GM believes it will be EV leader 'in next decade or so'

The company does not expect EVs to displace gasoline vehicles as its "core business" for at least a couple of decades.

General Motors has voiced confidence that it will upstage Tesla and stay ahead of Volkswagen in the electric-vehicle segment ... eventually.

The company proudly launched the Chevrolet Bolt as a mass-market EV before Tesla had a chance to ramp up Model 3 production. Bolt sales have been relatively low, however, with 2017 US deliveries totaling just 23,297 units -- on par with the Chevy Spark -- and falling by 17 percent in the first three quarters of 2018.

Despite currently carrying a higher price tag than Tesla's eventual $35,000 targeted base price, the Model 3 has remained a hot item with more than 56,000 deliveries in Q3 alone. In contrast, the Bolt's all-time US total from its late 2016 launch through the end of the third quarter stands at less than 36,000 units.

GM is apparently not discouraged, claiming that global demand for the Bolt has triggered a 20-percent production volume increase this quarter.

"We do believe we'll lead the industry in EVs sometime in the next decade or so," GM's VP of global strategy, Mike Ableson, said at a recent conference, as quoted by Detroit Free Press.

GM apparently believes it has plenty of time to develop a dominant position in the EV market. Ableson argues that gasoline engines will remain GM's core business "for a couple of decades to come," though he admits that "the rest of the world is moving aggressively toward EVs." In any case, the executive shot down the idea of an electric pickup to target the popular segment.

Volkswagen is arguably the most publicly ambitious proponent of EVs among established automakers, promising to spend nearly $50 billion on electrification through 2030. The German automaker expects all-electric vehicles to represent 25 percent of its sales by 2025.