General Motors Company

Good morning and welcome to the General Motors Company third quarter 2022 earnings conference call. During the opening remarks, all participants will be in a listen-only mode. After the opening remarks, we will conduct a question and answer session. We are asking analysts to limit their questions to one and a brief follow-up. To ask a question, press star then one on your telephone keypad. To withdraw your question, please press star two. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded Tuesday, October 25th, 2022. I would now like to turn the conference over to Ashish Kohli, GM's Vice President of Investor Relations.

Thank you, Madison, and good morning, everyone. We appreciate you joining us to review GM's financial results for the third quarter of 2022. Our conference call materials were issued this morning and are available on GM's Investor Relations website. We are also broadcasting this call via webcast. Joining us today is Mary Barra, GM's Chair and CEO, Paul Jacobson, GM's Executive Vice President and CFO, as well as Kyle Boat, CEO of Cruise. Dan Burse, President and CEO of GM Financial, will also be joining us for the Q&A portion of the call. Before we begin, I would like to direct your attention to the forward-looking statements on the first page of our presentation. The content of our call will be governed by this language. And with that, I'm delighted to turn the call over to Mary.

Thanks, Ashish, and good morning, everyone. Thanks for joining the call. During the third quarter, the GM team once again demonstrated our ability to deliver strong results while executing our growth strategy and managing multiple headwinds. The third quarter brings our EBIT adjusted earnings for the first nine months of the year to $10.7 billion, which keeps us on track to deliver our full year guidance. We translated improved supply chain performance into another quarter of full-size pickup and full-size SUV sales leadership with very strong mix and pricing. The Cadillac Escalade also continues to lead its segment by a wide margin. Chevrolet and GMC unveiled new midsize and heavy-duty pickups to help maintain our strong position when they launch. And the Chevrolet Bolt EV and EUV are selling at record levels thanks to their range, technology, and value. And in September, they outsold the Ford Mustang Mach-E more than two to one. BrightDrop is generating revenue in the last mile delivery segment, and later this year, Cami Assembly is set to launch BrightDrop production, making it Canada's first large-scale EV plant. Production will ramp up in 2023 to begin fulfilling major orders from our customers, including Walmart, FedEx, and Merchant's Fleet. In addition, BrightDrop launched Trace Grocery eCart last month to help speed up online grocery order fulfillment, with Kroger slated to be the first customer. And as Kyle shared last month, Cruise has begun its expansion into Austin and Phoenix, and he'll share an update in a few minutes. So it has been a great team effort by everyone, and I really want to thank and recognize the GM team, our suppliers, and our dealers. While the operating environment remains challenging, our team continues to adjust quickly when and where it needs to. This is especially true of our supply chain and manufacturing teams. During the quarter, we completed and shipped nearly 75% of the unfinished vehicles we held in the company inventory in June. That's well ahead of the plan we shared at our last earnings call. As we've moved through the year, we have seen gradual improvement in the supply chain, including semiconductors. Short-term disruptions will continue to happen, but we're taking concrete steps to minimize them and build long-term resiliency. This includes signing several strategic supply agreements for mature nodes where supply is most constrained. We are also working directly with semiconductor suppliers, ensuring long-term forecasts to increase transparency and ensure their planning cycles include our volumes. I'd also like to recognize the GM China team. Despite disruptions caused by COVID lockdowns, morale is strong and the business has returned to profitability, and they are building momentum in China's fast-growing EV market. This includes strong sales of the Wuling Hangguan Mini EV, which remains China's best-selling electric vehicle, the September launch of the Cadillac Lyrik, and the debut later this year of the first Buick EUV on the Altium platform. As we grow EV volumes, we continue to benefit from investments we have made in new ICE products and manufacturing capacity, especially in our truck portfolio where we are the industry leader. In fact, we took full-size pickup leadership from the Ford F-Series in 2020 and have held it ever since. We'll press our advantage with the new 2024 Chevrolet Silverado HD and GMC Sierra HD, which will be available in the first half of 2023. far-ranging improvements to these trucks including redesigned interiors enhanced trailering technology and new high feature models like the zr2 for chevrolet and the denali ultimate for gmc are designed to support continued strong pricing we are also launching all new chevrolet colorados and gmc canyons in the first half of 2023 which will include new premium off-road offerings importantly the launches will be accompanied by significant reductions in complexity. For example, we reduced the number of cab and bed configurations from three to one to focus on the fastest turning model, and we've also reduced our engine options from three to one. Going forward, all Colorados and Canyons will be powered by the Silverado and Sierra's high-output 2.7-liter turbo engine, which is a great solution for customers and our business. The new engine offers more horsepower and torque, than the outgoing gas powertrains, and we expect a one to two mile per gallon fuel economy improvement on most models. Let's turn next to our EV supply chain and manufacturing base, where we are vertically integrating and scaling. To meet strong demand, we will soon be transitioning production of the Cadillac Lyric and GMC Hummer EV from using imported cells to cells produced at our Altium Cells joint venture plant in Ohio. at the same time work is underway for higher production at factory zero as well as volume production at cami assembly and ramos orispe starting in 2023 and orient assembly in 2024. construction is also underway on two more ultium cell plants that will open in 2023 and 2024 respectively this will help us meet strong and growing demand for the gmc hummer ev the chevrolet silverado ev and Chevrolet Equinox EV and Blazer EV, along with the GMC Sierra EV and BrightDrop vans. All of our 2023 launches are progressing well. However, due to a slightly slower launch of cell and pack production than we expected, our plan is now to produce 400,000 EVs in North America over the course of 2022, 2023, and the first half of 2024. We are always gated by quality, and everything we've learned will help us scale to more than 1 million units of annual capacity in 2025 with even greater confidence. For growth beyond 2025, we continue to secure our future with strategic supply agreements and direct investments in natural resource recovery, processing, and recycling. The most recent example is a strategic investment we made in Queensland Pacific Metals of Australia to secure cost-competitive nickel and cobalt. The new clean energy tax credits of the US certainly validate our strategy, and they will be a strong tailwind to expand domestic supply chain capacity and drive EV adoption. As we scale the LTM platform, we have been very intentional to position the company for volume growth, but with flexibility, efficiency, and increased EV profitability over time. This includes fully leveraging the Chevrolet Bolt EV and EUV. We're planning to increase Bolt production from about 44,000 vehicles in 2022 to 70,000 vehicles next year because demand is at record levels. We will use our industry-leading loyalty to move Bolt customers into one of our new EVs like the Chevrolet Equinox EV for their next purchase. Our Bolt EV and EUV owner base should surpass 200,000 at the end of next year. If we retain them at our average customer loyalty rate of 64%, That's more than 100,000 future customers for Altium platform vehicles. I believe we can do even better because our new EVs are that good. As I've said, customer demand is strong and growing for the Lyric, the Hummer EV, the Silverado EV, the Blazer EV, and the early customer and media response to the Equinox EV and the GMC Sierra EV we just unveiled have been overwhelmingly positive. Electric.com wrote that affordability makes the Equinox EV a win for the company and EV buyers everywhere. And Motor Trend said it could be one of the first vehicles to trigger a tidal wave of EV demand. And with the Sierra EV, GMC will be the only brand with three all-electric trucks in the market, and they are all incredibly distinctive thanks to the flexibility of the Altium platform. The Sierra EV Denali's Edition 1, 400 miles of range, 350 kilowatt DC fast charging, and 9,500 pounds of towing, bold styling, and luxurious refinements make it unlike anything else in the market. In addition, the agreement we struck with Hertz to deliver as many as 175,000 EVs over the next five years will build on this momentum. Huge segments of the US population have never driven an EV, and renting one for personal or business travel will be far more immersive than a test drive at a dealer. These customers, as well as experienced EV drivers, will see just how exciting and well executed our products are, and this can help increase purchase consideration and sale for GM EVs. There have been many other exciting developments this summer and fall, and I'd like to briefly mention two that speak directly to the power of our brands and the new business opportunities ahead of us. The first is the Cadillac Celestic that we revealed just days ago. It is a completely bespoke work of automotive art built around the most advanced and innovative technology we have ever engineered. Media described the Celestic as the most advanced, most luxurious, and one of the most important vehicles Cadillac has ever made. But one headline really captured its essence, Cadillac outrolls Rolls-Royce. The second is the growth of Super Cruise. Our customers have now traveled 40 million miles with Super Cruise Engage, and the numbers are growing very quickly. We recently doubled its road network to more than 400,000 miles of interstates and non-divided highways, making it even more valuable to customers who already are highly satisfied with the technology. By the end of next year, it will be available on 22 models globally. While we are expanding the competitive advantage we have in advanced driver assistance systems with Super Cruise, the cruise team in San Francisco continues to make rapid progress in autonomous vehicles. Kyle is with us, so I'd like to invite him to share an update with you.