Barbie goes electric, with a little pink Corvette, while Ken gets an electric Hummer

Australian actress Margot Robbie drives a custom electric 1956 Corvette in the new Barbie movie, but General Motors (GM) is using the film to market SUVs from its growing EV range, including Ken’s EV Hummer.

GM’s Barbie marketing deal, comes as two recent reports show that record SUV sales, driven by advertising from car manufacturers, could be undoing some of the sustainability gains made by Australians buying more electric vehicles.

In one scene in Barbie, coming out in Australian cinemas on July 20, actress America Ferrera pulls up in a brand new 2024 Chevy Blazer SS electric SUV, whisking Barbie, played by Robbie, away in the back seat.

But the marketing opportunities don’t just stop with the Greta Gerwig directed live-action movie, even if it manages to squeeze in 200 product placements and advertising deals.

Players in Microsoft’s Forza Horizon 5 video game can go for a ride in either Barbie’s custom electric Corvette or Ken’s electric Hummer.

And of course, there’s a toy version of Barbie’s car available in Australia, as well as a Hot Wheels edition. But while Mattel does have an electric Barbie toy car, complete with charging station, it’s not clear that the toy associated with the Barbie movie is electric. 

Astute observers noticed that the word Chevrolet on the side of Barbie’s pale pink and white vintage Corvette had the two letters E and V in blue, indicating that the car was part of GM’s electric range. GM did also announce this year it will be releasing the first electric Corvette to mark the car’s 70^th anniversary.

This is not the first time Robbie, who has said that worrying about climate change sometimes keeps her up at night, has helped market EVs. She was a sustainability ambassador for Nissan, showing off her surfing skills in an ad where she spoke about taking climate action for “a better world for ourselves, and everyone who comes after us.”

But in contrast to Barbie’s tiny Corvette, GM has used the film as an opportunity to market its SUVs, including a Hummer driven by Ken. 

A report from Australian climate advocacy group Comms Declare released last week found that record sales of bigger and bigger SUVs, utes and American-style trucks in Australia was in part driven by manufacturers increasing advertising for their largest cars by 200 percent over the last ten years.

Meanwhile, the International Energy Agency (IEA) 2023 Critical Minerals Market Review released on Tuesday, reports that the trend in buying larger internal combustion engine (ICE) cars is also extending to electric vehicles, placing increased pressure on critical minerals needed to make bigger batteries.

Of the large American style truck electric vehicles available, GM’s 830-horsepower Hummer EV is certainly up there. Back in November 2021, US President Joe Biden, test-drove a Hummer EV at GM’s electric vehicle plant in Detroit, exclaiming “this sucker is something else”.

Biden’s visit to the Detroit EV factory was a notable moment as the US continues to carve out its role in the future of EV manufacturing.

Meanwhile in Australia, Ford recently announced a further 400 job cuts in Australia, primarily from its Geelong factory, prompting The Australian Manufacturing Workers Union (AMWU) to renew calls for the Australian government to invest in electric vehicle manufacturing.

Chevrolet, or Chevy, is one of the four American automobile brands of General Motors or GM, the automobile manufacturing company founded in Detroit, Michigan. GM exports some Chevrolet-branded cars to Australia under a specialist wing of the company after discontinuing the iconic Australian brand Holden in 2020.

For now, it’s likely you’ll be seeing more GM EVs on your screen, including on Netflix shows “Love Is Blind” and “Queer Eye” after GM launched its “Everybody In” campaign earlier this year, reportedly aiming to increase the mass transition to electric vehicles.