General Motors CEO Dan Akerson has assigned a small team to study Tesla Motors and determine whether the upstart electric vehicle maker poses a threat to the 104-year-old automaker's business.

GM Vice Chairman Steve Girsky told Bloomberg that Akerson "thinks Tesla could be a big disrupter if we're not careful."

"History is littered with big companies that ignored innovation that was coming their way because you didn't know where you could be disrupted," he said.

Tesla's Model S, priced from $69,900, outsold the Chevrolet Volt plug-in hybrid in the first quarter, and the company hasn't announced its second-quarter deliveries. Girsky added that the Model S underbody is similar to a skateboardlike concept that GM proposed in 2002 for fuel-cell vehicles.

"That's what they used," he said. "It's fascinating. I don't know if it's going to work or not work. All I know is if we ignore it and say it's a bunch of laptop batteries, then shame on us."

Girsky added that paying attention to Tesla is a change for GM.

"In the old days, they would've said, 'It's a bunch of laptop batteries and don't worry about it and blah, blah, blah,'" he said. Akerson's "view of the world is this kind of thing can change, can impact our organization. It may not be in his lifetime here, but it will be in somebody's lifetime. And we need to be prepared."