Fully electric vehicles will see a faster transition and more investment than hybrids, GM's chief sustainability officer says

• Fully electric vehicles will see a faster transition than hybrids, a General Motors executive said during a panel with Business Insider.
• "I think we'll see a faster transition to pure EV's," GM chief sustainability officer Dane Parker said.
• GM has previously pledged to make at least 20 electric vehicles by 2023.
• Do you work at GM? Business Insider wants to hear from you. Contact the author of this report at ijibilian@businessinsider.com from a non-work email, or via secure messaging app Signal at 917-727-6830.
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

NEW LOOK

Sign up to get the inside scoop on today’s biggest stories in markets, tech, and business — delivered daily. Read preview

Thanks for signing up!

Access your favorite topics in a personalized feed while you're on the go. download the app

Email address

Sign up

By clicking “Sign Up”, you accept our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy. You can opt-out at any time.

As automakers and drivers move toward an sustainable future, we can expect fully electric vehicles to see a faster transition than hybrids, Dane Parker, General Motors' chief sustainability officer, said during Business Insider's IGNITION: Transportation virtual live event. 

"I think we'll see a faster transition to pure EVs," he said in an panel with Business Insider's Alex Davies. "And as the price curve continues to improve for batteries in the next two to three years, that will help." Parker predicted that 2025 will mark an inflection point where electrics become affordable and available enough to take off: "I think we'll start to see accelerations after that." 

Hybrids are more complex to engineer, Parker said, since they have to incorporate both battery-electric technology and a combustion engine. Those complexities, coupled with the advent of better batteries, will drive investments into "pure" battery electric vehicles, he said. 

Previous moves by GM certainly suggest a preference for going all-electric. The automaker announced it would discontinue its Volt hybrid in 2018 and has announced that it will release 20 fully electric vehicles by 2023. 

In his panel with Business Insider, Parker said that the automaker could sell a million electric vehicles in major markets globally by 2025. Last week, GM released a Hummer electric vehicle. Reservations for the vehicle sold out in 10 minutes, Business Insider previously reported. 

Watch the rest of the Parker's panel, part of Business Insider's IGNITION: Transportation conference, here: