General Motors Co Chief Executive Mary Barra said Wednesday "nothing is off the table" when it comes to maximizing the value of the No. 1 U.S. automaker's electric vehicle efforts, including a possible spinoff of those assets.
Speaking to analysts after GM reported a smaller-than-expected loss in a quarter hurt by the coronavirus pandemic, Barra responded to a question about whether the Detroit company would consider a spinoff of its EV operations, given high investor appetite for companies like Tesla Inc , Nikola Corp and Nio Inc.
"We are open to looking at and evaluate anything that we think is going to drive long-term shareholder value, so I would say nothing is off the table," she said.
Barra added that she saw no impediment to such a move.
Earlier in the call, Barra addressed a question around a name change for GM that would emphasize its EV efforts.
"Why not call the company Ultium?" Morgan Stanley analyst Adam Jonas asked, citing GM's advanced battery technology.
Barra said GM evaluates questions like that given its push to invest in EVs and other advanced technology.
GM needs to perform, developing new technology and driving down battery costs, to get Wall Street to care about its stock, she said.
"We've got to deliver... and demonstrate that we have products people want to buy," Barra said.
She said GM intends to get "our fair share plus more" when asked whether any of its electric vehicles would sell at volumes of 100,000 a year or higher.
+1
Great suggestion Neanderthal. That's a name GM executives know very well.
On top of that, renaming General Motors to "zerozerozero" presents an opportunity for the corporate logo to be updated, perhaps to something like this:
If battery is the future, then spinning off the electrics as their own business will make no sense as who'd buy the old ICE operations? For the ICE company to survive in such a scenario, then the ICE GM will have to invest in developing electrics to survive, in other words, rebuild the business it just sold off.
As for changing GM's name, I say no. Electrics still have motors, just electric ones, so the name General Motors still makes sense. And I doubt changing the name will fool anyone.
If battery is the future, then spinning off the electrics as their own business will make no sense as who'd buy the old ICE operations? For the ICE company to survive in such a scenario, then the ICE GM will have to invest in developing electrics to survive, in other words, rebuild the business it just sold off.
As for changing GM's name, I say no. Electrics still have motors, just electric ones, so the name General Motors still makes sense. And I doubt changing the name will fool anyone.
GM would be Crazy to spin off their only chance at high value. It seems wall street is waking up to how far ahead GM is of every other automaker with technology.
Ultium is a complete re-invention of the automobile and how it’s put together. They also own the Chemistry, it’s not used in China and are leading in battery research.
Bottom line is, it seems GM has surpassed Tesla in batteries and self drive, including manufacturing.
LG Chem knows how to make batteries, GM owns the Chemistry and the engineering technology.
I agree that GM is a technology leader, but it doesn't appear Wall Street is yet convinced that translates to significant growth in future cash flow. GM share price at yesterday's close was just above $26, well below the $33/share at the General Motors Company IPO on November 17, 2010.
Have you ever noticed that when auto companies talk about a change of image,
the first thing that comes to mind is changing names, not the products or strategies
that caused the problem. It's like covering mistakes with an even bigger one.
GM is way ahead of Ford on battery scale, but I agree with Ford's (and Toyota's) approach on Hybrids and a staged approach to EV adoption that has a long term outlook involving solid state. Ford's Hau Thai Tang has repeatedly talked about the importance of investing in the right tech at the right time, and to him that's Solid State. Obviously we won't know who's right until they are battling each other in the marketplace over an extended period of time. But I can't help but notice that Chevy is still launching new EVs with 50 kWh charging while Ultium is going into expensive flagship cars in a few years. Meanwhile Tesla, Ford, VW and others are competing with significantly more capable (and appealing) EVs around the same pricing today.
Ultium's biggest trick are integrated controllers in each cell instead of a central controller wired to each cell, that's where the flexibility comes from. The rest is chemistry to reduce expensive materials like Cobalt. The problem with Ultium however is that the controllers increase the cost of the cells offsetting the cost savings of materials. You get better flexibility, but those controllers aren't cheaper than copper wire.
No matter how exotic or advanced the technology - I still believe EV’s will not be widely accepted outside of urban areas until manufacturers can develop a process (and the infrastructure) to quickly recharge (fuel) the vehicle on a trip.
Job 1: Fix the crappy interiors in the trucks, after that do the rest of the ICE vehicles. Quit taking money and de-contenting present vehicles only to spend on electrics that will be priced so high nobody can afford them. Ex., Hummer,,, Lyriq, Simboliq
Change the name of the company and then sell GM's EV operations? Such a profoundly dumb idea.
By 2025, it will be illegal to sell petroleum-powered cars in much of the developed World. China--the market that GM is counting on to return the company to preeminence--is a leader in the legal mandate to switch to EVs. In 2020-2021, spinning off EV operations makes about as much sense as investing in a nationwide chain of horse stables.
Are you sure about that 2025 date?
Looks to me like much of the developed world won't be anywhere close to giving up on gasoline and diesel
If we look past all the fart sniffing mandates, there's a huge hole in the plan that means we will still be
talking about this in five years time.
Not really, GM's eggs are all in the USA market, specifically the truck segment. That's part of why they are in China, so someday GM China generates enough profits that they aren't so exposed to the risk from their trucks. And same reason they are trying to develop Cadillac as another material source of revenue to reduce the risk of their trucks.
I suspect that there's a good decade of hybrids possible, something that makes ICEs a lot cheaper to run
while keeping battery costs down. All of that is a great way for more folks to enjoy electrification now.
Experience of conventional hybrids is that they don't reduce overall fuel consumption or costs - but they will reduce fuel consumption, therefore CO2 and NOx emissions in urban use, at the expense of increasing them on non-urban journeys - they are less damaging in towns and cities so may get favourable treatment in Ultra Low Emissions Zones (ULEZ).
Plug-in hybrids will though improve fuel consumption and emissions overall.
Slowly waking up perhaps haha, yeah that is kind of a mic drop moment right there to be frank...
Would be great to see Bara fired and a person who actually like's the automotive sector take over and run this company. This women is a passion vacuum imo, she needs to go be CEO of a book binder company or something and leave one of America's largest and oldest automotive company's to someone that actually might give a crap about making something people want and desire!
I think the debate is can a "legacy" automaker successfully attract EV customers by simply transiting to EV products amongst the rest of their products. GM faces some apathy amongst those customers so they will have to spend a tremendous amount of money trying to get their approval, but it can be done if done smartly. Unfortunately GM has a poor history of successfully targeting these customers despite making it a core mission. Toyota and Ford have done a far better job selling more electrified products for example. So I can't help but look skeptically at GM's mission here, they haven't proven successful yet and here we are with a huge investment with no proven model. I like what I'm hearing on the tech-side, but selling cars is more than a technology exercise.
Actually I should just say Toyota, but Ford is in distant 2nd place with a commitment to outsell Toyota on electrified vehicles by 2023 with Escape/Explorer/Aviator/Corsair/F-150 HEV/Transit BEV/Mach-E/Maverick (and eventually Ranger HEV, Edge HEV, Midsize BEV by 2024). There is a ton of volume there. So you can look at just BEVs, or you can look at HEV/PHEV/BEVs combined which is a huge number of vehicles. That puts electrification in the hands of many more customers. More importantly, it discretely slips electrification into the hands of a variety of typical Ford customers which is really has been the key to success for their electrification efforts. I do admire GM's vision and hope it works.
This.
While Tesla is creating a new customer buyer base for itself, Ford, GM and Toyota are trying to move
existing buyers onto electrified versions of existing/familiar products. That play has a very important
difference, it's about keeping customers and transitioning them. The pay off is bigger but much slower
than Tesla's clean sheet approach but the main benefit is that the majors can self fund to the max,
Tesla can't.
Along the lines of the previously suggested...maybe they can change their name to 'Murican Motors. I can see it now, their tagline could be "if you don't drive 'Murican, then **** you!"
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