Originally Posted by
cooker
They could have any number of motivations.
It's a growing market and they want to get in on it.
Greenwashing the company to make it seem more environmentally friendly
Burnishing the corporate image to make it seem more hip.
Undermining public transit initiatives
Undermining Uber/Lyfft/ etc.
Probably a few I haven't thought of
As I said in the OP, I think they are just hoping to boost their stock value by getting investors who want to invest in a more sustainable future. Basically that amounts to greenwashing, but it's not so much greenwashing to sell a product as it is greenwashing to sell the stock to investors. Maybe it is an investment in marketing the greenwashing strategy of the company itself as being the most effective to investors who want to profit from effective greenwashing schemes/scams.
It's like, "how much more can we get people to invest in building Ram pickups by creating a greenwashed multimodal transportation vision of the future?" They also recently came out in favor of traditional emissions progress standards, which implies they want to limit their competition but at the same time want some leeway to emit some air pollution as needed to promote their combustion line. In short, they certainly don't seem to be backing off on combustion vehicles, so I think all the other electric and ebike stuff is just a way to distract from their pro-combustion business plan.