At its Investor Day, General Motors
Here are some highlights:
Doubling Revenues
The main topic was CEO Mary Barra discussing its plans to become a platform company and grow beyond the vehicle. In here opening statement, she said: "General Motors is delivering the technologies that redefine how people and goods are moved. Our commitment to a vision of a world with zero crashes, zero emissions and zero congestion has placed us ahead of much of the competition."
The company said that it wanted to remind investors of its long-term plans given that recent focus has been on the coronavirus pandemic and global semiconductor chip shortage.
Increasing Profit Margins
The company intends to increase its operating margin to between 12% and 14% by 2030. Currently, operating margins are at 7.9%. One reason that it expects higher margins is increased sales of recurring software revenue and service-based revenue.
Much of the investor day Wednesday was focused on the company expanding its business to generate recurring software- and service-based revenue.
To this end, its segments like OnSTar, Cruise, and BrightDrop currently account for $2 billion in revenue but it wants to grow to $80 billion by 2030 with most of the revenue growth coming in the back half of the decade.
Part of the plan is to offer remote, software-based upgrades for its vehicles with new technologies such as hands-free driving and an acceleration upgrade.
EVs
It also anticipates EV revenue to grow from $10 billion to next year to $90 billion by 2030 as it looks to launch 30 new EV models by 2025.
In order to meet this growth, it expects to spend around $10 billion over the next few years in capital spending for production facilities and joint ventures to build battery plants. And, the company says that it will be able to make these investments from its own revenues rather than tapping public or private markets.
It is also looking to spend $750 million by 2025 to increase the availability of EV chargers including home, workplace, and public charging stations across the country.
In total, it expects to spend $35 billion on EV and autonomous vehicles through 2025. This includes $20 billion for manufacturing EVs, $10 billion for batteries, and $6 billion for autonomous vehicles.
Robotaxis/ Autonomous Driving
The company also said it expects to start its robotaxi service for self-driving vehicles in San Francisco sometime next year pending state approval. In total, the company wants a fleet of 1 million or more self-driving vehicles on the road by 2030.
The company is targeting 2023 for its new hands-free system that can drive in 95% of scenarios and is more capable than the current systems which has limitations. This will be available on more than 2 million miles of road in the U.S. and Canada, while the current system is only truly autonomous on 200,000 miles of roads in the U.S.
