What happened
General Motors (GM 0.40%) was notably outpacing the rest of the pack in the early afternoon on Tuesday. Shares were up more than 5%, while the S&P 500 index was rising less than 2%.
The giant automaker's stock was gaining on the back of a new product announcement, plus a potentially lucrative deal with a massive government customer.
So what
The new product is the electric vehicle (EV) version of its Chevrolet Blazer midsize SUV. GM said the 2024 Chevrolet Blazer EV, as the first models will be known, is slated to hit the market next summer.
The new vehicle will start at $47,595 at rollout. The company aims to provide consumers with a lot of choice with the Blazer EV; it will have a variety of trims and options. These include different ranges, topped by what GM estimates to be 320 miles per full charge.
That's not the only potentially new EV front opening up for the company. Also on Tuesday, its subsidiary GM Defense announced that it is providing a demonstration vehicle based on its GMC Hummer EV to the U.S. Army. This is being supplied "for analysis and demonstration," in GM's words.
The company added that this will prove "what an all-electric supertruck can do and how the underlying technology can be leveraged for future defense needs ... ."
Now what
With these two rather muscular moves, GM is demonstrating to investors that it can compete in the EV space.
Still, it's early days, and the EV space continues to develop and morph quickly. Regardless, we can expect the company to effectively "move the metal" with the Blazer EV, particularly given the flexibility of the options and the relatively reasonable sticker price.
We can also imagine GM Defense will marshal its sales force to convince the Army to sign a big EV supply deal. Both pieces of news are very encouraging.
