Electricnick, The EV Revolution

What an interesting week it has been and it promises to bring a few months of news and joint ventures between makers.  So what is going on with the once mighty Goliaths?

The gist is that the Fiat, Opel/GM and Magna drama show should have some interesting repercussions on the future of electric vehicles, EVs from these companies.  Fiat already has an edge n the Chrysler deal and should most likely merge with the U.S. auto maker completely soon.  Fiat wanted to own Opel, which would have been a stake in GM Europe.  Magna comes out left field and places a bid in the Opel deal, undercutting Fiat at the last minute.

Fiat, Magna And Opel.  Since Opel doesn’t have any EVs yet, it might make sense that it would have some form of access to some of the Volt technology, as in the drivetrain.  This would have been one of the main benefits for Fiat.  However, Magna comes out left field and places a bigger bid on Opel.  Since Magna has also worked on the electric Ford Focus, it means now that if Opel is privy to the Volt technology, Magna would have some access to it.  Since Magna is Canadian and, has a relationship with Ford with its electric cars,  GM/Ford are very active in that country, could it make sense that at some point, some of the GM technology could leak into Ford’s centers?  It’s a far stretch but we have seen stranger things happen in the past.

One thing is for certain, what was then a neatly cornered market by over-powering companies has morphed into a fast paced strategic partnerships of unlikely competitors.  To make thing even more interesting, GM is most likely at the time of this writing going to declare bankruptcy.  All in all, it bodes well for EVs and especially advanced hybrid, HEV such as the next plug-in hybrids, PHEV or as GM loves to use, the extended range electric vehicle, ER-EV.  Hunting season is opened.