Tesla forces GM CEO to consider electric threat

General Motors CEO Dan Akerson has reportedly assigned a team to study the threat posed to the automaker from Tesla, the electric sports sedan maker.

GM’s vice chairman, Steve Girsky disclosed the study in an interview with Bloomberg. “He thinks Tesla could be a big disrupter if we’re not careful,” Bloomberg quoted Girsky as saying.

But the greater threat to GM may be its own corporate culture, notes Forbes contributor Micheline Maynard.

After all, GM “once nurtured, and then killed, a $1 billion program to develop an electric car called the EV1,” Maynard writes. “The issue isn’t what Tesla threatens to do to GM. It’s why GM isn’t a place where such innovations can take place and more importantly, take root,” she added.