General Motors (GM): A look at the company’s plans for its EV business

Shares of General Motors Co. (NYSE: GM) were up over 1% on Wednesday. The stock has dropped 33% over the past 12 months and 14% over the past one month. The company reported its first quarter 2022 earnings results a day ago. GM is making significant investments and focusing most of its efforts in its electric vehicles business. Here’s a look at some of the plans it outlined for this division during the quarterly report.

EV strategy

General Motors has stated that electric vehicles are catalysts for its growth and that it plans to launch more EVs faster. The company is currently in a rapid launch cycle thanks to the investments it has made over the past couple of years. GM aims to produce 400,000 EVs in North America over the course of 2022 and 2023.

On its quarterly conference call, the automaker said it will be opening three battery plants in the US between this summer and 2024 with plans for a fourth one coming soon. By the end of 2025, GM expects to have installed capacity to build 1 million EVs in North America, representing approx. $50 billion in annual revenue.

It will also have three EV programs in North America, each with annual production volumes of more than 125,000 units with opportunities for further expansion. The company aims to deliver $90 billion of EV revenue by 2030.

GM plans to launch six high-volume EV products into the luxury, SUV and truck segments under its Chevrolet, GMC and Cadillac brands, all enabled by Ultium. The company is also working on an electrified Corvette that is anticipated to come out next year.

Cadillac is slated to be GM’s first all-electric brand. The company commenced the production of LYRIQ last month and it will begin taking orders for these models in May. Production is expected to step up through the second half of this year and into 2023.

GM is gaining traction with its Bolt EV and the company plans to produce more than 50,000 Bolt EVs this year for global markets. This will include 40,000 deliveries in the US. In North America, GM sees a massive growth opportunity in trucks and it believes it can establish a strong position in EV pickups.

Mixed results

GM delivered mixed results for its first quarter of 2022 on Tuesday. Revenue grew 11% year-over-year to approx. $36 billion but fell short of analysts’ projections. Adjusted EPS declined 7% to $2.09 but exceeded expectations.

Outlook

GM raised its adjusted EPS guidance for FY2022 to a range of $6.50-7.50 from the previous range of $6.25-7.25 to reflect an increased ownership percentage in the self-driving car company Cruise. GAAP EPS is expected to be $5.76-6.76.

Click here to read the full transcript of General Motors’ Q1 2022 earnings conference call