Originally Posted by nthach
GM, Toyota, Ford, VAG, et al are mobility companies. They need to answer to their shareholders even if the model of traditional car ownership is changing.
GM took stakes or ownership in Cruise, Lyft, and the recent electric truck to compete against Tesla as well as entering a partnership with LG for BEV batteries. They also shedded what wasn't useful. Toyota doubled down on Uber, Getaround(to compete against GM's Maven and Daimler's Car2Go), Didi and a few other things.
oh, no doubt. If the ARE going to be around in 100 years, they have to be prepared for a world when passenger cars barely/don't exist, or they'll end up the way of Kodak and IBM. I also understand the idea of throwing various ideas against the call to see what sticks.
This particularly thing is of interest to me since I know the guys at the bike factory who've partnered with GM on it to actually produce it. I wish them the best with the project, but having a rough idea of development and production costs, I just think they're going to have some tough sledding.