General Motors
Renaissance Center General Motors Headquarters. Credit: Michigan Municipal League.

US-based automaker General Motors (GM) has announced plans to increase its investments in electric and autonomous vehicles to $35bn until 2025.

The move represents a 75% increase from an earlier commitment made by the company before the Covid-19 pandemic.

GM expects that the increase in investment will create greater competitive advantages as it seeks to become the market leader in electric vehicles (EVs) in North America.

GM chair and CEO Mary Barra said: “We are investing aggressively in a comprehensive and highly-integrated plan to make sure that GM leads in all aspects of the transformation to a more sustainable future.

“GM is targeting annual global EV sales of more than one million by 2025, and we are increasing our investment to scale faster because we see momentum building in the US for electrification, along with customer demand for our product portfolio.”

The investment will allow GM to proceed with its plans to build two new battery cell manufacturing plants in the US by 2025. The company is currently building two Ultium Cells facilities in Tennessee and Ohio.

The location of the plants, as well as other details, will be announced at a later date.

Last year, the company announced plans to deliver 30 new EVs worldwide by 2025. Around 20 of these EVs were to be made available in North America.

This figure is now expected to increase with the availability of additional spending, and will include new electric commercial trucks. GM also plans to increase its capacity for assembling sport utility vehicle (SUV) EVs in the US.

The company has also confirmed plans to launch its third-generation Hydrotec fuel cells by 2025.

In a separate development, GM’s self-driving car subsidiary Cruise will gain access to a $5bn credit facility to scale up its fleet.

Last month, US-based automaker Ford set a target of increasing its EV spending to more than $30bn by 2030.

The company has signed a memorandum of understanding with South Korean battery maker SK Innovation to establish a joint venture to manufacture EV batteries.