GM to start making electric motors; electric car to be launched in 2013

General Motors Corp (GM), ths US based automaker, is planning to enter the electric motors business. The company said that it is planning to make electric motors for hybrid and electric vehicles from the year 2013 onwards.

Till date, GM is getting the electric motors it needs from outside suppliers. But GM is planning to build them in-house to lower production costs. By making electric motors, GM also hopes to improve quality and reliability of the motors.

Pete Savagian, engineering director for hybrids and electric motors, said, “We need to not only buy the parts, we need to really understand them.”

GM has declined to say where it will build the new electric motors and it has also declined to say how many motors it will build. But the company has said that it will invest USD 246million in the production of electric motors. “This isn’t the first time GM has built electric motors. It built them for its EV1 electric car in the mid-1990s, and some of the engineers of that car worked on the new motors,” said Savagian.

General Motors has been quietly developing a new electric car since 2003, he said. This move is expected to make GM the first US based automaker to manufacture an electric car on its own.

The electric cars designed and manufacured by GM will launch in 2013 on rear-wheel-drive and two-mode hybrid vehicles. But it is expected that the company will then further move into all-electric and fuel-cell cars.