Good afternoon, everybody. Thank you so much for joining us for this session with General Motors as part of Deutsche Bank's Automotive Conference. My name is Emmanuel Rosner, and I'm the lead US autos and auto technology analyst here at Deutsche Bank. I'm extremely pleased to be joined by Paul Jacobson, who's the CFO of GM. GM certainly needs no introduction. One of the leading global automakers. It's been accelerating its transition to an all-electric future, targeting 100% EV sales by 2035, I believe. Nearer term, the company is planning for 400,000 units of North American EV cumulative by the first half of 2024, with about 150,000 planned for this year, and capacity of about 1 million units in North America alone by 2025.
For the benefit of everyone here in the room, if you haven't seen in the front of the lobby, there's a fantastic Chevy Blazer EV, which hasn't been released yet, but available for test rides, and a couple of HUMMER SUVs, which are very sharp looking. You know, definitely go ahead and go for a ride if, you know, they're still there. Thanks for being here, and let's dive into the questions.
Great. Thanks, Emmanuel. I appreciate the opportunity. Nothing makes you feel more powerful than driving a HUMMER EV on the streets of Manhattan.
Very true. Let's start with industry conditions, just to set the stage. Can you provide an update on the operating conditions you're seeing, you know, so far this year? Does that leave you on track for the 5%-10% unit volume growth that you're targeting for the year?
Yeah. So far, as we've said on the first quarter earnings call and a couple of other statements that we've made, the year has gotten off to a fantastic start. You know, the pace of that, the strength of the consumer, the strength of the products, as well as some of the tactics that we're using going to market, and how we're managing the business, have performed ahead of our expectations. That was true for the first quarter and allowed us to raise our guidance, and I'm proud to say that was true for the month of May, too. What, what we saw was a very strong continuation of what we've seen in the first four months of the year through May. Inventories were flat.
Average transaction prices for us were actually up, and they were up more than incentives were, even on a year-over-year basis. Speaks a lot to, as we said on the call, the trim levels. People are continuing to buy up in trim levels, but they continue to really, really have strong demand for our products. The way we've been managing that, I think, has been really extraordinary. Really proud of the team for the margin strength that we continue to deliver throughout the year.
That's very good to hear. I guess on the supply side then, you know, I think there were some certainly challenging conditions over the last sort of like 18 months or so. Everything is generally more stabilized. You have better visibility into the supply chain?
I've been here at GM for two and a half years, it's been rough supply conditions, I thought that was just the business. The reality is it's much better now, it's still not perfect. You know, we still have some disruptions from time to time, and, you know, as we've said before, I think one of the biggest challenges in the industry is particularly around outbound logistics. You've seen the composition of inventory change between being on the lots of dealers and being back waiting for shipment, et cetera, which, you know, has somewhat regulated the flow of vehicles into the retail market because some of the challenges of the outbound logistics stream that we've seen. We've been able to manage that.
We've been able to take production up and continue to get those vehicles shipped, and really proud of the way we've balanced that against our margin targets and, what we've, what we're striving to achieve.
You were making encouraging comments about certainly demand for your vehicles and pricing for your vehicles. Any specific observations around, you know, the industry? Is demand overall, you know, staying pretty strong? Is pricing, you know, remaining sticky, or do you feel like you're outperforming in a way, based on sort of like some of your actions and trim levels?
Well, you know, I think, I think the industry's actually been strong, but I also think we're outperforming in that context as well. If you recall, we said at Investor Day that we had planned the year at a 15 million unit SAR. We've actually been trending a little bit ahead of that for the first part of the year. Lots of encouraging signs for the industry, but I think even GM, with our portfolio, the way we've been able to drive share, drive volume growth while keeping margins strong and incentives low, I think has been a really, really good barometer for the GM culture.
Maybe just finally, still on the topic of pricing, I think one of the messages so far this year has been, yeah, pricing may eventually sort of decline, but dealers may sort of like be a little bit of a absorber, where they would see first, you know, some of the decline in their margins before you see it. Has that essentially started playing out? Like, are you seeing some, you know, compression around, you know, dealer margin, and this is where some of the initial pricing pressure would be?
It's a great question, Emmanuel, and if you look across the industry data, we've seen a pretty big decline in ATP versus MSRP. You know, we coming off a period where it was well above 100% for a period there, so still kind of above where it was pre-COVID levels. I think our trajectory has been more stable. I don't think our highs were as high as the industry, and as a result of that, I don't think our decline has been as big across the industry. We're still seeing strong retail pricing, and like I said, strong demand for upper-level trim packages, et cetera. The company's performing really well right now.
Great. Great to hear. Let's shift and be focused on your outlook for this year then. You raised 2023 guidance after a strong Q1 performance, the outlook you gave at that time suggests still sequentially declining EBIT for the rest of the year. What are the puts and takes? Is that still the view? What are the puts and takes between the first half and second half, and what extent does this reflect conservatism versus things that you may be seeing?
Yeah, look, I think we've confessed to conservatism in the, in the guidance all through the year. You know, we went into the year with a plan that said everything that we're seeing around us, not our business, but everything we're seeing around us is indicating some weakness of the consumer. We knew we had a little bit of a spike in CapEx going up to $11 billion-$13 billion this year. We needed to build a plan that said, under conservative assumptions, can we fund our CapEx and still drive the type of free cash flow? I think the way the market has characterized that has been, well, these are our expectations.
We pretty clearly said on the first quarter earnings call that based on the strength of the consumer, it gave us the confidence to be able to raise our guide commensurate with the outperformance that we saw in the first quarter. We also said at that time, if the consumer remains at this level and this strength throughout the year, we expect to significantly outperform kind of what we've said. It's not as much expectations as it is just trying to sit here and say, o kay, let's acknowledge what's going on around us so that we put that plan together. Month after month, as we've seen that go, we've seen the consumer outperform, and be very stable throughout the year.
It's going well, but we're gonna continue to be cautious about that because we can't ignore what's going on around us. You know, you would never do this, but some of your colleagues might write how tone deaf we are if we came out and said, a ll is going to be great forever. You know, they might be right in that standpoint. You've got to make sure that at the end of the day, you are balancing what's going on around us, but not necessarily qualifying it as expectations. I expect the company is gonna continue to perform well, and, you know, we're gonna continue to drive that narrative.
I guess outside of the environment, are there any specific reasons that are PM specific? On the cost side, where second half, essentially, you're incurring higher costs than the first half, or was it just the environment and sort of like that level of conservatism in terms of first half versus second half EBIT trajectory?
I would say, you know, that trajectory changes shape every month that you go by across the board. You know, as we said before, our cost program came out of the gates really strong. We had said 30%-50% of that, of the $2 billion we would get this year. We're now saying we get it probably in the 50% range of that $2 billion. That's gonna continue to accrete as we get into the second half. Largely, I think that is really in the, in the pricing environment and the, in the consumer environment. We've got to be conscious of, you know, maybe the consumer does change, maybe it doesn't. If the consumer doesn't change, like I said, we could be positioned to outperform that guidance.
Okay. Then specifically about this, cost savings program. You've talked about having essentially a head start in the $2 billion cost savings. I'm expecting that to generate, like, 50% of that this year. Beyond that specific program, are there any other big actions in place to execute, the rest of it?
We're really looking across the company, so there's a lot of complexity reductions that we're doing, and we'll have more detail on this as we come into the second quarter earnings call, et cetera, and look at where we are heading into the second half of the year. It's complexity reductions, it's reducing marketing spend, it's reducing a lot of other discretionary spend, travel, overhead, it's expenses, et cetera. You know, I think we're learning because what I don't want this to be is I don't want this to be a program, and then we go back to the way it was. We really got to change and cultivate continuous improvement on the cost side because this is the beginning of a journey, right?
We know where we need to be as we not only sort of get EVs to the margins comparable with ICE, but then ultimately expand those margins for the company going forward. This is laying a lot of track for the future and instilling that level of discipline and, you know, proud of the organization. They're making good progress.
I guess one consistent theme we're hearing from suppliers, both here and then, you know, throughout the year, is this continuation of recovery negotiation with their, you know, automaker customers on non-material inflationary costs, energy, labor, and that there's some pretty decent traction, actually, in the sort of like with this. Are you contemplating all of this in your guidance? How are you seeing some of these costs evolve as we move into the back half of the year?
Yeah, it's a fair question. I think, you know, we established a pretty good track record last year as we had built in some expectations into our guidance, and the way we thought about the business isn't any different. You know, the reality is our suppliers are partners with us. We want them to make money, but there's got to be a balance across the board in terms of where the risk is and where the economics are, and so on. You know, we continue to work with our suppliers. Some are in more desperate situations than others. That's been true even in normal times. So we're gonna continue to treat those partnerships, like they are.
Our supply chain team has an incredible track record, and I think they get voted pretty consistently, best OEM to work with. That's because of that partnership mentality, and we're gonna keep doing that.
A couple of questions maybe on... It doesn't look like you're seeing really any weakening so far. I'm interested in sort of like the downturn sensitivity in case there was. I guess, how confident are you in maintaining this 8%-10% North American margin profile in a more challenging environment for, you know, for the consumer?
Can this be maintained sustainably, even if industry price or eventually normalizes and also as your EV share ramps, I guess, what would be the levers to keep things pretty stable?
Certainly as the EV share ramps, we believe we can hit that, and that's why we gave the guidance going forward. You know, I think it's rare that things happen in isolation, right, We can talk about a weakening consumer. Well, that's gonna mean prices are gonna come down, but as prices come down quite likely that units go up, you know, because we have been operating in what has traditionally been thought of as a recessionary SAR environment for the last couple of years now. It's been production constrained, not demand constrained, which I think has helped that narrative a little bit. So the question is, if we do see a downturn, what does it look like?
In all likelihood, it's going to probably consume some cash. It's not going to consume as much cash as it has historically, because inventory levels are much lower than what they've traditionally been historically. You know, I think we've got a good playbook. We've got discretion in our CapEx that we could take out. You know, we've leaned into it the last couple of years to accelerate that journey. We can lean out of it a little bit, too, just based on some of the head start and so on, that we've built. I think we've got enough flexibility to do it. Of course, the cushion is, you know, the free cash flow that we're generating right now.
Even with the CapEx that we've got, we've still got, you know, $5.5 billion-$7.5 billion of free cash flow coming out of that. It's between that, the balance sheet, some of the discretionary capital, I think we've got pretty good shock absorbers in place.
On the CapEx specifically, you've guided to spending about $11 billion-$13 billion in CapEx per year through 2025 through this transformation. How would you approach this, I guess, in, where could you cut, if needed in a downturn?
Are there any areas that spending is more discretionary?
Well, I think in any context, whether it's operating cash flow or it's capital, whether it's our business or it's a different industry, it's hard to say I've got an $11 billion-$13 billion pot of money that I can't go find reductions in and reprioritize things going forward. You know, we'll continue to do that, but that's honestly something that we need to do anyway. If we're focused on driving the business for free cash flow, we've got to constantly be looking at the prioritization hierarchy of the capital spend against the performance of the company and make sure that we don't put ourselves in a position where we're investing beyond our means, unless it's for a very short period of time, because it's ultra priority capital, and we've got balance sheet capacity to do it.
That's the driver behind having an investment-grade balance sheet, is essentially making sure that I've got a shock absorber for the ultra priority things that I need to do when maybe the cash flow isn't there to do it. That's a tool that can only be used in a short time period, because you don't want to destroy the balance sheet in pursuit of things that you want to do. You've got to manage the balance sheet in pursuit of things you have to do. That's what managing a company for free cash flow looks like.
One topic that's on top of investors' mind is the UAW negotiation coming up, I guess, maybe later this month or next month, and then the contract ending in the third quarter. How are you currently approaching this event?
Look, I think at the end of the day, we've got to maintain a good relationship with our employees because, you know, you want people that are putting quality effort into the work, and they feel valued for the work that they're doing going forward. You know, we're in the period where we're trying to seek understanding with each other, and let's understand what priorities are going forward and getting together to work it out. You know, I'm confident, as has been done for many negotiations beforehand, that's something that can come to an agreement and continue to work forward for the good of General Motors. That's what we all want.
Let's shift our focus to the your BEV strategy. There are obviously a lot of credible EV players rising, you know, some, you know, in China, obviously good transformation being done in Europe. You have global players like yourself that are in the middle of an EV, you know, transition, and this obviously makes it fairly competitive. What are the top key differentiating factors that will help you drive growth and, you know, improve margins or grow margin in the EV business?
Well, I think, you're absolutely right. The environment is ultra-competitive and getting more so, globally, and we haven't shied away from that. You know, we've taken ownership of the fact that we need to be able to drive our margins to where they need to be, to be competitive in that landscape, and among the best, going forward. You know, going out and scrubbing overhead costs, et cetera, is a part of that mission going forward. I think the biggest advantage we have is we really kind of had a head start on the platform. So you've got Tesla, and you've got everybody else that's out there.
This is work that began at GM, really back in 2018, of positioning the company to be able to do this and many other OEMs that are trying to play catch up on the platforms going forward. That gives us an ability to start to scale much faster than where others are. We're in the early stages of that. As we go from 20,000 vehicles in the first quarter of 2023 to 1 million vehicles in 2025, you start to get a sense of that rapid scaling that's ahead of us going forward.
With that will come the savings, will come the efficiencies and the economies of scale that we can get, to be able to help ourselves, grow in terms of being competitive and to be able to do it faster than some of the other competitors may be able to do.
In terms of global focus for your EV business, obviously, a lot of the product is in North America, which is where, you know, some of, you know, your legacy operations have been as well. China is an important market. Europe is obviously a very fast market in terms of, you know, EVs for sure. How are you approaching this in terms of product lineup and, you know, can things look a little bit different in an EV world for you than have been, you know, over the last few years?
Well, I think we've got to be careful about trying to be too big, too fast, right? We've got to make the portfolio work and then expand off a platform of strength. Yeah, we're bringing vehicles to China right now. A number of those are vehicles like the Cadillac LYRIQ that we're producing anyway.... There's an opportunity, and that vehicle's been really well received by the Chinese market in the early stages of getting volume over there. You know, Europe is a region that, from a legacy perspective, has had its challenges for us.
We're much, much leaner, so we're looking at how do we go there, establish a foothold in that market in a way that is much, much more asset light, much more capital friendly going forward, et cetera. If we can find ways to do that, there's a platform to expand that. You know, the focus has to be on how do I get scale in North America, and how do we take that foundation and that pillar of strength and expand it globally, rather than trying to go and play catch up in every market in the world.
Shorter term, as you try to ramp up this EV, there's been a few hurdles, I guess, initially. Are you on track for 150,000 units of EV volume for this year and 400,000 units by, I guess, the first half of next year, based on your battery production ramp?
Yeah. We, you know, we have had some hurdles that we've had to overcome, and we're continuing to work those out. I suspect there will be more in the future, as the team continues to work through those. We still feel good about those volumes and getting to that ramp. You know, the 400,000 to 1 million in 2025 is just the beginning. Then, you know, we're going up from there, because to go from 1 million to 100% in light-duty vehicles in 2035 is no small throw either.
Yeah.
From that perspective. We feel good about that.
I mean, anything can show on the production of Ultium cells in Ohio. Are you on track to reach full capacity at that first plant by year-end?
Lordstown going well, as is construction at Spring Hill, and we expect to have that online late this year, still as well. You know, early returns on some of the cell production, I think, are even exceeding our expectations. Now, we've got to make sure that we go from cell to module to pack to vehicle, et cetera. All of that is getting worked through. The cell production and the partnership with LG is strong.
I think you shared the target of $87 per kWh in cell cost as a key metric and important to reaching low to mid-single digits, you know, EV profit margin in 2025. Can you unpack this a little bit more?
What are the assumptions that go into that in terms of scale, lithium costs? I mean, how much of it is secured, you know, versus sort of like some assumption on the future trajectory of raw materials?
Yeah. This gets really complicated, really fast, and we could probably spend another hour talking about the raw material supply chain of our 23 minutes. What I would say is there's two items around the raw materials, right? There is the security of supply. How do I know I'm gonna get what I need? There's the price, and how do you think about that? From a security of supply perspective, as we've said, we're fully contracted for 2025 volumes. We're making great progress on that 2026 to 2030 ramp going forward. On the pricing side, we're building a portfolio, right? We don't wanna say, I'm gonna take a 100% spot.
I don't wanna say I'm taking 100% fixed price either from that standpoint. We wanna make sure that we secure the portfolio that ultimately is gonna give us a long-term, sustainable competitive advantage. Where we can put in equity dollars to potentially get a little bit more favorable pricing, whether that's, you know, some type of collars or some type of discount to market, et cetera. Lots of different ways you can do that, we're constructing that portfolio. For 2025, and your question specifically, we didn't assume that lithium prices were gonna be $75,000 a ton.
We expected somewhat more normal, but not normal as defined by the typical 12,000, et cetera, but more normal reflecting a more unbalanced supply-demand environment in the short run. I won't get into specifics. B ecause obviously, we have to negotiate our prices with our partners as well, from that standpoint. You know, we do feel it's a reasonable set of assumptions when you look and unpack the BMS stack inside the cells, and it's something that we can get to.
IRA battery production credit, that's a material opportunity, you know, for EV margin as well. I think you were saying that would essentially take you to similar type of margin as you have on ICE, I guess, you know, by the target, right?
$3,500-$5,500 a vehicle.
Yeah. I think this year, you said at least $200 million of benefit. Can you share any details on the financial arrangements you have in place, you know, to share those benefits with your partner, LG, I guess? The fourth battery plant was just announced to be with Samsung, I believe. What's the rationale for adding a different supplier there?
Yeah. Well, the answer to your first question is, I can share that, but I'm not going to. It's one of those things I can do once, but we'll have more details on how to think about that IRA ramp, et cetera. As we've said before, I don't wanna get into what's good for us, what's bad for our partners, et cetera. We're working through that, and I think we'll have a good solution that works for the long term for both of us across the board. Then, as you look at, as you look at Samsung, you know, a different cell form, is has different advantages, whether it's, you know, performance or whether it's cost, et cetera.
There's different ways to look at that portfolio, but that's the beauty of Ultium, where we've said at the end of the day, it, the chemistry, the form of the cell is irrelevant to Ultium per se, because we can do the same software, we can do the same interfaces, we can use the same motors, and so on. The beauty of having that platform is the flexibility it gives you, because, you know, I wouldn't be surprised if 10 years down the road, there's a different cell form factor or there's a different cell chemistry. This is a, this is something that's an evolving technology over time, We're going to see that converge into cost performance trade-offs that ultimately make sense for everybody. If that's different than what it is today, we're still going to be able to adopt that in our vehicles over the long run.
Now Ford first, now GM recently announced that you will leverage Tesla's Supercharging stations. What is the message you're trying to send, you know, with this partnership, and any feedback from your customers on this announcement so far?
Well, you did say Ford did it first. I'm hoping that as the history books are written 20 years from now, they say, w ell, we kind of did it at the same time.
Within a week.
It was a kind of...
Close enough.
[crosstalk]
You're right. You know, look, hats off to them for that deal. Ultimately, you know, what that represents, I think, is sort of an admission that from an industry context, we've got to have some standardization across the board. As we've looked at the technology and as we looked at, you know, what Tesla was looking to do, we thought that was ultimately best for our customers across the board. Now, you know, as early as 2024, our customers will get access to the Tesla network, with all of our vehicles beginning in 2025, going forward, we'll be in that position. This is ultimately what's best for customers.
We, as we announced, we believe we'll save up to $400 million in capital because we had talked about all that capital that we were allocating to build what in some places would be a duplicative charging structure, we save that. Those are the types of efficiencies that I think are good for the customers, are good for investors, and they're good for the country as we think about what's the most efficient way to deploy this EV ramp-up as a society.
You're saving on the capital you would have deployed to build your own charging stations, and you're not contributing any CapEx to Tesla?
No, we'll have the ability, I think, over time, to be able to do that. If we want to build them, if or if we say that there are charging stations that are in a different location than Tesla would prioritize, there's an opportunity to do that together.
It benefits Tesla customers, it benefits GM customers, and it benefits EV customers in America. That's what we ultimately are here to do, and to be able to do that in the most efficient deployment of capital as possible.
I guess, you know, still on Tesla, you know, they broke ground recently on a lithium refinery, I guess, in-house. The company has talked extensively about refinery capacity as a key barrier to EV transition. Do you see the need to be involved upstream? Do you think that having secured, you know, all your needs, you're good to go, or is there a longer-term need to be involved more upstream?
Well, I mean, certainly the deals we've already announced have us going to a level of upstream participation that we haven't historically done, right? We're going into the mining space with equity investments and et cetera. You know, I think that's an acknowledgment of we already have that risk. If a mining project doesn't hit its utilization, it's going to affect prices for us anyway across the board, just based on the growth curve that needs to happen in lithium and, you know, these other battery raw materials. We are going upstream from that standpoint. Whether we choose to build our own refinery or not, I don't know.
At the end of the day, we've got to have partnerships with people that can get us the lithium in the form that we need that, whether it's hydroxide or carbonate, et cetera. We need to be willing to help fund that. You know, where I can help fund some expansion in exchange for guaranteed capacity, that's a good thing, and we should be open to doing that.
I want to come back to about the strategy in China. I know you gave us an overall answer on, you know, global, but it's the fastest EV penetration to be expected for the next decade. You're bringing some vehicles there, but can you talk more broadly about the EV strategy there? Do you expect meaningful growth for GM out of that region? Would you consider setting up wholly owned operations there versus the JV arrangement that you've had so far?
We are bringing some GM vehicles into that market, and like I said, early days, but we've seen some success among consumers. It is rapidly growing. It is also intensely competitive, as we've seen across the board. We need to make sure that we're managing whatever we do in any market we serve in a capital-efficient, margin-generating, you know, strong performance. You know, I think that's things that we can do and ultimately continue to sort of evolve and watch as our volumes increase, making sure that we're hitting our profitability targets and where we're going. There's an opportunity, I think, for us to be a successful player in the EV space going there. The ICE business is still doing okay.
It obviously has faced a lot of challenges over the last couple of years with COVID and with the economy, et cetera, but it's doing okay. It's a good provider for us. At the end of the day, it's an important market, and, you know, we're gonna make it work.
Just quickly on a different topic, the future model of retail. I think you called it GM Digital Retail Platform. You've talked about saving, you know, $2,000 per transaction, you know, for GM. Can you provide an update on the progress of this retail model, and how have dealer responses been in the process?
It's been the early stages. We've had it with the Bolt, and now we're rolling it out with the Cadillac Digital Retail program. The early returns are good. We've got to obviously ramp that up to get to the full $2,000. You know, the concept, as we articulated at Investor Day of the regional distribution centers, which will allow us to fulfill tailored customer demand on a much faster basis going forward, without having to load up dealers with a lot of inventory that ultimately has to get subsidized through financing or through incentives, et cetera. I think it's a good model, and it's not we're not at a point where it's necessarily a zero-sum game, where $2,000 to us is $2,000 coming out of the dealers.
I think we're finding ways to grow the pie between us and then share that. You know, the dealers also benefit if they need a lower footprint. They don't need the real estate. They don't need the staffing. There's a lot of different things that can make it more efficient for them as well. The early feedback from the dealers that are participating is strong, and, I mean, we think that this is going to be a good model, and we're confident that we'll be able to get to those $2,000 of vehicle savings.
Maybe final topics. Let's talk about Cruise, and let's talk about software. I think recently the industry overall has taken a step back in going to full autonomy, I mean, in general. I think a lot of players are approaching it with a more pragmatic approach of, you know, maybe higher level ADAS, you know, sort of like semi-autonomy. GM has been very committed to investment in Cruise. What do you think is the longer term advantage of going down this route versus, you know, a different way?
You know, I think one of the things that I chuckle at, you know, as I, as I'm watching TV, is all the discussion about AI and what the future is, and we probably have one of the most sophisticated AI platforms in autonomous driving that exists anywhere. You know, the scaling that's occurring with Cruise, you know, they eclipsed 1 million miles earlier this year, and then 90 days later, eclipsed 2 million mi. You know, they're in a position where they're in really rapid growth and deployment of the AI, and these miles are all driverless, so it's not like we're Level 2. We're full Level 4, no driver in the vehicle at all, and that's going to be a long-term, sustainable competitive advantage of feel it.
We've put a lot of capital into it. We need to be able to harvest the returns on that capital. As we get to $1 billion of revenue in 2025 and be able to grow it even beyond there pretty rapidly, you're starting to see that unfold right now, as we're now, you know, expanded to two additional cities, with Dallas and Houston, as Kyle's announced, as well as Austin and Phoenix. We're just, you know, I would say cruising along, but that would be a little bit too pun-oriented. We're in that rapid scaling phase right now, and 2025 isn't that far away, you know, where we're going to start to see some pretty solid revenue accretion between now and then.
I guess in the process, it requires considerable cash investment, because I think even the revenue targets wouldn't necessarily equate with, you know, free cash flow quite yet, I guess, by mid-decade. Is that, What is sort of like the ultimate end game?
Is just that this will be so profitable by the end of the decade that it's worth investing, you know, all this money up front?
Absolutely. I mean, between not just the rideshare applications, but delivery, but personal autonomous vehicles and ultimately where that's going. Nobody has a cost-effective Level 4 solution that's out there for customers, but we've got the Level 4 technology. As we've said before, we started with the strategy of saying: Let's solve the problem. The problem is the most difficult thing to solve, which is get the tech right. Once you get the tech right, you can bring the cost down, but trying to manage the problem from a lower cost is a different way of attacking it, but one that is historically seems to be taking longer than what we've been able to do as we get the cost of the tech stack down.
As we bring that out and deploy that in the Origin and the next generation Origin after that, we see a pretty good runway to be able to get to, you know, leadership positions in personal autonomy.
What's the technology strategy for semi-autonomy in the average consumer car? Would it be sort of like a version of Cruise as well, or are you going sort of like a different path? I guess related to that, then, so I guess sorry for the, another Tesla-related question, but Elon Musk looking to license or open to licensing the FSD. Is that something that GM could be interested in?
Well, we already have our form of that, which is Super Cruise, which, you know, is driver-assist technology that is really in high demand. In fact, our consumers rate that as kind of the number two thing that they're looking for in their vehicles beyond I've purchased and enjoyed the vehicle already. Super Cruise is a platform that's getting expanded. I think we'll have it in 22 models as we get into the late this year and early next year. You're going to see continued performance there as we continue to enhance that, while Level 4 is coming down in cost as well. We think that strategy is the right one as it relates to ultimately getting attractively priced consumer benefit.
Maybe final one for me. Can you just remind us of your revenue targets from software and services over the mid and long term? What solutions do you expect to monetize, and how can we track your progress?
you know, we said at Investor Day 2021 that $20 billion-$25 billion opportunity from software, which included subscriptions, included some of the digital retail platform, and included insurance, et cetera. you know, insurance is now being run by the GMF team, and they're doing a great job of starting to get that rolled out and getting that ramped up across the board. We'll have much more detail on that at our Investor Day this fall. And, you know, really excited about Mike Abbott joining and what he's going to be able to do with his experience from Apple coming in and helping us lay out that commercial platform.
Because what we don't want to do is we don't want this to turn into customers got something for free before, and now they're having to pay for it. It's really, how do we enhance the experience for those customers that want to purchase it? How do we create so much demand for it because of the for lack of a better word, the awesomeness of the technology and what it can do, that these are features that customers are happy and excited about purchasing up because it enhances the performance of the vehicle, customization of the vehicle, et cetera. Lots of different things that that we can do with that. We'll roll that out more at Investor Day.
Looking forward. I see we might have time for a couple of questions in the room, if there are any. If you have a question, just raise your hand.
Thank you. One of your Detroit peers, Ford, has taken a little different tact on organizing their business with Ford Pro. I know you have a very strong commercial business as well, but I wondered if you could just kind of give us, you know, your take on that, your kind of position, because the data that Ford's releasing is 40% market share, 2x, the nearest competitor. Scale advantage, disadvantage, growth opportunity, similar profitability of what they're disclosing. Anything you can share with us on that would be great. Thank you.
Yeah. You know, the fleet business is one that's obviously transformed quite a bit during COVID, as well, whether it's the fleet trucks or it's the rental cars, et cetera. We've seen margins in that business improve significantly to, you know, much closer to what we would typically see in wholesale and retail margins as well, going forward. That's a business that is growing, and it's been a source of some of the both the share gains as well as some of the star increases that we've seen year to date. As production has increased, we've been able to flow that there, but it's a very different model than it was historically, where you took extra surplus production, and you just kinda dumped it into the fleet business.
The team is doing a great job with that. You know, we've talked about segmentation a lot. You know, what I would tell you is, you know, there's an acknowledgment that we need to think about the business differently, but there's still a lot of overlap between auto production, whether it's an ICE vehicle or an EV going forward. We're very content with the way we're reporting, but as we said at Investor Day, there will be more that we'll talk about as we look to, sort of claim success on the EV ramp going forward. We need to be more transparent about that going forward.
As we get to Investor Day, as we ramp up the volumes, you'll start to see a little bit more disclosure on that going forward. You know, the reality is, everything that we need to do, we need to do anyway and is being managed regardless of how you think about it in segmentation. It's just a different way of presenting the business going forward. Much of that information we can give anyway, just part as sort of regular disclosures going forward.
Perfect. Over here.
Thanks for taking the time. Ford has talked about insourcing the inverter on their Gen 2 vehicles. Suppliers that are ramping inverter volumes on a Tier 1 basis are now gaining dramatic scale and potentially offering a cost benefit. Can you talk about what your plan is for Gen 2, Gen 3, insource versus outsource, and how you're thinking about taking your powertrain capabilities and transferring them to the powertrain on the electric vehicle side? Thanks so much.
Yeah, well, obviously, they're very different when you think about, you know, engineering, design, et cetera. You know, what I would say is just really broad brush. If it's something that is not customer-facing and sort of brand accretive, we need to be open if there's somebody that has a lower cost, more efficient scenario to be able to utilize that going forward. There are some things that we think we do really, really well. That's gonna change over time, as we see that, but also more importantly, we've got to make sure that we can own the customer experience as it relates to our brand and what our customers want. That probably more spills into tech than it does in sort of some of the raw motors and battery systems, et cetera.
The cell platform is one that's really important to us, as you've seen with the investments that we've made. You know, how do we think about running the business as efficiently as possible going forward. If there are things that we can do better than suppliers, we should do them. If there are things that suppliers can do better for us, we ought to think about that.
Awesome. Well, looking forward very much, to the Investor Day, and thank you so much for the conversation.
Thanks for having us, Emmanuel.
Thanks, everyone.