General Electric will buy 25,000 electric vehicles -- 12,000 of them Chevrolet Volts -- by 2015. As we reported in an earlier post here, GE is trying to jumpstart adoption of EVs because it stands to make billions selling gear to keep them juiced.
GE is a major player in everything from power generation plants -- GE equipment produces a third of the world's electricity -- to electric utility smart-grid technology to electric car batteries to home chargers for EV drivers' garages. The company estimates that even the limited number of electric cars in the near future will add $500 million to its sales in the next three years and if EVs take off. For every dollar spent on electric vehicles, GE estimates it may get 10 cents in revenue, spokesman Gary Sheffer told Bloomberg earlier this month....
GE's big buy could help encourage more EV production and lower prices for EVs, even as its boosts GE's bottom line. Edmunds' GreenCarAdvisor.com senior editor John O'Dell lauded in a statement GE's effort to promote EVs, but added, "GE's decision to dive head first into the (EV) market isn't selfless ... GE is a major player in the electric vehicle components market, it makes and markets its own line of EV chargers and recently announced a partnership with California-based Better Place to offer financing for battery purchases for Better Place's battery exchange stations. GE also is the major shareholder of battery maker A123 Systems of Massachusetts and has interests in smart-grid and power transmission technologies as well as the wind and solar energy industries."
http://content.usatoday.com/communities/driveon/post/2010/11/ge-to-buy-12000-chevrolet-volts-13000-evs-from-other-makers/1