Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. Welcome to the General Motors Company First Quarter 2018 Earnings Conference Call. During the opening remarks, all participants will be in a listen only mode. After the speakers' opening remarks, we will conduct a question and answer session. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded Thursday, April 26, 2018.
I would now like to turn the conference over to Divya Suryadevra, Vice President of Corporate Finance. Please go ahead, ma'am.
Thanks, operator. Good morning, and thank you for joining us as we review GM's financial results for the Q1 of 2018. Our press release was issued this morning, and the conference call materials are available on the GM Investor Relations website. We're also broadcasting this call via webcast. Included in the chart set materials published this morning, we have the key takeaways from each chart in the notes pages in order to provide color on the results.
This morning, Mary Barra, GM's Chairman and CEO, will provide brief opening remarks followed by Chuck Stevens, GM's Executive VP and CFO. We will then open the line for questions from the analyst community. Before we begin, I would like to direct your attention to the forward looking statements on the first page of the chart set. The content of our call will be governed by this language. In the room today, we also have Tom Timko, VP, Global Business Solutions and Chief Accounting Officer and Rick Westenberg, VP Treasurer, to assist in answering your questions.
I will now turn the call over to Mary Barrow.
Thanks, Divya, and good morning, everybody. Thanks for joining. We generated results in line with our expectations in the Q1, managing through the challenges related to restructuring in South Korea, planned downtime in North America and elevated investments in future products, including our full size pickup and JEM vehicles. So if we look at the numbers, our net revenue $36,100,000,000 We had EBIT adjusted of $2,600,000,000 EBIT adjusted margin of 7.2 percent and EPS diluted adjusted of $1.43 Our ROIC adjusted was 26% on a trailing 4 quarter basis. And as expected, our adjusted automotive free cash flow was negative $3,500,000,000 higher than the typical seasonal pattern due to planned lower full size truck production and incremental capital spending to support our new truck launches and JEM vehicles.
The actions we are taking in 2018 include the transition to the new Chevrolet Silverado and GMC Sierra Pickup, key contributors to our $65,000,000,000 truck business. Also our GM Korea restructuring and this will set the stage for stronger performance as we move through the year and into 2019. In Korea, we have negotiated on a historic labor agreement, which was ratified early this morning by union members. Our employees and management have taken decisive will enable GM to be profitable at an enterprise level for vehicles produced in Korea. As part of this deal, the Korean development bank will be investing $750,000,000 into GM Korea.
The deal is subject to a binding agreement between the KBD and GM Korea and we expect to finalize this in the coming days. Chuck will get into a bit more of the details in his remarks in a few minutes. But if you look at GM across the board, we are solidly profitable in all core operating segments, including GM Financial, where we achieved record EBIT adjusted of 443,000,000 dollars and we are on track to achieve the full year guidance we announced in January. Globally, we are growing and improving the returns in core business by focusing on the right mix of products in the popular crossover, SUV and truck segments by playing to win in every market where we compete and by working relentlessly to reduce costs. We are halfway through our most aggressive product portfolio renewal ever.
As expected, our newest crossovers in SUVs are driving growth. Deliveries of GM's newest crossovers in the U. S. And China doubled year over year in the Q1, led by the GMC Terrain, the Chevrolet Traverse and Equinox and the Baojun 510530. In the U.
S, year over year total crossover sales rose 23% across all brands and Cadillac Escalade sales were up 8% despite new competition in the segment. So let's take a closer look at Cadillac where we recently appointed a new leader, Steve Carlisle, to further accelerate the brand's progress. Our global Q1 sales improve our performance in the U. S. Luxury market with the Cadillac XT4 SUV that we will launch later this year.
The Cadillac XT4 begins a cadence of new models averaging one new vehicle every 6 months through 2021. And as Cadillac volume increases, we expect to see profit double over the next 4 years. GM China is outpacing last year's record performance with strong equity income and record sales in the quarter. Regarding U. S.-China trade, we have more than 2 decades of positive experience with our joint venture partners and we believe both countries value and understand the interdependence between the world's 2 largest automotive markets.
Baojun, our fastest growing domestic brand in China is on track to sell 1,000,000 vehicles in 2018, just 10 years after it was created. Last month, it launched the 530 compact SUV and sales have already surpassed 10,000 units. China is very important to our global strategy for an all electric future. Buick will add the VELITE 6 plug in hybrid electric vehicle and the VELITE 6 EV to its China portfolio to Elite 6
EV to its China portfolio to capitalize on demand for new energy vehicles.
In addition, we continue to invest in technology and innovation to enhance the customer experience, redefine the future of mobility and achieve our vision of a world with 0 crashes, 0 emissions and 0 congestion. We announced we will build the production version of the Cruise AV leveraging our deep hardware and software integration. Having all AV capabilities under one roof gives us a competitive advantage in this space. We are making progress on achieving commercialization at scale in a dense urban environment in 2019 and safety has been and will continue to be paramount in our commercialization efforts. We are also expanding the partnerships using our embedded 4 t LTE connectivity and our vehicle data 2017 model year vehicles across all of our brands can use their in car touchscreen to pay and save when they fuel up at Shell stations, eliminating the need to swipe a credit card or use a mobile device.
This week, we introduced Amazon Key in card delivery, a service enabled by OnStar that delivers Amazon Prime packages directly to more than 7,000,000 GM vehicles in the U. S. At no extra cost. And finally, I'm extremely pleased to welcome Devin Wenig, the eBay President and CEO to our Board. His wealth of experience in technology, global operations and digital marketplaces, all with a focus on the customer, will be an important addition to our Board.
So now I'd like to turn it over to Chuck.
Thanks, Mary. We delivered solid unplanned performance in the Q1 with all core operating segments reporting profitable results. As expected, we faced some headwinds to start the year driven by the traditionally weak Q1 seasonality coupled with retooling downtime as we prepare to launch our all new full size pickup trucks. In total, we generated $36,100,000,000 in revenue, dollars 2,600,000,000 in EBIT adjusted, 7.2% margins and 1.4 $3 in EPS diluted adjusted at the enterprise level in the Q1. The Q1 cash burn of $3,500,000,000 reflects the impact of lower earnings, working capital timing and increased capital spending to support the new full size pickup truck and It's important to note that free cash flow results are in line with what we had expected going into the quarter.
North America generated solid results with $2,200,000,000 of EBIT adjusted and 8% margins. These are more typical results for Q1 the results posted in the Q1 of 2017 when we had a significant inventory build ahead of product launches. Q1 was down 1 point $2,000,000,000 year over year, primarily driven by planned downtime in our truck facilities and absence of dealer inventory build in the Q1 of 2017. Our U. S.
Transaction prices, which are net of incentives, continue to grow in the Q1. Our Q1 ATPs of almost $35,000 were $600 higher than the Q1 of 2017. We expect continued strong pricing performance driven by our new crossovers and the launch of our new trucks later in the year. Importantly, we expect to sustain a full year EBIT adjusted margin of 10%, primarily due to continued strength in the U. S.
Industry, benefits from a full year of new crossovers, the launch of our all new full size trucks and continued focus on overall cost efficiency. Moving to GM International. As a reminder, GMI is now a combined reporting segment consisting of the former GMIO region and the former GM South America region. Overall, EBIT adjusted performance for the segment was flat year over year with strength in China and improvement in South America as the market continues to strengthen, offset by weak volume in Korea driven by the current dynamics in that market. China continues to deliver strong results with record equity income of $600,000,000 for the quarter.
Pricing pressure remains a challenge, but was more than offset by the richer mix of crossovers, strong sales from Buick, continued growth from Baozun and Cadillac and focused on cost efficiencies. In Korea, as Mary said, we have reached a conditional agreement with the labor union, Korean government and the Korean Development Bank. This is a landmark achievement. GM Korea expects to realize $400,000,000 to $500,000,000 in annual cost reductions through plant closure, labor and other efficiencies, which will lead to profitability in 2019. In addition, through these savings, efficiencies and strong new product programs, we expect to generate 10% to 20% return on invested capital in the medium term.
And as part of the agreement, GM a total of $750,000,000 for future investment from the Korean Development Bank. A few comments on GM Financial and our Corp segment. As we continue to progress towards full captive, GM Financial posted record revenue of 3,400,000,000 dollars and record earnings before tax adjusted of almost $450,000,000 in the Q1. Earning assets grew $13,200,000,000 to 88,100,000,000 dollars supporting expected future earnings growth. For the full year, we expect to see a meaningful improvement in GM Financial earnings versus 2017.
In the corporate segment, costs were $300,000,000 for Q1, reflecting lighter spending from a quarterly cadence perspective driven by timing of expenses. We continue to expect the Corp segment quarterly cost to be about $500,000,000 for 2018, including $1,100,000,000 in transportation as a service spending for the year. Turning to cash flow and capital allocation. As I mentioned earlier, our cash burn in Q1 was as expected $3,500,000,000 down versus 2017 and down versus a typically weak Q1 run rate of about $1,500,000,000 This was driven by factors specific to Q1, downtime for truck changeover, elevated capital spending and working capital timing. We are on track with our 2018 free cash flow expectation of approximately $5,000,000,000 which we will generate through strong EBIT performance for the balance of the year, working capital rewind, our annual China dividend payment and reduced capital spending on a run rate basis.
During the quarter, we returned $600,000,000 to our shareholders through $500,000,000 in dividends and $100,000,000 in stock repurchases through our participation in the Veeva Trust sale. Our pace of buybacks for 2018 will be dependent on our free cash flow generation and any additional cause on cash throughout the year, such as the Korea restructuring payments. We would expect share buybacks to be weighted to the second half of the year. With regard to our total company outlook for the full year, as I mentioned, Q1 was in line with our expectations and free cash flow to be generally in line with the core business performance in 2017. With regard to commodities, we anticipate a continued increase in raw material prices, which we expect to largely mitigate through cost performance similar to what we did in the Q1.
We expect the incremental impact from tariffs will be minimal given that most of our steel and aluminum is domestically sourced and we have long term supply contracts in place. Reiterating the cadence of earnings for the rest of the year, we continue to expect Q2 and Q3 to be strong and Q4 to be weaker on a relative basis. The relative weakness in Q4 is driven by additional downtime in preparation for the new truck launch. As mentioned, we expect significant year over year profit growth at GM Financial and at least $2,000,000,000 of equity income in China as well as a meaningful improvement in our South American markets in GMI. To sum it up, the Q1 performance came in as expected with all core operating segments reporting profitable results.
The full size truck launch is on plan and will support earnings growth later in the year and in 2019. And while the environment is more challenging than just a few months ago, the entire team is focused on meeting our commitments in 2018, just as we've done for the past 4 years. That concludes our opening comments. We'll now move to the question and answer portion of the call.
Your first question comes from the line of John Murphy with Bank of America Merrill Lynch.
Good morning, everybody. Just a first question, now that you're almost through the issues in Korea, just curious what is next on your list to address because it seemed to be ticking through these things after GM Europe, Korea and there must be something else next on your list. Just curious if it's South America or if we'll ever get to a point where the segments might include GM Trucks, Cadillac, GM Financial and Mobility and we might not be thinking about things the same way as we're thinking about them right now as far as segments?
First I would say we think we have an exceptionally strong franchise in South America. When you look at the market share leadership position, we have number 1 selling product with On X. And the fact that we took our breakeven point in South America down 40%, we are now really well positioned to and we are seeing that opportunity as that market starts to grow. And then when you look at the new product that we'll have coming with our GEM set of vehicles, it really positions us very strongly in South America. So that's not somewhere we're going next.
That's a franchise we think is a strength of General Motors and we'll see that demonstrate and contribute to the bottom line as we move forward. I would say Korea, as we've talked about in the past, was a very important country because it's so important because of the supply base there and because of the very talented engineering resources that we have there. So this is historical agreement that we are very close to closing, but is on track and with the labor agreement ratified really positions it nicely there. I would say there's a couple other countries where we need we have work to do not to exit, but to improve the profitability and we are on that. And then if you look at as we've looked across the segments of our vehicles, investing and seeing the success in crossovers, very optimistic about our full size truck family of vehicles.
The launch is going well. The truck is building exceptionally well. The customer feedback we're getting is very strong. And so we've really if you I'm sure have looked at both the Silverado and the Sierra have really been customer focused as we made improvements to features functionality for those trucks. So we're very excited about that.
So strong investment in full size trucks and crossovers and then leveraging the investments we made in 2015 2016 from perspective in cars allows us to not continue to invest, but to have strong offerings in the marketplace because although there are several car segments that are shrinking, they still are large and that's an opportunity. So, I would say with Korea, we've really done the major areas that we need to address and now it's just continuing to strengthen and improve the profitability with the right products and going there to win. As it relates to how we might segment report going forward, I think the segment reporting we have right now is appropriate and that's something that we always evaluate and look to see what's going to provide the right transparency to demonstrate the growth and the potential that we have going forward.
Got you. That's helpful. And then just a second question around potential for changes in ownership or JV requirements in China. I mean, you've had some pretty strong performance over there, a strong partner with SAIC. Just curious how you think about this, if we really do get the change and you could operate sort of as a wholly owned standalone company over there, would you make that change?
Or do these JV partners really give you an advantage in the market that are that you might not have otherwise on your own?
We think we have an outstanding partner in SAIC. We've been working together for more than 20 years. So we think having a partner that understands the environment whether from a government perspective, regulatory perspective, overall policy and then deep customer insights as well is an advantage. And if you look what we've been able to accomplish in the leadership position that we have in China, I think that reinforces it. We've also been able to drive efficiencies by sharing development that especially if you look at electric vehicles that allows us to leverage that around the world.
So we'll continue to look at what's in the best interest of our shareholders. But right now, we strongly believe that the JV has provided tremendous benefit and will continue to.
Okay. And then just lastly real quick on raws. You were sharing or you were absorbing, I should say, a larger portion of the raw mat complex than you were prior to the downturn as you sort of helped out a lot of suppliers. I'm just curious, as we see raws rise, is there an opportunity to potentially share that risk, or increase or decrease with the rest of the value chain a little bit more directly. I mean, it's understandable that you might want to hold on to sort of the key component of steel and aluminum or some of the metals, but the rest of the complex seems like it might be the purview or better serve to be the purview of suppliers.
Just curious if there's any thought there or changes that might be afoot in sharing that risk across the value chain?
Yes. John, let me answer that question in a couple of dimensions. First, we buy about $16,000,000,000 of raw material on an annual basis. Only 1 third of that is indexed, which means we're exposed to fluctuations in commodities and about 1 third of that are roughly 5 $6,000,000,000 a year. So you can do the math of 5% movement in commodities will impact us $300,000,000 to $400,000,000 Obviously, there's always a lag associated with that.
The rest of the commodities are bought or long term contract. Ultimately, they'll be subject to negotiation, but I'm just talking about near term moves in commodity. So we feel like we're in reasonably good shape there. 2nd, as we engage with suppliers, we engage with suppliers across the entire value chain looking at opportunities for efficiency, productivity and cost sharing or cost savings opportunities. And we've been engaging with them on a strategic basis over the last number of years.
So we will look at commodities. We will look at foreign exchange. We will look at footprint opportunities. We'll look at opportunities for technical savings and productivity. And we've been pretty successful over the last number of years of really driving some benefit to the bottom line as part of our $6,500,000,000 cost efficiency target of which we've generated $5,700,000,000 through the Q1, a big chunk of that is commercial and technical savings, which we have used to mitigate any of the headwinds that we've seen in commodities.
And again, in the Q1, if you look at commodity headwinds year over year, they were a couple of $100,000,000 and we offset it with commercial and technical savings. And I would say we're on track to do that for the year. So I don't know if that answers your question. I think it's you got to look at it holistically across the entire value chain.
That's very helpful. Thank you very much.
Yes.
Your next question comes from the line of Ryan Brinkman with JPMorgan.
Hi, good morning. Thanks for taking my questions. You guys have been very proactive in recent years about exiting under earning or loss making geographies and I think have been rightly given a lot of credit relative to some of your competitors in this respect. With that said, yesterday Ford announced that they would drop all but 2 passenger cars from the North American lineup. It looks like the Chevrolet brand offers 9 passenger cars versus 6 trucks, crossovers and utilities, maybe depending on how you count.
Of course, you have more Buick, etcetera. And you have several plants, including Lordstown now with just one shift, but also what I think Fairfax or Kansas City, I forget, or Orient Township, Hamtramck, etcetera, that seem mostly or entirely focused on passenger cars. So it would seem that maybe you tell me is there an even greater opportunity to improve margin by rationalizing passenger car lineup at GM, given your greater number of offerings, greater complexity. So what are your thoughts on this opportunity? And over what period of time could investors expect to see such changes?
Well, I think already when you look at as I mentioned before in 2015 2016, we launched new very efficient architectures in the mid compact. And that is proving well as a good platform to go forward with fairly minor changes. We have new offerings coming that are very focused on features and styling that customers want in these segments. So I think we're going to see the benefit of that. And the segments, as I mentioned before, are still significant enough that we think there's an opportunity because we've made the investments, don't need to deploy to know capital as we move forward.
So we see it as an opportunity. We are always looking for how do we make sure we're customer focused and then drive that as efficiently as possible. We have worked on each of our car lines over the last year to make sure that we're driving efficiencies across all areas of the business that support those. So, play in a segment that although is declining, there still is opportunity. And then as you look around the globe, the GEM family of products that we are going to be starting to launch next year from China that still has a significant car market as well from not only Chevrolet, but also Buick.
And then you look at South America that has a very strong car portfolio and the GEM family will support that. I think we're well positioned in cars. We're always looking for efficiencies and we'll be responsive to the marketplace as saw with the shift change that we made at Lordstown.
And if I could just add to that Ryan and to Mary's comments, a lot of the questions seem to be focused on the U. S. Market, rightfully so. And as Mary mentioned, we think we're reasonably well positioned with the investments that we made. But I think you should take a step back and look at and you mentioned it upfront some of the actions and the tough decisions we've made over the last number of years, which were largely in passenger car markets.
Chevrolet, Russia, the Opel Vauxhall sale, India, South Africa, what we just did tackling Korea and to South America specifically, largely a passenger car market, we've reduced the breakeven point by 40%. All of those address inherent passenger car profitability issues. And then with as Mary mentioned, with the JEM launch, we're replacing a number of legacy architectures with a profitable architecture that will go across both passenger cars and crossover. So I think it's been very, very systematic over the last number of years. And frankly, I think you're seeing the results flow through the bottom line over as we've grown margins by over 300 basis points since 2015.
Very helpful. Thanks. And just lastly from me, GM International profits were better than I'd expected. I know you don't break out South America separately any longer, but if you could maybe speak directionally to the performance of the different geographies that comprise GM International. We can see from the equity income, China is doing fantastic.
But any update on what you used to call consolidated international operations? We like to sort of track how you were reducing your losses there. And then South America, I imagine you're continuing to do quite a bit better than your peers, but if you could speak directionally to your performance there and what you're expecting for the remainder of the year?
Yes. What I said earlier today and, again, this is one segment, but clearly China equity income was up in the consolidated piece of this. We had some challenges in Korea and frankly the domestic market pulled back significantly and probably not a surprise to anybody given the dynamics that we are engaged in with the plant closure everything else and concerns about whether we are going to be there long term. I would say we continue to make progress in South America. The industry continues to improve.
And I'd say on a year over year basis, we're continuing to improve our performance overall in that segment. So kind of the puts and takes would be weaker kind of Korea, stronger South America, China equity income. That's the way I would think about it.
Got it. Thanks. Congrats on the quarter. Thanks.
Your next question comes from the line of Brian Johnson with Barclays.
Yes, good morning.
Good morning.
It's no secret because you put it in your 10 ks that trucks account have much higher profit margins than crossovers or cars. We've talked about cars. Crossover had been declining in terms of its percentage of the margin. Your crossovers were aging, but they're relaunching. So I guess kind of two questions.
As you go, what kind of improvement in the crossover profitability due to the Traverse, Equinox at all, are we going to be seeing this year? And then second, as we roll out towards 2020, with the moves of competitors to add more crossover capacity, more crossover model offerings, both we heard that from Ford and of course we knew the Fiat Chrysler Jeep plans. Kind of how do you think about maintaining your profitability going into 2020 in crossovers as you face that new competition with older platforms and then of course in big truck as one of the other three launches their new truck around that timeframe?
Yes, I think pretty broad based question, Brian. First, when we think about 2018, we very specifically in the past 10% margins in North America, we said we were going to have about a $900,000,000 headwind, roughly speaking, related to the truck launch and the reduced production. We said the gap fill on that, there was going to be about $500,000,000 of improved profitability and crossover. And we're very, very much on track with that. So that's kind of we're seeing the full year benefit.
And clearly, our 2017 results and the profit erosion on crossovers was driven largely on the sell down of the old crossover. So, I would say that, very, very much on track. Looking forward, clearly, continued improvement in crossover profitability is critical and front and center with us. I think that's going to be driven by 2 dynamics. One is we'll continue to launch new crossovers in the segments we're not participating.
Later this year, we'll launch the XT4, 4, for instance, in Cadillac. And I think you're going to continue to see new entries, which will drive our overall presence and aggregate profitability in crossovers. And we also are very, very focused at the enterprise level on operational excellence. And we were talking about passenger cars earlier, but what we do sponsored by a senior leader of the organization is on a weekly basis, look at these car lines and look at very specific actions on how we can drive continue to drive performance improvement largely from a cost standpoint. And we got a lot of traction with that and we'll continue to do that with crossover.
So it's not lost on us that crossovers are going to be more competitive. What we're going to do is run real hard to stay out in front of that, both with new entries and continuing to drive cost efficiency in the entries that we have.
Okay. And just to follow-up from that, in terms of some of these restructuring activities in international as well as recovering macro, When do we think about, dare we say, normalized margins in places like South America or Asia Pacific ex China and kind of will that especially in Asia Pacific ex China be off of a lower revenue base?
Yes. Back in the day, when we reported South America separately, we said we are on a path to mid single digit EBIT margins there as we work through the breakeven and launch the JEM product and I'd say largely on track. I think somehow the message isn't getting through. We just landed a deal in Korea that would generate a $500,000,000 a year of savings. That's a $500,000,000 which goes right to the bottom line and it will start to accrue as we move through Q2 through the rest of the year.
That's a big step towards improving the overall GMI segment on a go forward basis. So between those two things, I think there's a meaningful uplift in our GMI profitability ex China, continuing 2018 and then through 2019 2020. And we talked before that we wanted the whole GMI segment to be profitable in 2019. And that is still very much our objective and what we're driving to.
Okay. Thank you.
Your next question
and policy related. I've been asking the CEOs across town the same question. Mary, would you support an increase in the U. S. Federal gasoline tax if the proceeds went to rebuilding our U.
S. Infrastructure?
Well, Adam, I think in general, it's a little more complicated than a yesno answer. What I would say is, first of all, we are in full agreement that the infrastructure needs to be addressed and improved substantially and quickly. We need to do that in a way where we focus on the customer and make sure that we're looking at their affordability and their overall cost of ownership. And I think there's multiple solutions, whether it's road use, whether it's gas tax, but then I think we also have to look at the changes that are going to occur over time from an EV perspective and look at how do we take multiple ways to fund the infrastructure that support where we're headed with the changes in transportation and mobility, making sure that we comprehend EV charging, for example, or write the right VITA infrastructure type of solution is in that. So we very much want to be part of the solution.
We think that municipalities and the government at all levels need to come together. A gas tax can be a part of it, but I
think we
need to look at this much more holistically and much overall much longer term.
Okay. Appreciate that. Just a follow-up, Mary, last question on GM and Amazon. So I find the agreement with Amazon from yesterday or the day before, it's just fascinating. I mean, they have 100,000,000 prime subs.
You have 100,000,000 cars on the road, more or less. It's nice round numbers. Amazon is going to spend about $60,000,000,000 this year on shipping and fulfillment and you can really help them solve a major pain point for them and their customers and logistics. So two parts to this question, Mary. First, is this not just the tip of the iceberg on the ways that GM can work with Amazon on logistics and customer experience, content delivery.
I mean, this can be a lot more than just Amazon putting their junk in GM's trunk, right, Mary? And then the second thing the second is just how does GM get paid for this? Because you could be saving Amazon 1,000,000,000 of dollars. Can you walk us through the revenue? Like do you get paid per delivery per car per month?
How does GM get paid? Because you're doing all the work.
Well, I'd say I'm not going to go into the details of the sizing, but I will just say it's on a kind of a use based model of how we get paid. So I first of all, I agree. I don't know if I'd call it junk in the trunk because I think being customer focused, people are buying things that they want. And but the security the peace of mind that we give them of 1, something not being dropped at their door, but being in a locked vehicle, the convenience of that, them knowing when it's going to get there, etcetera. I think this is a huge customer value and I think we are just, no pun intended, unlocking the value that we have from having the base of vehicles that are connected.
So I agree with you. I think there's much more opportunity with Amazon and others. And I think we're working aggressively as we go forward to do that. We have a good relationship with Amazon. And on this, I think as we move forward, we'll see that it benefits our customers.
It definitely provides an opportunity for General Motors to generate revenue and profitability. And it's a more efficient way for Amazon to get as you call it that last mile.
Okay. Well, any other transparency on just that revenue because these initiatives are being announced, but the OEMs are doing a pretty poor job, I think, of just explaining like at a micro level, you press on an app, Amazon gives you an option to put it in a GM vehicle, how does GM get compensated? So just some feedback when it's appropriate, that would make a big difference. Thanks everybody.
Sure. Hey, Adam, just one point on that. So as I said, it is a kind of a per transaction type of opportunity with Amazon. So I think you'll we'll see and discuss that more as we go forward. But if you look at marketplace, which is also we're getting the ability to get paid not only just on impressions of the opportunity that another company's product is positioned very appropriately and safely in the vehicle at the right time and on demand.
So it's impressions as well as transactions. So as this grows, I think it's going to be meaningful and we will share more.
Thank you, Mary.
Your next question comes from the line of Rod Lache with Deutsche Bank.
Good morning, everybody. I had a couple of questions. One, could you talk a little bit about the management changes at Cadillac? And just from everyone's comments, it sounds like you wanted to see things done faster or differently. How exactly is that going to be executed?
And can you just remind us of what your targets are there?
So, Rod, I appreciate the question. And this is not a right turn from a Cadillac strategy perspective. We have a we think a very strong product cadence with starting with the XT4 having a new vehicle, a new product coming out on average every 6 months. We see a huge opportunity to grow our how aggressively we're pursuing how aggressively we're pursuing electric vehicles as well as autonomous. And so this was really an acceleration and looking to make sure that as we are setting the strategy for the future and really have a huge opportunity both in the U.
S, China and then in many other markets that we're also executing today in the key markets that we participate in. So this is not a right or left turn. We will still stay in New York with this team and it's a move to accelerate.
And relative to the
objectives, Rod, that we talked about before, and this kind of goes back to the foundation in 2016, we wanted to double Cadillac sales by the 2020 ish timeframe. So think about something north of 500,000 units globally that would include China and to improve our profitability by roughly $1,000,000,000 and that would largely be consolidated operations and largely driven by the U. S. And that's the path that we're executing to, as Mary mentioned.
And you're on that path currently to that improvement of 1,000,000,000?
We're certainly building the foundation and filling out the product portfolio to get us there. Obviously, we're going to work very hard to accelerate that.
Okay. Just switching gears on the North American auto business, can you frame how we should be thinking about structural and contribution costs now as you pick up the pace of product launches and particularly these trucks? Presumably the upside from mix and price should be very positive, but just help us think about the other side of it.
Are you what's your time frame in the balance of the year?
Yes. As we look out this year and then into next, to the extent you can give us a sense of this, Are you should we be thinking structural costs are flat or do they go up? And how should we be thinking about the with all the content coming in, the contribution cost side of things?
Yes, I would say the following and let's kind of launch off 8% and keep this at a reasonably macro level. Now we generated 8% in the Q1. We expect full year margins at 10%. What's going to drive that is improvements in mix as you talked about with the increased production of full size trucks and utilities versus the Q1. I think interestingly and perhaps not as we will also significantly improve our mix of crew cabs.
Crew cab mix was kind of 58% total pickup in the Q1. We had downtime in crew cabs. Rest of the year, that's going to be closer to 74% of truck production and that's a significant driver of profitability in trucks. We expect material cost performance to largely offset commodity, so that cost factor is going to be relatively flat. And we would expect to see an improvement on a run rate basis rest of the year in fixed costs, largely as we cycle through manufacturing launch costs and continue to drive efficiency in the organization.
That's kind of the broad strokes for 20 18. As I think about kind of the future, there's going to be 2 increases, I would say, in fixed cost as we think about it. 1 will be D and A and we've been talking about that for a long time as obviously the investment in the new truck is going to carry with it increased D and A. I'd also expect some increased marketing expense as we cycle through this year and the next year to support this launch. This is the franchise.
So we expect that expense to go up and we will endeavor to drive efficiency. But broadly speaking, would expect to see some increase in fixed costs on a go forward basis, largely related to launch timing marketing associated with these. And we talked before, as we cycle through the truck and these crossover launches, we expected to see engineering expense come down. That's kind of beyond 2019. So not sure I'm answering the question Rod clearly, but I would say material cost is going to be relatively flat with performance, offsetting commodities.
Price on majors will offset or more than offset material on majors. We'll get some mix improvement. I think fixed costs are going to inch up a little bit at least in the near to medium term.
Great. That's perfect. And just lastly, any quick color on progress on AV development? What are the milestones that we should be looking for?
Well, we are still on track for a launching in a ride sharing environment in 2019. So hitting the milestones, I think the filing that we did with NHTSA is was important to do in that process. And so of all the key areas, we're on track knowing where we're going to build the vehicles, etcetera. So I don't have any specific milestones other than that we proceed to the ramp that we have we shared when we talked about this last year. And we will be gated by safety.
But I think when you look at the all aspects of safety and the fact that we have it under one roof, that we have deep integration And when we've talked about in the past that we've changed or modified 40% of the subsystems in the vehicle for AV, that shows the extent of the work we're doing deep in the vehicle to make sure we have the right redundancy and safety overall. In the AV, I'll say brain of the vehicle itself, we also have gone through great lengths to make sure we have the right redundancy. So safety will gate us, but we're on track.
Great. Thanks for that.
Your next question comes from the line of David Tamberrino with Goldman Sachs.
Great. Thank you. Building off of that comment, Mary, can you maybe let us know what the update is for your testing and mapping and potential employee only service in New York? And then from there, there was a Waymo announcement during the quarter and they're now going to have Chrysler Pacifica as well as the electric I PACE a little bit more of an upscale vehicle. How do you think about that potential composition level and then your offerings of your AV Ride share relative just to the electric Bolt that you have?
Well, first from your perspective, we have done significant mapping of that area. And we're going to be working with the, I'll say, city and state from a regulatory perspective to enable us to do that. We are focused on have a lot of focus on San Francisco, but that work is going on in parallel. It's a different environment both from the actual environment of The Streets, The Rose, etcetera and how people drive, but also from a regulatory perspective. So we're working that in parallel.
And then I can't comment about Waymo's strategy. I would say, I don't have anything further to announce in what vehicles that we'll be doing beyond the Bolt EV. But I think when you look at the Bolt EV, it's really perfect for ride sharing in its functionality, sizing, it's quite spacious for a B size segment. So I think we have the right product. And I would also again say we are the only person that is working aggressively in the AV market that has everything under one roof and is doing the disintegration and redundancy to make sure we can deliver safely.
Understood. And then one question for you, Chuck. On the free cash flow and kind of your net cash balance, can you give us a little bit of color on when you think the timing of the working capital recovery and the China dividend is going to hit 2Q, 3Q of this year? It sounds like 4Q might be a little bit more messy from a working capital perspective with some incremental downtime. And then as I think about net cash, a year or 2 ago, GM was sitting around $10,000,000,000 $11,000,000,000 Today, it's around 2,000,000,000 dollars Where do you think the right amount of net cash level is for the business?
Yes. Speaking on the cadence, clearly, we're going to rewind. Let me start at a little bit higher level first. When you think about cash generation balance of the year, it's going to be driven by 3 or 4 major factors. One is we're going to generate a significant amount of EBIT based cash.
So think about EBITDA in the range of $12,000,000,000 plus. Number 2, we'll get the China dividend. So that's going to be a tailwind versus kind of the cash in the Q1. 3rd, I talked about the CapEx run rate. We're going to be spending at a lower run rate on a go forward basis versus the first quarter run rate.
And then the working capital rewind. When you look at those big drivers, it's pretty easy to kind of get yourself to a path of the $5,000,000,000 that we talked about. Clearly, the Q2 is going to be important from a free cash flow generation perspective and I would expect to see a pretty significant step up there. Q3 typically with the downtime we have a tendency not to be as strong and I would expect Q4 to be strong just from a cadence perspective, from a cash flow perspective. Within our capital allocation framework, we have talked about liquidity of $30,000,000,000 to $35,000,000,000 and debt.
And when I talk about debt as external debt plus underfunded pensions of $25,000,000,000 to $30,000,000,000 We've been purposefully working that down over time, on the debt side of it and ended last year just over $26,000,000,000 Obviously, we'd like to continue to get some run rate on pensions on a go forward basis and continue to drive that down. So I would say that setting aside the pension piece of it, somewhere in the zip code of $5,000,000,000 or so of net cash feels about right, dollars 18,000,000,000 target cash and somewhere in the $13,000,000,000 to $14,000,000,000 debt that's something that we could handle and absorb within our capital allocation framework and our balance sheet directionally.
Great. Thank you for taking our questions.
Yes.
Your next question comes from the line of Itay Michaeli with Citi.
Great. Thank you. Good morning. Good morning. Just one financial and one strategic question.
On the financial, Chuck, can you just clarify the Korea savings, how much hits in 2018 versus 2019? And then more broadly around 2019, how are you feeling around the prior outlook for further earnings acceleration in 2019, just given some of the macro developments in the Q1?
Yes, I would say that from a Korea perspective, we'll start to get the benefit of a significant portion of that in the second half of the year primarily related to the Gunsan plant closure and some of the other headcount reductions. Some of the and I don't want to get into a lot of specifics on the labor agreement, but some of those opportunities from a labor agreement perspective will start to accrue in the second half, but the run rate will be through 2018. Again, when I think about the half a $1,000,000,000 about half of it is related to the Gunsan closure and the other half is related to some of the agreements that we got with the union. So we're are going to see it in the second half of the year and then the full year impact next year. Relative to 2019, I mean, I step back and look at this at least from my perspective, nothing has changed versus our view that 2019 is going to be stronger than 2018.
We will be through a significant portion of the full size truck launch, at least the light duties, and they'll be up and running, which is going to be a significant benefit for us. We will have another year of adjacency growth, primarily through GM Financial, but also customer care and after sales and OnStar. We're really encouraged by China and the start that we've had in China this year. And if that market continues to perform, I think that's a potential tailwind. Again, I circle back to the Korea deal.
That's a $500,000,000 improvement that really wasn't factored into our thinking back when we were talking about 2019. So I think that's another significant opportunity and we expect to see further opportunities within GMI, going back to the discussion we had about recovery in Brazil, as an example. So we're still I mean early days, it's April and who knows that the environment is a little bit more unsettled now than it was 4 months ago. But I don't think there's anything that's changed our view.
Yes, that's very helpful, Chuck. And then maybe for Mary on the strategic side going back to autonomous and as you ready for the 2019 expected launch of the Cruise AV network. Any updated thinking around building your own network alone relative to partnership? And maybe one thing to bring up, of course, is what's been going on with Uber and then the unfortunate predicament there, whether that potentially changes the thinking for GM to perhaps pursue partnerships or even a co chair agreement with them or other partners as you kind of think about going to market next year?
Yes. I don't have anything specific to announce. As we said, we will we are positioned to go on our own to partner with 1 or partner with more. So we are still open to those opportunities, but we are also very much working and on track to be able to launch on our own with the Cruise app that we have. So that still is opportunity as we move forward between now and then.
Your next question comes from the line of Emmanuel Rosner with Guggenheim.
Hi, Emmanuel. Just one follow-up on China. So there was a nice positive surprise in the quarter with earnings up. And then margins seem to be they're not quite flat, but stabilizing. So is that something that you view as potentially sustainable?
What sort of drove that in the quarter? And how do we think about it going forward?
Well, I think if you listen closely to my comments, I said at least $2,000,000,000 So that would be a signal that we feel like there's some and mindful of this. 1, pricing moderated in Q1. The price headwind moderated in Q1 and it was roughly 4% to 4.5 percent as opposed to the 5% to 6% headwind we've been facing. And we got to see how that continues to play out. 2, the luxury market was very good for us in the Q1 in China and there are some launches as we go through the rest of the year that could dilute some of that run rate that we got in the Q1.
With that said, I was in China a month or so ago, and Dan have obviously communicated our expectations that we continue to get momentum in the Q1 and it feels pretty good. The market is developing kind of as expected, pricing a little bit more moderate. We've got a very, very strong launch cadence. You talked about, Emmanuel.
Okay. That's helpful. And then a follow-up on the autonomous rollouts. I guess when you kindly invite us in San Francisco last year in November, there the display was impressive, but the cars weren't quite fully ready in some cases. I'm just curious from a technology point of view, have you seen sort of an exponential improvement in sort of like the ability of the cars to deal with different situations?
And what sort of like gives you confidence in terms of the 2019 timeline?
That opportunity kind of was, I would say, historic and it's not because I think it's the first time this company has ever let somebody in a vehicle that early. So which I think was very important. So understanding that those were really development vehicles that you had the opportunity or some had the opportunity to experience. We have a very well defined development path. There is improvements and changes that are happening almost on a daily basis as we continue to develop the software.
So there's a well defined track of what we need to accomplish to be able to launch in 2019 and we are on that path.
Got it. Thank you very much.
Your next question comes from the line of Joseph Spak with RBC Capital Markets.
Thanks. Mary, I know you've talked about your global electrification strategy and I think it's 20 vehicles by 2023. I was wondering if you could put a little bit of a finer point on how that's going to look within China and maybe like what percent of sales by that timeframe you expect to be electric? And also just a reminder in terms of how that technology transfer works with the partners or do you license it to the JV?
Let me start with the last question. There are some things that are licensed and that have been developed by General Motors. There are some parts of the vehicle that we will co develop. There are certain technologies that we consider very important from a General Motors IP perspective and we take special care to how we manage those. So it's really a combination as we look and in some cases working more closely with Chinese suppliers, in some cases others.
So it's not a simple one answer there, but I think it's a very well thought through of where the IP ownership is and then where the synergy is to be able to efficiently develop the electric vehicles. We have said that we'll have at least 20 by 2023, 2 actually we'll be launching next year. We see and we have stated that a significant part of the volume will be in China because of the regulatory environment that is driving that, but we see opportunity to grow. I'm not going to put out specific numbers because I think especially in some of the other markets that will be very dependent on where our fuel price is and what's the regulatory environment. But we remain on track.
That development is going very well. And so we believe that we're going to be able to deliver affordable, desirable and range, appropriate vehicles into the marketplace.
Okay. And then, Chuck, just maybe really just a clarification. I thought you said, on the corporate side to still expect a $500,000,000 a quarter run rate over the rest of the year, which would bring you I think slightly below the $2,000,000,000 that I think was the prior indication. So was that a change or actually is there going to step up to still over the rest of your still get to that $2,000,000,000 number?
I would say for modeling purposes, if you just put $2,000,000,000 in your model for corporate spending, I think you'll be reasonably close for the year. I was trying to imply that on average, we expect to spend $500,000,000 a quarter, of which $1,100,000,000 would be transportation as a service. So there's certainly some expectations of some retiming of some of the benefit that we saw in Q1 and a lot of that was corporate staff legal timing, some security and derivative kind of mark to market. We will certainly work towards getting that to be sticky, some of those savings and re timings as we go through the year. But I think, again, for modeling purposes, dollars 2,000,000,000 feels like about the right number for the year.
Your final question comes from the line of Colin Langan with UBS.
Great. Thanks for taking my question. You mentioned in the presentation that commodities have increased. I think in the past you said it's 500,000,000 dollars What is sort of the impact that you're seeing now? Is there any color there?
Yes. As I look back, and obviously, this is a moving issue. So we started the year back in and obviously this is a moving issue. So we started the year back in January and maybe even updated it when we did the annual earnings. We thought commodity headwinds on a year over year basis would be about $500,000,000 roughly speaking.
I would say if I was putting a number on it right now, that would be somewhere closer to 8 $800,000,000 maybe a little bit north of that. So somewhere in the $300,000,000 or $400,000,000 headwind versus what we thought and obviously not insignificant, but we have think if you look at the last 3 or 4 years, we've got a track record of being able to offset some of these headwinds that developed during the year, whether it was exchange or commodity or we're reasonably confident we'll be able to do that as well. Hence, no change in our overall guidance for the year. Got it.
And the JEM platform, when is that expected to launch and any color on when we actually start seeing the savings? Is that more of a 2019 help or does that actually hit the second half?
Launching in 'nineteen, I think the latter part and so
Yes, it starts in 2019 and this is a big platform, 2,000,000 vehicles and there will be a rolling launch of a number of different entries of this architecture both in China and South America. But I would say the latter part of 2019 and you'll see the full kind of benefit of that by the latter part of 'twenty, early 'twenty one.
Got it. And just lastly, I think you said in the past 70,000 is the expected sort of decline in pickup production. Is that still on track? Is that still the number we should be thinking?
Yes. Largely, when we were looking at the downtime related to the current generation truck, the K2, it was just the downtime was 120,000 or 130,000 units and the Oshawa shuttle was going to fill about half of that gap. That's going to obviously play out. We launched it in the Q1 and play out as we go through the rest of the year. I think that's generally on minor or consistent with what we talked about before.
Okay. All right. Thank you very much.
Thank you. I'd now like to turn the call over to Mary Barra for her closing comments.
Thank you. And everybody, thanks for participating today. I hope you see that our results continue to demonstrate this team's focus and disciplined approach to how we run the business, while we're positioning ourselves for the future. I'm very proud of the team around the globe for what they've been able to achieve and also I'm proud of our track record of meeting our commitments always with integrity. So we're going to continue to execute our plan.
And if you look at our plan, we have built strong franchises and continue to strengthen them or build them in the core and in the transformative areas. We've talked a lot about what we've been able to achieve with crossovers and what we're going to continue to do there and we're seeing the results in this Q1. We are well underway for our full size truck family of products that we're very enthused about. They're building well and so that will start to roll in the 2nd part of this year and then very importantly through 2019 2020. We have worked hard and made the tough decisions that we have a strong franchise in South America and have very significant improvements in GMI as well as exiting some of the businesses where we didn't see a path to generate the right returns.
We believe we're well positioned in China and opportunities for growth, and again, seeing that built in a strong Q1. GMF is on plan and as well as the opportunities we have in adjacencies like CCA. In OnStar, we are seeing growth in the number of customers utilizing OnStar services and we have much more to do to deliver services to profitability as we leverage the connectivity and then the ability to monetize data both in the vehicle and comparing it with other companies. And that's on the way to as we look at the transformative area of really creating an all EV future with profitable, desirable, obtainable and appropriate range electric vehicles and the autonomous vehicle business that is largely accretive. So when we look at where we're at as a company, I'm very pleased with what we've done, where we're going.
I think there's significant opportunities to strengthen the business and grow it and while doing that deliver value to our shareholders. So thank you very much for participating and we'll say goodbye.
Ladies and gentlemen, that does conclude the conference call for today. We thank you for your participation and ask that you please disconnect your line.