Despite a loss in the first quarter of 2024, General Motors (GM) CEO Mary Barra said the Detroit-based automaker plans to go all-in on electric vehicles (EVs). “We are fully committed to China,” he said.
According to CNBC, GM posted a $106 million loss in China in the first quarter of this year. report. This is a blow to GM, which counted the Chinese market as its biggest seller from 2010 to 2023.
CNBC also points out the following about GM’s declining market share in China:
GM’s market share in China, including joint ventures, plummeted from about 15% in 2015 to 8.6% last year. GM’s operating profits also declined, falling 78.5% since their peak in 2014, according to regulatory filings. [Emphasis added]
…
Aside from the first quarter of this year, GM’s only quarterly loss in China since 2009 was a $167 million shortfall in the first quarter of 2020. This is due to the coronavirus pandemic and an $87 million loss in the second quarter of 2022. [Emphasis added]
In an earnings call late last month, Barra suggested there were no plans to pull GM out of China, despite the first-quarter loss.
“Long term, we’re fully committed to China,” Barra said, according to CNBC. “We believe this market will experience significant growth in the medium term.”
General Motors and China flags are flown at the company’s Chinese headquarters in Shanghai on April 19, 2013. (Peter Parks/AFP/Getty Images)
An unused charging station for a Buick Velite electric vehicle (EV) stands outside a General Motors dealership in Shanghai, China, on July 17, 2019. (Gilles Sabrie/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
Barra predicts that growth will be driven by GM’s EV sales in China.
“We clearly believe that China’s capabilities have changed the market and changed the landscape. [automakers]. But we still think there’s a role and a place for GM to play when it comes to luxury premiums,” Barra said.
Former GM executive Bob Lutz, on the other hand, has a very different prediction. tell Fox News Digital said last week that the transition to EVs was a “big mistake” for the U.S. auto industry.
Lutz said:
The problem with the whole EV movement is that behind it was a huge amount of hype from what I like to call the liberal mainstream media, making everyone think that the next vehicle would be an EV. And, of course, the government was pushing it for climate change policy. And that clearly didn’t happen, American citizens…no one, not even Chinese citizens, is ready to be pushed into EVs before the whole infrastructure is in place and the situation is right for them.
“It was a big mistake to try to do it overnight,” Lutz said.
John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Please email jbinder@breitbart.com. Follow him on Twitter here.
