Is GM breathing its own exhaust?

“Big news” from General Motors last week. The media says so.

The aging automaker announced that by 2035 it will sell only zero-emission vehicles and plans to be carbon neutral in roughly 20 years.

Huh? It’s going to take G.M. 15 more years to go zero-emission only, and nearly two decades to achieve carbon neutrality?

Bold and revolutionary, the company and the cheer-leading media proclaim. Hardly. More like thin gruel.

At a time in history when a startup like Moderna can develop and gain regulatory approval for a safe, effective COVID 19 vaccine in record time, G.M.’s 15 and 20-year timelines for zero emission and carbon neutrality are underwhelming to say the least.

Okay, sure, it’s good news that the fossil-fuel-addicted, 112-year-old automaker is finally taking the global environmental crisis seriously, but G.M.’s tepid announcement seems much more like waving the white surrender flag to 17-year-old Tesla than a game-changing environmental initiative.

Tesla and its startup competitors are disrupting the tired, slow-moving, bureaucratic, sleepy auto-making industry and changing it forever. But, clearly, G.M. and the other big brand automakers still don’t get it. They simply don’t understand the business they are in.

They need to scrap their 19th-century business model ASAP or they very likely won’t even be around in 2040.

Tesla’s primary advantage is its software-first orientation. It is for all intents and purposes a software company and acts like one. Its $752 billion market capitalization is 10 times G.M.’s. Imagine what the gap will be unless G.M. really revolutionizes its business. Why isn’t G.M. talking about using software to transform themselves right now? In the software world 2040 is an eternity away.

Unfortunately, G.M.’s announcement is silent on the most important transformational change impacting automakers - software. G.M. is now in the software business and software companies build product roadmaps that stretch out a few quarters, to a year and maybe at most five years.

No software company talks about what’s going to happen in 20 years because everything in that time frame will change. New languages, now competitors, new chip platforms, new advances in networking and security.

Software will accelerate change in the next two decades. Let’s rev up the way-back machine and see what the software world looked like 20 years ago at the turn of the century. Nokia led in mobile phones; Google launched Adwords and got its first 350 customers; and Twitter launched its domain.

Yes, everything has changed in 20 years. Nokia is gone. Google is now worth $1.2 trillion and Twitter has transformed the world of media and communications.

Google’s and Twitter’s growth and success are based on rapid, skillful iteration of the software that drives their businesses. More nimble, agile software development by competitors put Nokia on the scrap heap.

It is software that will determine whether GM is the next Nokia or is even still around in 2040.

G.M. may be making news by proclaiming it’s phasing out fossil fuels, but sadly the company is merely breathing its own exhaust.