GM CEO Mary Barra talks about the future

Yesterday, General Motors officially moved into its new headquarters in downtown Detroit, and to celebrate, the company hosted a fireside chat with its CEO, Mary Barra. Reuters’ auto reporter Kalea Hall moderated the chat. This is part of an annual event hosted by the Automotive Press Association (Disclosure: I am a member).

Mary Barra is the second-longest-serving CEO at GM, and one could argue that she’s the reason the company survived bankruptcy and put itself on a global competitive playing field. All of this is to say that she’s good at her job and can also be a tough interview because she isn’t going to say anything she doesn’t want to say or isn’t supposed to say. She stays on message better than any of the U.S. automakers, and often doesn’t say anything that she hasn’t already said.

However, you can take away some valuable insights into how she expresses herself. Hall also asked some tough questions that put Barra on the spot. I thought it’d be interesting to hit what I think are the most important tidbits from this discussion and provide some context on what it means for the entire auto industry.

Hall asked early about tariffs, which Barra still claims to have the benefit of putting American automakers on a level playing field with its global competitors. It’s also the closest she’ll get to praising the Trump Administration.

She did say she wanted clarity on tariffs, which every automaker does. Automakers want clarity and stability so they can plan for the future as much as they need to.

This level playing field that American OEMs have long asked for stems from the fact that other countries, like China, subsidize production in extraordinary ways.

I understand the gripe, and it most certainly stinks that our government doesn’t invest in the future the way another government might, especially with EVs. While tariffs may help in this regard, the problem is that if vehicles are too expensive for your customers to afford, then you have a much bigger problem.

Regarding affordability, Barra again touted the 700,000 vehicles it sold last year that had a starting MSRP of under $30,000. While it is an interesting stat, and certainly one worth talking about, it’s also cherry-picked.

What I want to know, and what would be much more valuable, is what the average transaction price of those 700,000 vehicles was.

GM does have a lineup that has some compelling starting prices, so it is doing more for affordability than some of its competitors. I’d even argue that some of those products are also GM’s best products.

Hall asked if the end goal is full EVs, and Barra said that she believes that is where the industry ultimately ends up. Barra wouldn’t make any predictions, as she said that the last prediction she made was wrong.

GM claims to have flexibility if the regulatory environment changes again in 2029, and Barra said development work will continue on electrification. That makes sense because if the regulations again change — and they likely will if Democrats come into power — GM doesn’t want to be too far behind.

Barra cites infrastructure as being a key limiting factor in EV adoption, and she believes people should like EVs on their own merits and not because of incentives.

She even cites her own data that 80% of EV buyers replace their EVs with another one. That backs up stuff I’ve anecdotally witnessed. People love EVs if they can charge at home or at work. If they can’t, they don’t have a good time and switch back.

Yes, infrastructure needs to be better, but it’s improved dramatically since GM’s first Ultium EV hit the streets. I’d even make an argument that citing infrastructure is a bit of a cop out answer these days.

To GM’s credit, it does have a solid EV lineup and still plans on moving forward with that. Even if the cars don’t have Apple CarPlay or Android Auto.

Ultimately, when the shift back occurs, it appears as of right now that GM will be able to handle it better than the rest of the Big 3.

Barra was also asked about PHEVs, a product that I’ve long considered a crutch more than a transitional product. She said she’s still looking into them, but her tone couldn’t have been clearer. She seems uninterested in actually bringing many of them, if any, to market. She even said one of the big issues with PHEVs is that people don’t plug them in.

This would be one of the first times that I can recall an automotive CEO saying the quiet part out loud. People don’t plug in their plug-in hybrids.

This might vary by automaker, and I’d love some recent data from automakers, but in lieu of that, I have to assume the data is so bad that automakers don’t want to share.

The company should focus on hybrids and EREVs, in my opinion. While some of its gas-only offerings deliver stellar fuel economy, hybridization is still where those vehicles should be heading.

An EREV has an advantage because it’s an EV with a gasoline generator on board. This means you get the power and performance of an EV, for the most part, but near infinite range. PHEVs often have less power and performance when running in EV-only mode, and don’t have more than 50 miles of EV-only range.

Right now, this would be an excellent solution for a larger vehicle, like a Tahoe or a Suburban. If you frequently tow or carry a ton of cargo or people, you have the support of the gas engine. But when you don’t do that, you have a ton of EV range.

For some, they’ll buy the EREV first and see that they never go to the gas station, and when they replace that EREV, they’ll buy a full EV. This is a much better stepping stone product to full EV adoption.

Hall didn’t ask about EREVs, and Barra didn’t mention them. But they are most certainly on the CEO’s radar.

Barra touted the company’s work in LMR battery technology, and while 50% of its fleet won’t be an EV by 2030, GM is also offering technology to practically make sense (and not touting solid state, which is there but not there, but is there, but not there).

As an engineer, Barra talks the most whimsically about the upcoming unified compute system and software updates. While I’m not sure if people want Gemini in their vehicles, the hardware that powers GM’s new vehicle platform should make future integrations easier.

The entire industry is heading this way, so no surprises here.

Barra doesn’t appear to have any plans to retire soon. She certainly has earned it, and I don’t think I’d want to lead the company through another recession. But if anyone can do it successfully, it would be her.

While she talked a ton about making products consumers want, and letting consumers drive what GM builds, it’s also clear she does expect a regulatory change in 2029. I think that’s smart, because without Trump in power, I expect a significant pendulum shift politically.

I also think the company is in a pretty good spot. I don’t agree with every decision GM is making, but the competent leadership at the top does make me think it’ll handle the headwinds that are coming better than the other two Detroit-based automakers.

Anecdotally, it also seems that Barra isn’t a big fan of Trump, by the way she responded to a few questions about meeting with him. It was nothing she said directly, but how she said it that I think was the tell. I suspect she’ll have prior obligations in the future and send someone else in her place.

Barra told the crowd that she doesn’t think we’ll know what true EV demand is until the end of the second quarter of this year. That means it’ll take until Q3 to really understand the reality of post-incentive EV demand. I had been saying that the end of Q2 would likely be the point, but she has access to more data than I do. Either way, we have no idea what demand is going to be yet, so saying EVs are dead is declaring it far too early.