GM seeks to ease shareholders' nerves at investor day
Business
GM seeks to ease shareholders' nerves at investor day
DETROIT (Reuters) - General Motors will assure investors next Tuesday that there is no need to panic about decelerating demand for electric vehicles and the US automaker could even improve its profits in 2025, according to two people familiar with the plans.
The message at the company's investor day is a dramatic contrast from the one GM CEO Mary Barra laid out at the same event in 2021, when she highlighted ambitious goals that included doubling revenue to about $280 billion by 2030, fueled in part by its autonomous unit Cruise and expected EV sales growth.
Investors are worried about automakers' profits as they face significant losses on EVs, worries about plateauing sales of gas-engine vehicles and intensifying pressure from Chinese automakers like BYD.
The slower-than-anticipated EV transition has caused many automakers to adjust plans, and GM's messaging on Tuesday is expected to focus less on aggressive growth and more on stability.
"I'm not going to disclose what we're going to say at investor day, but if you looked at it, it's a very strong quarter 3," Rory Harvey, GM's president of global markets, said of third-quarter sales. "From that point of view, you'd have to say that that is a positive platform leading into investor day."
However, executives speaking at the Detroit automaker's operations in Spring Hill, Tennessee, will emphasize that profit margins have not topped out with internal-combustion engine (ICE) vehicles and EV profits are closer than investors think, said the two people, who asked not to be identified.
GM will paint a rosy picture for its ICE models, touting the launch of eight refreshed SUV models - including the Chevrolet Equinox, Buick Enclave and Cadillac Escalade - between now and the end of 2025 as a reason those profit margins can still improve, the sources said.
