot of detail at this point," Stuart Fowle, Senior Director, GM Global Technology and Innovation Communications, told me this past week. "Our priority is battery costs, charging and other factors that will get people to the end goal of EVs faster, understanding that some drivers need a bridge,” he added, confirming Barra’s earlier comments.

GM has a new PHEV that it is selling in China under the joint SAIC-GM Wuling brand but nothing in the U.S. since the 2019 discontinued Volt.

Oh, the irony. GM invented the mass-market plug-in hybrid with the Volt (I owned a 2013 Volt). And now Toyota – heretofore an EV laggard – is picking up where GM left off and going gangbusters with RAV4 PHEV in the U.S. market. Sales of the compact crossover climbed 64% year-to-date through July 2026, as reported by Automotive News . Throw in the new Toyota Prius PHEV and you have a PHEV force to be reckoned with. Total Toyota hybrid sales were 718,863 through the first half of this year, up from 637,794 last year, a 12.7% increase. (For the uninitiated, a PHEV is essentially a part-time EV. You can drive it as a pure EV – for about 50 miles with the RAV4 – then the gas engine and/or generator seamlessly kicks in.)

Range anxiety – an age-old fear of running out of battery charge and being stranded – will never go away for American car buyers, who tend to drive long distances. Thus, the PHEV. And thus GM’s original (very savvy) reason for introducing the Volt ( thank you, Bob Lutz ) back in 2010. The original Volt boasted a combined range of almost 400 miles. With insane gas prices in places like California this year, a Volt, or something like it, appeals to a significant swath of the American green-car-buying public. Again, if you need proof, look no further than Toyota’s PHEV sales.

Gas Cars Are Not The Future – Just Ask China

More irony: Just as Toyota is finally realizing that EVs and hybrids are a way forward, GM is beating a hasty retreat. As of summer 2026, GM has scaled back its aggressive EV ambitions and redirected resources to gas cars. In particular, full-size trucks and SUVs. In short, gas cars are back in vogue at GM. That’s not a good look as a big part of the world (China, parts of Europe) fully embrace EVs. California – the biggest car market in the U.S. – is hooked on EVs, accounting for about a third of all EVs sold in the U.S. And will only embrace them more in the future. Texas, the second biggest market, may be headed in that direction, at least in terms of raw EV volume. Florida too has become an EV hotspot.

New GM hybrids would at least check that retreat. A repeat of the 2009 GM collapse when it had an over-reliance on trucks and big SUVs seems utterly improbable at the moment. But car manufacturer fortunes can turn on a dime.