General Motors, maker of the Chevrolet Volt plug-in hybrid, will start selling a fully electric small car in 2013, the automaker announced a subcompact Wednesday.Smaller Typically, the Spark is a minicar called. This is a couple inches shorter than a Mini Cooper.
In the past, GM (GM, Fortune 500) executives have expressed doubts about the market for pure electric cars because of their limited driving range. The manufacturer tried to market a two-seater electric vehicle, the EV1, in some states in the 1990s. GM stopped making the car when the laws requiring electric car sales ended in 2003.
GM began selling the Chevrolet Volt, a plug-in car that can drive about 35 miles on a fully charged battery before starting a gasoline engine to generate electricity to drive further to the end of 2010.
Gallery: The Long Road Back GM for electric cars
- chevrolet spark interior
While GM hopes to sell 10,000 volts at the end of 2011, only about 4,000 have been sold so far. But GM spokesman Rob Peterson said sales now taken the Volt is sold throughout the country. Until recently only available in some states.
Nissan has sold more than 7,000 of its electric vehicle, the Leaf, at approximately the same period.
When it goes on sale, the Spark EV will join an increasingly crowded market of plug-in cars, since almost all major manufacturers plans to offer at least the end of 2012.
GM has been testing an electric version of the Chevrolet Cruze – a larger car similar to the Chevrolet Volt – in several countries around the world. Reviews of tests in China, Korea and India has been taken into account in the creation of the Spark EV.
“The Spark EV offers customers who live in urban areas that have predictable patterns of short-haul drive or all-electric option,” said Jim Federico, chief engineer for global vehicle electric vehicles in the Chevrolet.