General Motors Company

Good morning and welcome to the General Motors third quarter 2024 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 join the queue. To withdraw your question, press star then two. As a reminder, this conference call is being recorded. Tuesday, October 22, 2024. I would now like to turn the conference over to Ashish Kohli, GM's Vice President of Investor Relations.

Thanks, Amanda, and good morning, everyone. We appreciate you joining us as we review GM's financial results for the third quarter of 2024. Our conference call materials were issued this morning and are available on GM's Investor Relations website. We're also broadcasting this call via webcast. Joining us today are Mary Barra, GM's Chair and CEO, and Paul Jacobson, GM's Executive Vice President and CFO. Dan Burris, President and CEO of GM Financial, will also be joining us for the Q&A portion of the call. On today's call, management will make forward-looking statements about our expectations. These statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause our actual results to differ materially. These risks and uncertainties include the factors identified in our filings with the SEC. Please review the Safe Harbor Statement on the first page of our presentation, as the content of our call will be governed by this language. And with that, I'm delighted to turn the call over to Mary.

Thank you, Ashish, and good morning, everyone. I want to begin by recognizing the incredible job our team, our suppliers, and our dealers have been doing all year long. We have been able to grow our retail market share in the U.S. with above-average pricing, well-managed inventories, and below-average incentives. Now, with our strong third-quarter results, we expect our full-year EBIT adjusted to be in the range of $14 billion to $15 billion, and EPS diluted adjusted to be in the range of $10 to $10.50, both at the upper end of our previous guidance. And we are once again raising our adjusted automotive free cash flow. I want to be clear, though, we are not mistaking progress for winning. The competition is fierce, and the regulatory environment will keep getting tougher. That's why we're focused on optimizing our ICE and EV margins. We have a very strong record in ICE, and we are on track to produce and wholesale about 200,000 EVs in North America this year and make our portfolio variable profit positive this quarter. This is a first step. We are working with urgency to make our EVs profitable on an EBIT basis as quickly as possible. To get there, we will continue to drive improvements across the business. Apart from our financial performance and the progress we've made growing our ICE business and scaling EVs, one of the things that truly stands out about the quarter is the resiliency and compassion of our suppliers and dealers after the storms that hit the Southeast. We are saddened by the destruction and loss of life. and grateful for their significant contributions to relief efforts, which GM and our employees have supported through contributions to the Red Cross. One GM supplier that stands out is Aria Solutions in Old Fort, North Carolina, which makes carpets for our full-size SUVs. They work tirelessly to support their employees and their community, as well as GM. They even drilled a new well to restore water service to the plant and to their neighbors. This is a great example of the steps people in our business are willing to take to support their employees and manage events outside of their control. At Investor Day, we focused on the business drivers for 2024 and 2025 that are within our control. They include a wide range of new and redesigned ICE SUVs that are more profitable than the outgoing models, steadily improving EV profitability as we scale production and expand our portfolio, fixed cost discipline, capital efficiency, and improved results in China. We're building momentum in all of these areas. For example, the new Chevrolet Traverse, GMC Acadia, and Buick Enclave continue to grow their volumes in retail market share with very strong pricing, and the new ICE Chevrolet Equinox is arriving in dealerships in greater volumes. We've seen month-over-month gains in retail segment share for the Equinox. ATPs are about $6,000 higher than the outgoing models, and we're attracting younger buyers. Without a doubt, these vehicles, along with our new full-size SUVs, are some of the best we've ever delivered from a design, safety, and technology standpoint. And I can say definitively that one of our other new ICE models, the Chevrolet Corvette ZR1, is the fastest car we've ever built. It's a 1,064-horsepower engineering marvel, and Mark Royce recently drove it at 233 miles per hour on a high-speed oval in Peppenburg, Germany, a speed that's unrivaled by any current production car priced under a million dollars. That wasn't a one-off in performance either. Five engineers also exceeded 230 miles per hour on multiple runs. If you haven't seen the videos Chevrolet posted to TikTok and YouTube, please check them out. Like the breathtaking performance of the Corvette, our strategic portfolio of EVs is separating GM from our competitors. As you know, we earned the number two EV sales position for the third quarter. Our total share is approaching 10% of the EV market, and our EV conquest rates are more than 60%. If you attended Investor Day, I hope you have a deeper appreciation for the role our battery manufacturing capabilities and overall sales strategy are playing in our drive to EV profitability. The scale and vertical integration we have achieved with LGES in Ohio and Tennessee is a major competitive advantage that's driving down cell costs. So are the world-class yield rates we're seeing. Because we jointly produce our cells, we reap the benefits of lower commodity prices, and we're generating significant manufacturing credits at both the cell and module level. It will be years before some of our competitors approach this level of performance. To drive more EV sales growth, all of our brands have been conducting extensive dealer outreach and training. For example, Chevrolet has been meeting with more than 7,000 dealership sales employees to educate them about EV technology and charging and the competitive advantages we have in areas like affordability, range, capability, and the total cost of ownership. People are leaving these meetings energized and just as confident in our EV portfolio as they are in our winning ICE products. The training should really pay off in 2025 as we continue to expand our truck portfolio with both lower-cost and longer-range versions of the Silverado EV. Our longest-range work trucks will have the ability to go nearly 500 miles on a full charge. Our most affordable work truck will begin at about $57,000. And both the LT with standard content and the LT Premium Package are priced so eligible customers may qualify for the full $7,500 federal tax credit. We will also have our full range of Equinox EV and Blazer EV models in the market starting in the first quarter, including a new, more affordable Blazer, as well as an expanded portfolio of GMC Sierra EVs. Our Cadillac portfolio is expected to be another driver of volume and share growth, conquest sales, and EV profitability improvements as we go forward. EV consideration is much stronger among luxury customers than the mainstream market, about nine points higher, so we expect it to grow faster. These customers want beautiful designs, advanced technology, performance, and range. Everything Cadillac delivers with the Lyric, Optic, Vistic, and the Escalade IQ. No other luxury brand has so much to offer. Let's turn to China where the team is making progress aligning production to demand. In the third quarter, GM and our JVs grew sales 14% from second quarter for our best performance since the third quarter of 2022. Our growing portfolio of EVs and plug-in hybrids played a key role. In fact, our new energy vehicles outsold ICE models for the first time. Importantly, our dealer inventory has been reduced by more than 50% since the start of the year, which will allow us to better manage our pricing and costs. We will also continue to drive dealer engagement and discipline on fixed costs, inventory, pricing, and incentives. However, the operating environment in China continues to be challenging, and there is more hard work to do with our partner. There are a series of shareholder and joint venture board meetings planned during the fourth quarter that will be focused on restructuring actions to make the business sustainable and profitable, and we will share next steps as soon as we can. We will also provide an update on Cruise when we can share more details about their future funding model. In the meantime, the Cruise team continues to improve their technology and cost structure. Another area where you can expect news in the weeks and months ahead is in capital efficiency. As Kurt Kelty shared, we continue to refine our cell strategy with the incorporation of prismatic cells and new chemistries. We're seeing enterprise-wide benefits from winning with simplicity, and we'll continue to add EV capacity in a measured cadence by converting existing component and assembly plants. And we're making good progress with Hyunda on specific areas of cooperation, We are nearing the completion of our first definitive agreement, and we expect to have something to share soon. I'll close my prepared remarks by reiterating the commitment we made at Investor Day to build on our competitive strengths and deliver the performance that differentiates us from others in the industry. We know that's what investors expect, and it's the best way for us to demonstrate both leadership and our true long-term growth potential. Thank you, and now I'd like to turn the call over to Paul to walk you through the quarter.