General Motors Q2 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Quartr
Provided by Quartr
July 25, 2023

There are 13 speakers on the call.

Operator

Good morning, and welcome to the General Motors Company Second Quarter 2023 Earnings Conference Call. During the opening remarks, all participants will be in a listen only mode. After the opening remarks, we will conduct a question and answer session. We are asking analysts to limit their questions to 1 and a brief follow-up. As a reminder, this conference call is being recorded Tuesday, July 25, 2023.

Operator

I would now like to turn the conference over to Ashish Kohli, GM's Vice President of Investor Relations.

Speaker 1

Thank you, Amanda, and good morning, everybody. We appreciate you joining us as we review GM's financial results for the Q2 of 2023. Our conference call materials were issued this morning and are available on GM's Investor Relations website. We are also broadcasting this call via webcast. Joining us today are Mary Barra, GM's Chair and CEO Paul Jacobson, GM's Executive Vice President and CFO and Kyle Boat, CEO of Cruise.

Speaker 1

Dan Burse, President and CEO of GM Financial, will also be joining us for the Q and A portion of the call. On today's call, Management will make forward looking statements about our expectations. These statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause our actual results to differ materially. These risks and uncertainties include the factors identified in our filings with the SEC. Please review the Safe Harbor statement on the first page of our presentation as the content of our call will be governed by this language.

Speaker 1

And with that, I'm delighted to turn the call over to Mary.

Speaker 2

Thanks, Ashish, and good morning, everyone. Our operating results continue to demonstrate strong growth, thanks to an incredible customer response to our new trucks and SUVs around the world and strong execution of our business plan by the GM team, our dealers and suppliers. Together, we delivered $3,200,000,000 in EBIT adjusted in the Q2, including an $800,000,000 charge for new commercial agreements we have with in LGES. The charge reflects the conscious decision we made during the Chevrolet Bold EV recall to serve our customers in ways that go beyond traditional remedies, and we're taking new steps that will reduce our costs and improve our margins over time. We'll provide more details about EV margin improvement and IRA benefits at the Investor Day in in December.

Speaker 2

Our momentum is broad based. Year over year, we have now delivered 4 consecutive quarters of higher retail market share in the U. S. And our total share was up almost one full point in the first half with strong pricing and incentive discipline. We lead the U.

Speaker 2

S. Industry in both commercial and total fleet deliveries calendar year to date. We now have led the U. S. Industry in initial quality for the 2nd year in a row.

Speaker 2

We are focused on strong cost discipline and we are taking additional steps to lower our capital spending. All of this impacts the bottom line, so we are raising our full year earnings, free cash flow and EPS guidance for the 2nd time this year. We now expect full year EBIT adjusted earnings to be in the range of $12,000,000,000 to $14,000,000,000 up $1,000,000,000 from our guidance. Adjusted automotive free cash flow is now expected to be up $1,500,000,000 in a range of $7,000,000,000 to $9,000,000,000 and APS is now expected to be in a range of $7.15 to $8.15 per share. The actions we are taking to be more efficient are also having an immediate effect on capital spending.

Speaker 2

We now expect capital spending in 2020 to be in the $11,000,000,000 to $12,000,000,000 range, which is about $1,000,000,000 less than the high end of our prior guidance, and we're working on more reductions. This guidance assumes that we successfully negotiate new labor agreements without work stoppage. Our results and our new guidance underscore the strength of our products today. Last quarter, we talked about new vehicles we're launching to support strong margins. All of them are connecting with customers.

Speaker 2

At the higher end of the pickup market, the GMC Sierra AT4 and Denali models are now 70% of heavy duty retail sales. Premium models also account for more than 70% of sales for the new GMC Canyon midsize pickup. For the Chevrolet Colorado, our high performance off road models, The Z71, Trail Boss and ZR2 represent more than half of retail sales. The new Chevrolet tracks is also off to a very fast start and it's driving solidly profitable growth. In the U.

Speaker 2

S, we delivered more than 20,000 tracks in the quarter and we expect that to keep growing. Half of these customers are new to General Motors. All of these new vehicles help us delivered more than a $1600 per unit increase in ATPs in the U. S. Compared to Q1 with flat incentives and essentially flat inventory.

Speaker 2

We had the largest ATP increase in the industry by far. The other growth products I highlighted last quarter, the Chevrolet Montana in South America and the tracks in Korea also continue to build momentum. The Montana is our 1st compact pickup for the Brazil market and in just 4 months It has earned 1 third of the segment. We're now expanding distribution to other markets in South America. In Korea, the Trex is an unqualified success just like it is in the U.

Speaker 2

S. Pricing is strong and has earned more than 50% market share in its segment and 2 thirds of the customers are new to GM. These hits and the great work the team has done on costs have us on track to deliver significantly higher EBIT adjusted in GM International this year excluding China equity income. Looking ahead, we have several launches in growing segments around the world that will keep our momentum going. In North America, these include the 2024 Chevrolet Traverse, which we revealed earlier this month.

Speaker 2

It goes into production in Lansing, Michigan late this year. In the EV market, we achieved our target of to produce 50,000 electric vehicles in North America in the first half. About 80% were the Chevrolet Bolt EV and EUV, but the Altium platform is increasing. We've had more than 2,000 customer reserved GMC Hummer EVs and Cadillac LYRIX in transit to dealers at the end of June. With both cell and vehicle production increasing, we continue to target production of roughly 100,000 EVs in the second half of the year and we'll continue to grow from there.

Speaker 2

Demand for our EVs remains very strong because the Altium platform is purpose built for electric vehicles and it does not force customers to compromise on style, performance, utility, range or towing. We have experienced unexpected delays in the ramp because our automation equipment supplier has been struggling with delivery issues that are constraining module assembly capacity. We are working on multiple fronts to put behind us as quickly as possible and things are already improving. For example, we have deployed teams from GM Manufacturing Engineering to work on-site with our automation supplier to improve delivery times. We've also added manual module assembly lines, and we're installing more module today at our North American EV plants beginning with Factory 0 and Spring Hill this summer, Ramos Arispe in the fall and KAMI in the Q2 of next year.

Speaker 2

And to address pent up demand among our HUMMER EV customers, we are planning to increase second half production by thousands of units. In the meantime, Altium Cells, LLC is delivering great quality and production is ahead of schedule. Looking ahead, the next Direct sourcing target for many critical raw and processed materials we need with significant on shoring. During the quarter, this included an expansion of our cathode active material joint venture in Canada and an investment to bring manganese sulfate processing to a new facility in Louisiana. As with other recent announcements, these agreements provide us with significant offtake and favorable commercial terms, which is a key component of the EV margin improvement strategy we outlined last quarter.

Speaker 2

Now let's talk about fixed costs. Due to the success of the $2,000,000,000 fixed cost reduction plan we announced earlier this year, We have identified another $1,000,000,000 in fixed costs that we will deliver over the same 2023 to 2024 timeframe. This new action will offset about $1,000,000,000 in depreciation and amortization, which means that relative to 2022, Our automotive fixed costs will be down $2,000,000,000 on a net basis as we exit 2024. Key components include about $1,000,000,000 from the voluntary including engineering expense, travel and administrative costs. We're not done by any stretch.

Speaker 2

Mark and I have asked Norm DeGrave, our new Chief Marketing Officer, to take a fresh review of our spending and put us on a course to deliver world class levels of marketing efficiency. Our product teams are also embracing We call winning with simplicity that will reduce design and engineering expense, supplier cost, order complexity, buildable combinations and manufacturing complexity. For example, our teams are applying even greater discipline around our color and trim palettes, the way we package features and options and reuse. For our EV and ICE vehicles, we are targeting a 50% reduction in trim levels through a smart bundling of customer features and options. This results in fewer part numbers to simplify marketing, engineering, manufacturing, while maintaining the best features customers want.

Speaker 2

Yet we are maintaining market coverage for all major segments and price points and the U. S. Will compete in ICE and EV segments that represent about 90% of industry volume in 2,030. Our next generation full size pickup in SUVs will show just how powerful winning with simplicity will be. We are investing significantly less capital and expect to deliver vehicles that will have much higher levels of customer facing content and even better margins than today.

Speaker 2

Another great example of a capital efficient program is the next generation Chevrolet Bolt that we plan to execute. Our customers love today's Bolt. It has been delivering record sales in some of the highest customer satisfaction and loyalty scores in the industry. It's also important source of conquest sales for company and for Chevrolet. More than 70% of customers are new to GM.

Speaker 2

We will keep the momentum going by delivering A new bolt that delivers what customers have come to expect, which is great affordability, range and technology. And we will execute it more quickly compared to an all new program and with significantly lower engineering expense and capital investment by updating the vehicle with Altium and Altify and by applying our winning with simplicity discipline. We will have more details to share soon. Now before we move to Paul's comments in and A, I'd like to invite Kyle to update you on the important steps Cruise has taken to scale its business and make it profitable. So Kyle, over to you.

Speaker 3

Thanks, Mary. We are halfway through our 1st year of rapid scaling and it's going extremely well. We're on a trajectory that most businesses dream of, which is exponential growth driven by continuous improvement, engineering innovation and solid product market fit. Our formula for driving this growth is quite simple. Number 1, we increased the supply of vehicles.

Speaker 3

Number 2, We increased the service availability so more people can use it. And number 3, we make the product awesome. So let's talk about how we're doing on all those and then get into the numbers. On the supply side, we recently hit 390 concurrent driverless AVs. We believe this is the largest and fastest growing AV fleet in the world.

Speaker 3

Yes, you will see several times this scale within the next 6 months. This is all on the Bolt platform, which we can scale to thousands of AVs, but we're also about to transition to Origins, which are a game changer for cost and are incredible to ride in. And today, I'm pleased to share that our test vehicles are already running in driverless mode on public roads in multiple cities. And we are confident in our regulatory and permitting paths despite this being the first time a major OEM has manufactured a vehicle without traditional controls. As a result, we believe we're the only AV company with a well defined and significantly de risked path to reach 1,000,000,000 in revenue.

Speaker 3

On the second item, availability, We're rapidly expanding cities, hours and service area. As of very recently, we now operate a significant portion of our San Francisco fleet 20 fourseven across the entire city. We've expanded geofences and hours in Austin and Phoenix, and we plan to expand significantly in the next 30 days. Lastly, we've done the prep work and will launch commercial service in 2 or 3 more cities in the next 12 weeks alone, bringing us to as many as 6 commercial markets with several more following shortly after. All the critical ingredients, Things like mapping, ground infrastructure, validation, user acquisition, etcetera, have become several times more efficient as we move from city to city.

Speaker 3

On the 3rd, making the product awesome. We have over 85,005 star reviews in San Francisco alone. People love the product and gets better every month with each new software update. And based on data from tens of thousands of users across multiple cities, It's clear to us now that demand will greatly exceed supply for several years, and this gives us margin opportunity and the potential to be ahead of plan on revenue growth. Now that is rapid scaling.

Speaker 3

I'll share a few additional data points before we move on. Cruise cracked 3,000,000 miles just 49 days after hitting 2,000,000 miles, and the next mile million is going to be even faster. We're now doing over 10,000 rides per week, but more importantly, we're growing rides at 49% per month on average over the last 6 months. 28 day user retention is nearly at the level of a fully matured human ride hail service and it continues to trend upwards. The product is extremely sticky despite the limitations in hours and service availability that exist today.

Speaker 3

All of that scaling is occurring while also improving safety and driving down costs. So let's take a look at those. Safety continues to improve despite increasing complexity. Our analysis of the 1st 1,000,000 miles shows AV's experienced 54% fewer collisions than human drivers in similar environments and 92% fewer where the AV was the primary contributor. In other words, the vast majority of collisions are caused by inattentive or impaired human drivers, not the AV.

Speaker 3

And we expect the gap between human and AV performance to get much wider over the next 12 months. On the cost side, we're seeing ideal trends. Our operational cost per mile traveled has gone down by an average of 15% per month for the last 6 months, led by optimizations in infrastructure, process improvements and automation. Our fixed costs due to machine learning training and simulation are also decreasing over time due to better simulation techniques and investments in efficiency. But most exciting is the step function improvements in cost we will see as our newer vehicles and AV architectures launch.

Speaker 3

Due to having a much longer service life, the Origin significantly reduces our cost per mile. We also have an optimized sensing and compute architecture in late stage development that costs about 75% less than what will be on the very first Origins. It's the first time Cruise's custom chips will hit the road, which we expect before the end of next year. As our fleet rolls over to this architecture, we'll start to see costs head below $1 per mile, the magic threshold at which robo taxis become cheaper for most people than owning a car. Lastly, we have something else that's that in the works for a few years that is highly disruptive to the already highly disruptive AV industry.

Speaker 3

More on that later this year. So putting these things together, it's clear now that Cruise is no longer a science project. There was one significant risk and reasons to doubt, but it's now a rapidly growing business with a transformational product in a multi $1,000,000,000,000 TAM. We've made incredible progress in Q2 over Q1, and I'm excited to continue that momentum in the months ahead. We're truly just getting started.

Speaker 3

Back to you, Meg.

Speaker 2

Thanks, Kyle, and thanks for sharing. The progress that the Cruise team is making is just incredible. So before we move into Paul's remarks, I'd like to address our negotiations with the UAW, which just kicked off and with Uniphore. First and most importantly, I want to say how proud I am of our talented and experienced manufacturing workforce. There's a direct connection between their hard work and our success, and we have a great future ahead of us.

Speaker 2

As we've talked about today, the future includes continued investment in Our feature also includes retooling existing assembly plants and upscaling the team as we transform the company to grow rapidly in EVs. We have a long history of negotiating fair contracts with both unions that reward our employees and support our long term success of the business. Our goal this time will be no different. That's the best possible outcome for all of our employees, plant communities, dealers, suppliers and investors, and we look forward to constructive talks. So thank you.

Speaker 2

And now let me turn the call over to Paul.

Speaker 4

Thank you, Mary, and good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us. I'd like to start by thanking team for their collaboration on delivering yet another quarter of strong results and consistently meeting or exceeding our financial targets. At the same time, we are growing the business with 4 consecutive quarters of year over year U. S.

Speaker 4

Retail share growth and stable incentive spend. The core auto operating performance continues to fuel the results and fund investments to drive growth in our business, with Q2 EBIT adjusted of $3,200,000,000 including the $800,000,000 charge from the LG agreements. We also generated a 7.2% EBIT adjusted margins including 180 basis point headwind from those LG agreements. Aided by a strong consumer and a robust Product portfolio. We are raising guidance for the 2nd time this year, driven by great products, successfully balancing supply with and proactive cost management.

Speaker 4

We have made bold commitments and to achieve them we are focusing on a solid foundation. As Mary mentioned, we are well along our way to achieving the $2,000,000,000 automotive fixed cost reduction. We're also announcing another $1,000,000,000 fixed cost reduction to offset higher depreciation and amortization from the significant manufacturing investments we've been making in our ICE and EV portfolios. This expands the impact of the plan with the only automotive fixed costs excluded being the lower pension income, a non operating non cash item. The product simplification initiatives are expected to have incremental benefits in the years to come as we refresh future ICE products and transition to EVs.

Speaker 4

Selectively reentering Europe and we recently announced a collaboration with Tesla to double access to charging for our customers without much incremental investment. Cumulatively, these factors, along with a reduction in headcount, marketing spend and overhead costs, will result in us realizing about $1,000,000,000 of year over year fixed cost savings in 2023 with most of this benefit coming in the second half of the year. Getting into the Q2 results. Revenue was $44,700,000,000 up 25% year over year driven by supply chain improvements and stable pricing. Wholesale volumes year over year were up 20% in Q2 and 12% year to date.

Speaker 4

For the full year, we now anticipate being towards the high end of our 5% to 10% guidance range. We achieved $3,200,000,000 in EBIT adjusted, 7.2 percent EBIT adjusted margins and $1.91 in EPS diluted adjusted. Total Results were up $900,000,000 year over year driven by supply chain improvements versus Q2 2022. But more importantly, We offset a combined $1,400,000,000 of headwinds from the LG agreements, lower pension income and lower GM Financial earnings. ROIC was above our 20% target demonstrating consistently strong and improving core operating performance.

Speaker 4

Adjusted auto free cash flow was $5,500,000,000 up $4,100,000,000 year over year driven by improved supply conditions and higher earnings year over year. During the quarter, we repurchased $500,000,000 of stock retiring another 14,000,000 shares, bringing the 2023 total to $865,000,000 and 24,000,000 shares retired. We expect our strong balance sheet and cash flow to support EBIT adjusted of $3,200,000,000 up $900,000,000 year over year and EBIT adjusted margins of 8.6%. The strength of the product portfolio supported market share growth, higher ATPs and again stable incentives. North America performance was impacted by $700,000,000 of the LG agreement charge, which was 190 basis point headwind to margin in the segment.

Speaker 4

We've seen 2 consecutive quarters of higher warranty related costs, an area we're monitoring very closely. The fundamental quality of our vehicles remains strong as evidenced by the JD Power ratings. However, inflationary factors have increased the cost to repair vehicles. And we've also seen incremental expenses associated with the recent ARC airbag inflator recall. Total U.

Speaker 4

S. Dealer inventory was 4 28,000 units at quarter end essentially flat from last quarter. Inventory on dealer lots of our new and most in demand vehicles the Chevrolet Trailblazer and the Chevy Bolt. We are still targeting to end 2023 with 50 to 60 days of total dealer inventory. Supply chain and logistics challenges are trending in the right direction.

Speaker 4

However, there are ongoing logistics congestion and industry wide railcar The shortages that we continue to take actions to mitigate. GM International delivered Q2 EBIT adjusted of $250,000,000 largely flat year over year. China equity income was $100,000,000 up $150,000,000 year over year as we lapped the COVID shutdowns in Q2 of 2022 and aggressively took actions to help offset industry challenges. I'd like to thank the China team for their tireless efforts and perseverance through multiple years in a challenging environment. EBIT adjusted in GM International, excluding China equity income, was $150,000,000 down $150,000,000 year over year driven by $100,000,000 charge from the LG agreements and $150,000,000 of mark to market gains recorded in the prior year.

Speaker 4

Absent these items, the results would have been up year over year with price increases more than offsetting FX headwinds due to the The strength of the product portfolio, a trend we expect to continue in the second half of the year. GM Financial delivered EBT adjusted of over 7 $50,000,000 down close to $350,000,000 year over year, in line with expectations and primarily due to a higher cost of funds and lower net leased vehicle income, partially offset by increased finance charge income from portfolio growth and a higher effective yield. GM Financial's key metrics, balance sheet and liquidity remains strong, providing them the ability to support the GM Enterprise and our customers across economic cycles. As a result, we are taking our full year EBT adjusted guidance up to the $2,500,000,000 to $3,000,000,000 range. Corporate expenses were $350,000,000 in the quarter, down $400,000,000 year over year, primarily due This is in year over year mark to market changes in the portfolio.

Speaker 4

Cruise expenses were $600,000,000 in the quarter, up $50,000,000 year over year, driven by an increase in operating spend as they continue to expand operations successfully. As we look forward, Due to the strong Q2 core performance and outlook, we are again increasing our full year guidance to EBIT adjusted in the $12,000,000,000 to $14,000,000,000 range, EPS diluted adjusted to the $7.15 to $8.15 range and adjusted automotive free cash flow in the $7,000,000,000 to $9,000,000,000 range. Most of the underlying assumptions in our guidance remain unchanged from Q1 with stronger pricing the main driver behind the increased outlook as we foreshadowed. In addition, we expect better cost performance in commodities and logistics costs to be neutral for the full year. We're bringing the high end of our 20 Capital spend guidance down by $1,000,000,000 this year to the $11,000,000,000 to $12,000,000,000 range in part due to our simplification initiatives.

Speaker 4

We are evaluating and will provide an update on the medium term capital spend outlook at our Investor Day later in the year, but expect the spend to come down from the previous $11,000,000,000 to $13,000,000,000 range. For full year adjusted automotive Cash flow guidance. We expect working capital headwinds related to the module assembly challenges Mary mentioned to partially offset the benefit from the higher EBIT adjusted and lower capital spend. This short term timing impact is expected to result in us carrying higher inventory of cells, but this is expected to unwind as module assembly capacity increases. In closing, We remain very well positioned for the future and achieving our medium and our long term targets as we've highlighted.

Speaker 4

We're focusing on profitability and our recent results demonstrate that we are not sacrificing margin for volume. We will continue this strategy with the decisions we're making today, helping to drive a fundamentally stronger company beyond 2023. And when you factor in our expected revenue growth, Including the opportunities from the software defined vehicle, AV and other new businesses, this sets us up to grow margin as we get to the back half of the decade. This concludes our opening comments and we'll now move to the Q and A portion of the call.

Operator

Thank Our first Question comes from the line of Rod Lache with Wolfe Research. You may go ahead.

Speaker 5

Good morning, everybody. Congratulations on these numbers. I was hoping to maybe ask you first a broader question about EVs. You made some assumptions for EV pricing and EV costs when you laid out your plans for mid decade profitability. And I'm hoping that you can just update us a little bit on your thinking, just based on how the markets evolved, in some cases with more aggressive Competitive pricing and obviously we're also seeing some manufacturers put in different manufacturing innovations to drive down costs.

Speaker 5

What are your latest thoughts on that? And have any of your observations led you to change any of your plans?

Speaker 2

Thanks, Rod, for the question. I would say we're doing a lot in that space. Our what we said last year at Investor Day, it gets a low to mid single digit margins For our EV portfolio by 2025 remains unchanged. Even with all the things that are moving in that, we're committed to getting there. I think when you look at the incredible cost discipline that we're demonstrating right now as well as winning with simplicity, it's just going to take cost out of every part of the business and make everything more efficient and we think actually be better from a consumer perspective.

Speaker 2

As it relates specifically to manufacturing costs, there's quite a bit of work. We have a special team that is looking at how do we continue to drive efficiency, Especially in The Body Shop, and of course, the battery team is working on how do we take costs out from an Ultium perspective with what we've learned by now having that up and running. So I think there's several areas we're working on. We intend to have industry leading margins And we're not going to stop until we get there and we still have a lot of levers to pull. I don't know, Paul, if you want to add anything.

Speaker 4

No, I think you covered it. I think, Rod, one of the things that We've been asked on this call frequently is about pricing strategy. And when you look at the demand we have for our vehicles and as We're ramping up production. We still have a lot of pent up demand. People are hanging in there with orders.

Speaker 4

And I think with some of the challenges identified as we ramp up production, We see a lot of consistent strong demand for the products that we're producing. And I think that comes from a purpose built EV that we did from the ground up, which think it's going to continue to impress people as we get more vehicles out on the road.

Speaker 5

Okay. And just to follow-up on that. It sounds like you're not changing your expectations for mid decade pricing. Just wanted to clarify whether there's been any changes just based on observations that you've made on capacity growth and competitive actions. And then secondly, can you just maybe elaborate a little bit on this $800,000,000 LG charge and what That actually means, you alluded to lower costs, but it wasn't clear whether that was a one timer or was that launch costs or something else?

Speaker 2

So first of all, on pricing in our plan, of course, we're going to be we're going to watch what's going on in the marketplace. But I think one of the things we've demonstrated for Almost 15 years now is we're going to be very disciplined with incentives and with our vehicles. And when I think When you look at the original pricing that we announced, I think it was very in line with what the customer expects for the value they're going to see from the products. And so far, we're seeing that. So we believe we have priced the vehicles right.

Speaker 2

Again, we have a lot of pent up demand. The feedback we're getting anecdotally, for instance, from Lyric New Lyric owners is they're just delighted with the vehicle. So I think we've got the pricing strategy right. Of course, we're going to watch it. And we're not changing our mid our 2025 EV profitability guidance.

Speaker 2

We'll pull all the levers that we have to either get there if there's challenges or make it even stronger. So again, Rod, we know it's a dynamic business, but we're committed to get there and I think this leadership team continues to be able to do what they say. As it relates to the $800,000,000 there were many Issues that we wanted to take care of, but I would say a chunk of it was us doing the right thing for our customers that goes beyond What a traditional recall expense back to a supplier would be as we look at that because we chose To do the right thing, from a timing perspective, and I think our customers are happy as evidenced by the still the Strong actually. We can't build enough bolts right now. So we'll share more about what everything means for our EV margins when we get to November.

Speaker 2

But again, we thought it was the right thing to do and we have been and will continue to work with our partner LGES Take cost out of the Altium and specifically the sales.

Speaker 6

Great. Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from Itay Michaeli with Citi. Your line is open.

Speaker 7

Great. Thanks. Good morning, everyone, and congrats on the results. Just wanted to ask a couple of questions on the OPM ramp. First, the issue that you identified with the automation equipment for the modules, can you just talk about when you expect that to be fully resolved.

Speaker 7

And are you still targeting the $400,000 of cumulative volume by the first half of next year?

Speaker 2

Itay, yes, we are. So we're not walking away from any of the targets we put out, whether it's $100,000 in the second half of this year, leading then to the $400,000 by middle of next year. And what you're going to see in the second half of this year and then really crank up in the first half of next year is a lot more Ultium based products. We were surprised the supplier, we thought they were in better on track for the delivery that they had. So we have sent in our teams to help them get the automation up and running.

Speaker 2

We've already seen a lot of improvement from, I'll say the last 4 to 6 weeks, we're going to continue on that path. But to derisk it, we've also added additional lines because We don't want module production to gate our launch of all the products that we have coming in the second half of this year and continuing into next. And we know we're going to need that module, assembly capability anyway as we continue to grow beyond the $400,000 So Disappointing. I've personally been reviewing the lines. As you know, I've spent time in ME earlier in my career running it.

Speaker 2

So we'll get this behind us. I'm very confident of the teams we have in place. So you'll see it improve as we get through, I would say into the end of Q3, beginning of Q4 and then I think it will primarily be behind us by the end of the year, if not a month or so sooner.

Speaker 7

Terrific. That's also very helpful. And then just a follow-up on broadly on US EV demand has been a lot of focus on rising inventory. So just curious how you're feeling about reservation to orders as you ramp up Ultium products? And also how you're feeling about the Silverado EV pricing just given the recent action from your competitor?

Speaker 2

Yes. So I think From the recent competitive action, if you look at the Silverado work truck, the range, the towing capability, the overall performance, It's a true truck. So when people aren't having to make compromises or trade offs. So I'm very confident and we have strong demand for the Silverado work truck as well as the RST, which will be that's from a retail perspective out toward the end of the year. So I'm very confident with where we are in the pricing for the Silverado EV.

Speaker 2

And your first question, H. A. Was?

Speaker 7

Could you probably on EV demand, what you're seeing in reservations and just how confident are you kind of in terms of what you're seeing for your products in the next few months?

Speaker 2

Yes. Again, we're seeing with the Lyric, we're seeing with the Hummer truck and SUV, frankly, the Bolt. I mean, these vehicles are getting The dealers lots and if they're not already sold, they've got a list of people who are waiting for them. So and We still have a lot of reservations and people who put deposits down. The churn on that is very, very low.

Speaker 2

And For the rare customer who decides they're not going to wait for the vehicle, there's several more waiting in line. So Again, we're very confident and it's not by accident. It's because we there's been some criticism that we should have been With our EVs, we're going as fast as we can, but we wanted to make sure we were leveraging a platform that's going to give us efficiency with Altium and that consumers weren't going to have to compromise. So I'm very confident with the product portfolio we have coming, The pricing and the demand.

Speaker 7

Terrific. That's very, very helpful. Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from Mark Delaney with Goldman Sachs. Your line is open.

Speaker 8

Yes, good morning. Thank you for taking the Jim had strong price and mix again in the Q2 even as supply and inventory for the industry are gradually recovering and borrowing costs for consumers are higher. Can you talk about how you expect the market environment to evolve in the second half of the year? And are there any levers for GM in particular in order to help to sustain some of the strong core automotive performance that you've

Speaker 4

Hey, good morning, Mark. It's Paul. Thanks for the question. We're still kind of operating somewhat Cautiously, as we said from the beginning of the year, we're not assuming major increases in pricing or in average transaction prices going forward. So we expect that to continue and it really starts with the demand that we see For our vehicles, we've tried to keep inventory pretty consistent.

Speaker 4

We've grown it a little bit to get it to the Lower end of that 50 to 60 day range that we're working on, but overall maintaining discipline on the incentive side as well. So We've really been focused on driving share with margin performance. I think the team has done a good job. As to whether that will continue, we're kind of taking it day by day, month by month, And we're very pleased with the results. But as long as we see demand continuing to be as strong as it is for our vehicles, we think we're going to continue to perform.

Speaker 8

That's helpful. And on Cruise, good to hear all of the updates on the progress that Cruise is making. Kyle, you mentioned Cruise vehicles being safer by 50 4%. Maybe you could elaborate a bit on how you're measuring the safety of the vehicles that Cruise has with the JVs relative to human driver? And Are there any specific features on the origin as it relates to safety that you could point out as perhaps drivers of additional improvement going forward?

Speaker 8

Thanks.

Speaker 3

Yes, sure. I'd be happy to. So to clarify the 50 some percent number was a reduction in And the way that we measure that as we looked at the first 1,000,000 miles of driving across the cruise fleet and compared that to a human benchmark that we established with leading transportation research institutes. And that was based on Millions of miles of driving by human drivers, where we then selected a subset of all those miles and matched it to the way that the AVs drive. So this is close as possible to apples to apples comparison.

Speaker 3

But beyond that, the 50 some percent collision reduction doesn't really tell the whole Don't worry, because that includes things where the AV was sitting still and just got rear ended by an attentive driver, that's not really The fault of the AV. When you look at collisions where the AV was the primary contributor, 92% fewer collisions. Most of the time, it's the other vehicle that's the primary contributor to any collision that we've seen. And then I guess another one we're really proud of is, You know, 80s had 73% fewer collisions with meaningful risk of injuries. These are the more severe types of collisions, not just the low speed fender benders.

Speaker 3

So all these in aggregate tell a very compelling story. And I would emphasize that this is still this is the product as it exists today, We push out a new software update each month, which targets specific kinds of safety improvements. So I think there was a question early on, on How do AVs do relative to humans? I think our data shows that we're already, at least from this data, there's strong evidence of significant safety improvements. And I think it's going to continue improving at a rapid clip as we continue to invest in machine learning technologies and other ways to drive

Operator

Shane comes from John Murphy with Bank of America. Your line is open.

Speaker 9

Good morning, everybody. I just wanted to ask a question, like we often do on CAP U. I mean, at 102.7 in North America, A skeptic might say, hey, listen, you're running all out and as you bring on more volume, you're going to need to add fixed costs and variable costs. And with the risk of pricing coming down, you could see real compression in margin. But an optimist might say, listen, That's staff capacity, pricing will hold up and you'll just bring on variable costs as volumes recover.

Speaker 9

If pricing holds up and you just bring on these variable costs, but there might be some real significant upside to margins over time.

Speaker 4

Yes. Good morning, John. So certainly that has been part of what's been working for us for the 1st 6 months. And despite that higher capacity utilization, You're seeing inventory remaining pretty much flat, with a lot of the inventory growth, or inventory still Trapped in that in transit bucket. As vehicles are making their way to the dealers, we see them still turning very, very quickly and that's allowed us to Continue to lean into the pricing and make sure that we've got consistent incentive performance.

Speaker 4

And I think You've seen some outperformance from GM over the last several months in that space compared to the industry as a whole. So Yes. I think we've shown a willingness to balance supply with demand as we did in the Q1, where we cut some of the capacity utilization, utilization intentionally to make sure that we kept margins flat or kept, sorry, inventory flat and margins Strong. So we're going to continue to watch that. But as we've seen, it's provided tremendous benefits for us So far, we're going to continue to manage it that way.

Speaker 9

But if you were to flex up on volume, would it be mostly variable cost That would come in or would there need to be some fixed costs that would come along with that step up in buying like that?

Speaker 4

Yes, it would be mostly variable costs. But when you think about where the capacity you're being variable costs, but when you think about where the capacity is being utilized, it's at the higher end now with the demand that we've seen for the higher trim levels on the full trucks, SUVs, etcetera. So we might not be able to do it in a linear way, where you've got some mix If you're increasing production on some of the lower priced smaller vehicles across the board. So we watch that and try to maintain as much balance as we can.

Speaker 9

Okay. Just a follow-up on Fleet. Fleet has been a real good guy for you and the industry. As we think about the durability and resilience of that in the face of even Potentially, some risk to the economy here. How durable is that?

Speaker 9

And is there just massive pent up demand on the fleet side that might carry the day even if rates little bit higher and we see a little bit of a soft patch in the economy.

Speaker 4

Yes. I think you captured it well, John. Obviously, we've got a lot of pent up demand from the last few years, where fleet took the brunt of some of the capacity challenges due to COVID and due to the semiconductor challenges. In fact, if you look at The first half of the year, year to date, it was the best fleet performance since 2007, largely fueled by the commercial side of the business. And as we've said 4, the fleet business is very different than what it was in the past where it was very, very thin margins in an effort to drive volume.

Speaker 4

Our fleet business is Performing very, very well with margins similar to the retail side. So, if the business continues to perform, the team is doing a great job and we expect that to continue the short and medium term.

Speaker 9

I'm sorry, just one housekeeping question. The $7.92 charge for the LG issue, was that contemplated in your initial guidance? Because if it wasn't, it's actually the raise today is more like a $1,800,000,000 raise in the outlook. I'm just trying to understand if you were contemplating that before.

Speaker 4

It's contemplated in the guidance raise itself. It wasn't contemplated as we came into

Speaker 6

the year.

Speaker 9

Okay. So the raise is significant today. It's actually more than $1,000,000,000 on an operating basis if you were to back that out. Is that correct?

Speaker 4

Yes. Like we said, the business continues Going back to what we said in the Q1, as long as the consumer held up and strong, we expected that we'd be able to surpassed the guidance we put out and that's certainly what you've seen through the Q2 and what we can see July month to date has held up very well as well.

Speaker 9

Okay. Thank you very much.

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from Adam Jonas with Morgan Stanley. Your line is open.

Speaker 10

Hey, everybody. So a question on the new Bolt. I think in your prepared remarks, you said it will be updated with Altium and Altify technology. Sorry to be pedantic here, but I just want to know, are you using attributes of Altium or is this a full ground up Altium platform?

Speaker 2

So it will incorporate when the new version comes out, we will say it's an Altium based product. So we are Definitely leveraging that technology because that's going to really help us get costs down. Remember that today's Bolt is at our 2nd generation battery technology and From Gen 2 to Altium, we saw about a 40% reduction as we started to launch. So that's going to really help drive the And then with the work that we've done from software defined vehicle, Ultifi, it will have the latest from that perspective as well. So this is a very capital efficient quick way to build on the strong consumer response we have to the Bolt and get an affordable vehicle out into the marketplace.

Speaker 2

As we continue to look for ways to drive capital efficiency, this is something we looked before, but as we've gotten more experienced, the team took a look and frankly, I'm super excited about it.

Speaker 10

Okay. Thanks, Mary. Just a follow-up. Audi announced It's going to use SAIC's next gen EV platform for China and possibly elsewhere. Since SAIC is your biggest Chinese JV partner.

Speaker 10

I'm just wondering, could GM also consider using SAIC's EV platform to address the specific needs of the Chinese EV consumer or is the strategy there kind of Altium only for China? Like are you open to a potential use of another non Altium platform even if you could adapt some technology? Thanks.

Speaker 2

Yes. Adam, great question. I think the Altium platform is much more efficient. I think They've already indicated that their dedicated platform wasn't competitive from a cost perspective. We're continuing to take cost out of Altium, but of course, we always look at what the joint venture partner can bring to the party and we're going to look to make We're competitive from an EV perspective in that market as well.

Speaker 2

So we are open and always considering Whatever is the most cost effective way to have a vehicle that's going to have no compromises and meet the performance of, in this case, the Chinese consumer.

Speaker 10

Thanks very much, Mary.

Speaker 2

Thanks, Adam.

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from Dan Levy with Barclays. Your line is open.

Speaker 11

Hi, good morning. Thanks for taking the questions. First, I just wanted to ask about the commentary on CapEx, which you noted that the $11,000,000,000 to $13,000,000,000 for 'twenty four, 25 is under review. You trimmed the CapEx for 2023. Maybe you can just give us a sense of how you're looking at the manufacturing build out.

Speaker 11

I think you noted that there's some simplification initiatives. Is that just something that was incremental or was that a byproduct of perhaps looking at the market a little differently in terms of I guess we're just wondering, is the slowdown in spend just purely the simplification or is there something else on the manufacturing What market demand that's causing you to slow down a little bit the way that you're spending?

Speaker 2

There was no market driven slowdown. This It's really us looking and making sure we had the absolute right portfolio entries. And as I mentioned, for both EV and ICE, We're going to by 2,030, we'll be covering 90% of the segments, but we're we've looked and found ways to do that more efficiently. The Bolt is a good example. Instead of doing an all new vehicle, So doing an all new vehicle, really leveraging the capital that's already there and the benefits we have by having the LCM platform.

Speaker 2

And then I think the winning with simplicity, in the past we've gone in and done complexity reduction, but if you don't do it as you Design the vehicle, you drive a lot of capital in vendor tooling and in the plant. And frankly, this is something we've been working on The last several months, Mark Royce is leading this initiative with the marketing and manufacturing teams. And we are finding there's a lot of ways Take cost out of manufacturing and from a capital perspective as well. So It's pretty significant. You'll hear and see more about it, but just the comment I made about getting rid of TRIMs that directly correlates to spending less capital, especially on the vendor tooling side.

Speaker 11

Thank you. And then as a follow-up, just wanted to Ask the question on this on the charge associated with the BOLT. And really it just begs the question of Ultium is a new product, and I think there's a lot of unknowns with the new product. How should we think about The type of warranty expense you may need to accrue on these products, how much more I mean, is there need to be an added level of conservatism as ramping or is there some clear data that you have that shows just early on that the quality will be Far greater than the initial bolt, which was you've clearly evolved on your architectures, but Wondering how you need to think about warranty expense going forward on the new vehicle?

Speaker 2

Yes. I would say if you go back, the Bolt's been in market for several years now and We had very good warranty performance. Remember, this was 2 specific manufacturing defects that have occurred at the same time caused the issue on the bolt that was in the LGES process. We our team worked hand in hand with them. We understand exactly what happened.

Speaker 2

When you look at what we're doing at the Altium plants from a cell perspective and the amount of error proofing and the fact that we're following the quality process and have the traceability that we if there were an issue, we wouldn't have to do the whole population. All of that's been put in place. So I think all those lessons learned. Then when you look at what we've got from an Altium perspective already and what we're seeing, I think we're very confident that we're going to see strong or I would say Good warranty performance, strong warranty performance on these vehicles because again using the General Motors manufacturing quality systems and processes across the board. So I don't think that because it's new, I think when some of the things we're struggling with to start up with our suppliers is the modules.

Speaker 2

That's not going to necessarily drive a quality issue. Again, we have quality checks and processes and using the appropriate error proofing to know that when we have a cell, when we have a module, when we have a pack, it's measured and checked for quality.

Speaker 11

Great. Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from Chris McNally with Evercore. Your line is open.

Speaker 6

Thanks so much team. Wanted to quickly go back to the $30,000,000,000 autonomous elephant in the room and just a quick tech question for Kyle. So assuming that the San Francisco policy update goes in sort of the industry's favor, do you just have a broad sense of when the 20 7 rollout will happen in San Francisco for the consumer rides. I know there's internal testing where you're blanketing the city, but just curious on the consumer side. And then just how many AVs would it take to sort of blanket a city like San Francisco to have a disruptive Service similar to Uber, can you do it with under 1,000 to 2,000 origin?

Speaker 3

Yes, good question. So on the San Francisco side, so right now, as I said earlier, a significant portion of our fleet is operating 20 fourseven and that service is open to employees. So we are not far from opening that up to the general public. I can't give specific dates. But basically, we're operating that service to employees.

Speaker 3

Things are looking pretty good. So that is coming pretty soon.

Speaker 11

And as for what it would take to blanket

Speaker 3

a city like San Francisco, Our goal is, I think I've said on previous calls, is to make sure as we ramp up manufacturing capacity, we've got a variety of markets to absorb those vehicles. And there are practical reasons to ramp up gradually in the city just to make sure it acclimates as it's transitioning to a new form of mobility. So it's not our intention to sort of produce vehicles and sort of direct them all into a single city. That said, for perspective, there's Over 10,000 human right hill drivers in San Francisco, potentially much more than that depending on how you count it. Those drivers, of course, aren't working 20 hours a day like a robotaxi could.

Speaker 3

So it does not take a very high number to generate significant revenue in a city like San Francisco, but certainly there's capacity to absorb several 1,000 per city at minimum.

Speaker 6

Much appreciated. And then just a high level question on the strategy for Cruise when it comes to capital funding. Mary, it looks like there's about 3 plus type quarters before you'd have to sort of consider funding crews. Just any thoughts on internal versus external funding given the environment? External funding given the environment.

Speaker 2

I don't really have anything to comment Right now, we certainly are generating the free cash flow that we can fund Cruise's expansion and we'll look to see what's in the best interest of our shareholders.

Speaker 7

Thanks so much.

Operator

Our next question comes from Tom Merritt with RBC. Your line is open.

Speaker 3

Hi, thanks for taking the question. Mary, question maybe philosophical one on autonomy and how you view Ultra Cruise. In light of what we heard from Tesla and how they are potentially planning to license an FSD product, Just curious to how you view Ultra Cruise. Would that be a revenue profit center We're just a product enhancer. How do you see the kind of level 2 plus product for you?

Speaker 2

We definitely see the Level 2 plus product as revenue generating and profit generating. And very pleased with what we have with Super Cruise and we're going to continue to enhance as we move forward. And we'll have more to share about this when we get to Investor Day in the fall.

Speaker 3

Okay. And as a follow-up on Cruise, you made a strong case obviously on the safety features. Just wondering if you could give some color on how perhaps you're arguing that on a regulatory perspective, maybe on a federal level. Like What are kind of the obstacles? And I mean, is that something you see happening more likely now?

Speaker 3

Is there kind of A greater appeal now that you're seeing all these safety benefits. Is it a stronger case now That maybe it was before. Thanks.

Speaker 2

Well, I think as we continue to grow in miles, but first of all, we're not arguing with the regulators. We're talking to the regulators and Sharing the information, which we've been doing for several years now. And so they understand how we're measuring safety with what Kyle referred to with what we did with outside groups and continuing to share the information. I think it's very goal aligned with what the Department And NHTSA is looking for us to improve row safety. So, of course, we're going to continue that dialogue, share the information, and we're very optimistic of where we're headed.

Speaker 3

Great. Thanks a lot.

Operator

Thank you. Our last question comes from Ryan Brinkman with JPMorgan. Your line is open.

Speaker 12

Okay, great. Thanks for taking my question. It looks like the China equity income in 2Q, it was similar to 1Q rounding to $100,000,000 down from sort of $200,000,000 a year ago and of course $500,000,000 quarterly pre pandemic. What is required do you think to Restore China profitability to where you would like it to be, I don't know, from a sales or share perspective. It seems like you've got really great traction in that market for lower priced EVs such as for the Wuling brand, how should we think about your strategy for electrifying your higher end brands in China?

Speaker 12

And is that the catalyst do you think The higher profits in that market?

Speaker 2

Well, definitely, we have strong ICE products and performance there already, but Clear to winning as we go forward is having the right portfolio of EVs for Cadillac and Buick Specialty. And so we have a lot of those vehicles being launched right now and we're continuing to work to make sure they're efficient in meeting the customer needs. But let's also remember right now, we're in the high single digit market share place right now even with All the fact that there's 100 new EV entries. So we've got to have the right EVs at the right price with the right technology. I was over there, I guess maybe 2 months ago now and did a full review of our product line and obviously spent time understanding where the competition is.

Speaker 2

I think we've got the right products coming. We've got to go out there and sell them now, engage our team to get that done.

Speaker 12

Okay, great. Thanks. And then just maybe lastly on The BOLT charge, is the charge driven more by something differently being done for the consumer versus what was previously communicated? Or is it more of a Like rejiggering of the cost sharing agreement between GM and LG for the previously announced actions?

Speaker 2

Well, for Obviously, as you announce the recall and then you look what it's going to take, we took some time working with the LGES team to Come up with a diagnostic that then over a period of time indicates that the vehicle can go from the reduction of 80% Battery charge to the back to the full battery charge, that took a little longer. And so as we did that, we wanted to make sure we were taking care of the consumers, replacing the battery packs maybe faster than what we would have ended up needing to do and just having attention to them because again, we have a Very strong Bolt customer and we wanted to make sure that they understood we're going to stand behind it. So I think we took the right actions And as we looked at that where we were as we were well into having that issue behind us, We looked at what was right from where the costs fell. So we just were doing the right thing because LG is a very strategic partner to us. And like I said, there's a lot of work that we're doing together and individually to continue to improve our cost position.

Speaker 12

I see. Very helpful. Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. I'd now like to turn the call over to Mary Barra for closing comments.

Speaker 2

Thank you so much. And I want to thank everybody for your questions. As I said to open the call, the success we've had in the Q2 and the first half ties directly to the great new vehicles we've launched and strong execution of our business plan. Our outlook both for the second half and over the next several years will increasingly be shaped by our optimized ICE and EV portfolio, our investment that we're making not only in the vehicles, but also The growth opportunities as well as cost discipline. And so this will be the focus of our next Investor Day that's to be held in mid November.

Speaker 2

The agenda will include a detailed look at our software strategy led by Mike Abbott, who joined us from Apple in May. You're also going to have the opportunity to drive our newest EVs and experience the expanding capabilities, as I mentioned, of Super Cruise. And one of the most important vehicles you're going to get to drive is the new Chevrolet Silverado EV work truck that we talked about it. I think it's one of the most powerful examples of the benefits of the investment we made starting in 2018 on the Altium platform. It offers up to 40% more driving range, faster charging and far greater towing capability than competitors because again it was purpose built to be an EV.

Speaker 2

And that's something that we've made the investments. We're going through the growing pains right now. Others are going to need to do that as they get to their dedicated platform. So I'm very excited about what we're doing, what we're going to be able to demonstrate in November and just know that we're going to continue to execute with discipline across all aspects of the business as we are in Q3 and into Q4. So appreciate everyone and look forward to seeing you then and probably talk to most

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General Motors Q2 2023
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