General Motors Co. GM 2.54% said it plans to accelerate the timetable for some electric-vehicle launches and will establish a third factory to build plug-in trucks, anticipating a sharp rise in demand for EVs.
The disclosure follows mounting questions from Wall Street about whether the auto maker is moving quickly enough to get a planned wave of electric vehicles to market. Chief Executive Mary Barra used the company’s fourth-quarter earnings call Tuesday to further detail GM’s plans.
“We also recognize we need to launch more EVs faster,” Ms. Barra told analysts. “That’s exactly what we’re going to do.”
Ms. Barra told analysts GM has targeted sales of 400,000 electric vehicles in North America this year and next. That would mark a sharp acceleration from 2021, when it sold fewer than 25,000 electrics in the U. S.—all Chevrolet Bolts, whose production has been paused for months to fix battery problems that had led to fires.
The CEO also said the company is working on plans for a third electric-truck plant, which would join one that recently began building vehicles in suburban Detroit, and another one planned nearby that GM revealed last week.
GM and other traditional car companies are upping their bets in electric vehicles as they try to wrest the spotlight from Tesla Inc. TSLA -0.58% and a slew of new startups focused solely on battery-powered models.
Ms. Barra said GM for now won’t re-establish its dividend, which was suspended in spring 2020, because it wants to prioritize spending on electric vehicles and other growth bets.
GM also said that Cruise, its majority-owned driverless-car startup, has begun offering free driverless taxi rides for the public in San Francisco. That milestone triggers an additional $1.35 billion in funding from investor SoftBank Vision Fund under terms of its initial 2018 investment in Cruise.
After the close of trading Tuesday, GM reported a net profit of $10 billion for 2021. It said full-year pretax profit, which strips out nonrecurring items, rose 47% to a record $14.3 billion.
Revenue rose 3.7% last year to $127 billion, despite deep production cuts from the ongoing computer-chip shortage and a lack of new inventory on dealership lots. Fourth-quarter profit slid 39% in 2021 as the parts crisis took its toll on factory output later in the year.
GM provided a robust outlook for 2022, projecting it could earn between $9.4 billion and $10.8 billion in net income this year. The company said its forecast assumes demand remains steady and there are no significant economic or supply-chain challenges.
Global auto makers managed to deliver strong profits last year despite the global semiconductor crunch that caused them to curtail production. The snarled output resulted in scant selection at dealer lots and soaring new-vehicle prices, padding auto makers’ profit margins.
Still, the chip shortage dealt GM a heftier blow than many of its rivals, denting sales and allowing Toyota Motor Corp. for the first time overtake it as the top-selling car company in the U.S. by annual sales.
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Ford Motor Co. is also expected to report strong profits when it releases year-end results Thursday. In October, it boosted its full-year guidance to $10.5 billion to $11.5 billion, as the company took advantage of easing supply-chain problems and cranked up fourth-quarter production.
Plans to steer more money into battery factories and other electric-vehicle building blocks propelled shares of both U.S. auto makers in 2021.
The sentiment on Wall Street has started to shift this year as investors pulled back on electric-vehicle startups Rivian Automotive Inc., its shares down 33% as of Tuesday’s close, Lucid Group Inc., off 21%, and Fisker Inc., down 24%.
Tesla’s shares dropped sharply last week after it reported record profits and Chief Executive Elon Musk said the company would increase vehicle deliveries by more than 50% but hold off on new-model introductions. The stock price has since rebounded and was down 12% this year as of Tuesday’s close.
Now is the time for traditional auto makers to make the case that they are positioned to cash in on the nascent electric-vehicle market, Morningstar analyst David Whiston said.
“As an investor, you do have more choices to bet on electric vehicles than Tesla and the EV startups,” Mr. Whiston said. “Both GM and Ford are not messing around.”
The U.S. auto makers each started the year touting major investments to speed electric vehicles to market. GM last week said it will spend about $6 billion on a new battery plant and factory conversion in Michigan to make plug-in Chevrolet Silverado and GMC Sierras.
Ford shares surged early last month when the company disclosed plans to roughly double production plans for the F-150 Lightning electric pickup, set to go on sale this spring.
GM said it has nearly 60,000 reservations for its GMC Hummer electric pickup truck and SUV, and this spring plans to introduce a Cadillac electric SUV, the Lyriq, starting around $60,000. Ms. Barra said the company has 110,000 reservations for the electric Silverado.
In an interview, GM President Mark Reuss said the company’s strategy is to use the same basic battery system, named Ultium, to offer more models than rivals.
“No one else has a portfolio like we have coming,” he said last week. “If you think the Silverado is taking too long, go buy a Hummer or go buy a Lyriq.”
Write to Mike Colias at [email protected]
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