GM CEO Mary Barra Reveals Strategy to Overcome 2024 Hurdles

GM CEO Mary Barra declared this year the year of execution at the Wolfe Research Global Auto and Auto Tech Conference held in New York on February 15, 2024. This is a “year of execution” for GM as the automaker hits reset on production of its newest electric vehicles, relaunches its troubled self-driving subsidiary Cruise, and fixes new-vehicle software glitches, CEO Mary Barra said. Barra said GM is correcting these issues, including fixing software glitches that caused sales of the midsize SUV Chevrolet Blazer EV to be delayed. The glitches are also connected to large numbers of Chevrolet Colorado and GMC Canyon midsize pickups, the Detroit Free Press has reported.

Barra explained that the production of electric vehicles based on GM’s proprietary Ultium platform faced difficulties last year and in 2023 due to problems assembling battery cells into battery modules. She also admitted that the automaker failed to organize a software team sooner.

GM postponed the launch of some key EVs last year, but GM expects the Chevrolet Equinox EV, Silverado EV RST, and GMC Sierra EV Denali pickups to be launched this year.

Barra emphasized that the biggest challenge in the coming months is launching the product and adequately constructing the software. She also argued that GM’s software would show a competitive advantage. The basis for that argument is hiring former Apple executive Mike Abbott in May 2023. Mike Abbott, the former vice president of engineering for Apple’s Cloud Services division, joined GM as an executive vice president in charge of software on May 22, 2023.

GM’s challenges for this year are achieving EV profitability goals, maintenance, and relaunching Cruise.