Pod Insights Decoder Why GM will give you Gemini — but not CarPlay About this episode Today’s guests are General Motors CEO Mary Barra and new GM Chief Product Officer Sterling Anderson. There’s a lot of big news the company just announced, including a Google Gemini-powered AI assistant that's coming to new cars and an entirely new hardware and software platform coming to the Escalade IQ in 2028 alongside true Level 3 autonomous driving.
So I asked Mary about all of that and how she's navigating the current moment, and her company's relationship with the Trump administration. I also got into the details on GM’s platform with Sterling, including its decision to ditch Apple CarPlay on its EVs and what all this looks like in the future as AI voice assistants and more capable autonomy come into the mix.
Read the full transcript on The Verge.
Links:
GM says hands-free, eyes-off driving is coming to Escalade IQ | The Verge
GM takes a $1.6 billion hit on EVs | The Verge
GM software boss on ditching CarPlay | Decoder
Ford CEO on China, tariffs, and the quest for a $30,000 EV | Decoder
The EV tax credit is gone — now the hard part begins | Decoder
GM blocks dealership from installing CarPlay retrofit kits in EVs | The Verge
Everybody hates GM’s decision to kill Apple CarPlay | The Verge
GM hires ex-Tesla, Aurora exec as chief product officer | CNBC
Cruise’s robotaxi service will shut down as GM pulls its funding | The Verge
Newsom names GM’s Mary Barra as villain in fight with feds | Streetlight CA
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Decoder is a production of The Verge and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.
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Transcript 14,826 words · 13 speakers
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1:31 Speaker 03 Hello and welcome to Decoder. I'm Neelai Patel, editor in chief of The Verge, and Decoder is my show about big ideas and other problems. We've got a special episode today. I'm talking to General Motors CEO Mary Barra and new GM Chief Product Officer Sterling Anderson about a lot of big news the company just announced, including a Google Gemini-powered AI assistant that's coming to new cars, an entirely new hardware and software platform coming to the Escalade IQ in 2028, along with true Level 3 autonomous driving, a new home battery business, and a new robotics division. It's a lot, and it all comes against the backdrop of President Trump's trade wars, tariffs, and the expiring EV tax credits here in the United States that have really upended the car business. Just last week, the day before I talked to Mary and Sterling,
2:15 Speaker 03 GM took a $1.6 billion write-down on its EV business against falling demand.
2:21 Speaker 03 A lot of long-term plans about the EV transition are falling by the wayside like this. And I wanted to know how Mary was thinking about it all, especially since she made some of the most aggressive EV platform bets among the legacy automakers several years ago. And in one important way, that bet really paid off. GM has a full lineup of EVs running on a mature platform now. I myself just leased a Cadillac Vistic SUV to take advantage of those tax credits before they expired. But the market has changed dramatically and consumers are becoming far more price sensitive. The average cost of a new car in the United States just broke $50,000 for the first time. And we've heard from a lot of car CEOs lately who say that's a big problem. Most consumers don't want to pay much more than $30,000 for a new car.
3:05 Speaker 03 And that means all of these costs need to come down. So I asked Mary about all of that and how she's navigating the current moment, her company's relationship with the Trump administration, and why she's confident that EVs, autonomy, and AI are going to continue to help GM sell more cars instead of just selling more expensive ones to a smaller group of wealthier consumers. I also obviously took the opportunity to get deep into the details of the platform with Sterling, who spent several years at Tesla and was the co-founder of Aurora, the autonomous trucking startup. GM poached him back in May of this year. And now it's his job to oversee the entire end-to-end experience of both gas and electric GM vehicles. That means he has to answer for the hardware, the software, the interface decisions, and all of the trade-offs that
3:48 Speaker 03 come with that across more than a dozen GM brands. I had a lot of very specific feature requests for Sterling, as well as some big-picture questions about what it means to think of these cars as platforms. Of course, that means we spent some real time on GM's big decision to ditch Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, whether that decision is paying off, and what all of this looks like in the future as AI voice assistants and more capable autonomy come into the mix. That's a whole lot of big decoder themes in this conversation, and Mary and Sterling and I really got into it. I think you're gonna like this one. Okay, GM CEO Mary Barlow and Chief Product Officer Sterling Anderson. Here we go.
4:39 Speaker 03 Mary Barra, you are the Chair and CEO of GM, and Sterling Anderson, you have a Chief Product Officer at GM. Welcome to Decoder. Thanks.
4:46 Speaker 04 Yeah, it's great to be here.
4:47 Speaker 03 I am very excited to talk to you both today. There is a lot of news to discuss. I'm gonna just go through the list and see if I get it all. You have the introduction of Google Gemini-powered assistant in the cars in 2026, a next-generation hardware and software platform that will come first on the Escalade IQ in 2028. That will enable the next generation of Super Cruise, which will let you have eyes off driving, additional hands off driving in the Escalade IQ. There's a new robotics division, which is a big bet, and then new batteries and new home energy solutions. All of that is coming in the context of what I would call huge changes in the car market, the end of the EV tax credits, tariffs that are upending the global supply chain, what appears to be a brewing trade war with China over rare earth metals, which are essential to all of these plans.
5:32 Speaker 03 Did I miss anything?
5:34 Speaker 04 Well, we've been pretty busy, so I think you captured most of it, but I would say in the midst of all of that, we have a great product portfolio of both internal combustion engine vehicles and electric vehicles, and the customers are responding very well to it. So, you know, one of the things our team has developed over the last handful of years is the ability to be very resilient and agile to respond to all these challenges. And so I'm really proud of the team, I'm proud of the vehicles and the services we have today, and what we're going to talk about is where we're headed. So it's an exciting time at General Motors.
6:08 Speaker 03 I want to come to all that news, and you know, what you're describing there is what I call Decoder bait, right? This is how are we running a company of this size to make all these bets and be flexible? And then Sterling, I don't know if they warned you, I have some very nerdy questions for you. That's great. And like, very specific feature requests. Nerdier the better. About my Cadillac Vistic in particular. Yeah, I love it. So we'll come to that as well. But Mary, I want to, I want to start with GM and some of these bets that you've been making for a while now. I would say that it's been almost five years that you've been aggressively positioning GM for an electric and autonomous future. Just today, though, GM announced a $1.6 billion charge in the third quarter against changes in the market following EV sales. So I'm curious, just big picture, how would you describe where you want GM to be?
6:53 Speaker 03 And how far you are along in that journey and how things have changed that you, in ways you were expecting and not expecting?
6:59 Speaker 04 I would say, first of all, it's being very customer focused and making sure we have great products with the right, the right design, the right quality, the right features, performance, the right software and services that we can put on top of that, that customers want to buy. So we start there and that's our, that's where we want to head. From an EV perspective, we still believe in EVs and I consider them to be our North Star. But clearly, when you have a dramatic shift that we're seeing in the regulatory environment in the United States and potentially other places, as well as a very substantial change in the consumer tax credit, that's going to change buyer behavior. When you think
7:40 Speaker 04 about vehicles, they're either the most important or the second most important purchase that a customer makes. I mean, it's very significant and we get to be a part of that with our consumer. So as we look at these changes, we need to make adjustments. But we're going to meet the customer where they are, whether they want a great ICE vehicle or they want an EV. The adjustment that we made today from the, from the charge was really reflecting what we believe now will be a slower EV adoption. But we still have a great portfolio of award winning EVs that we're going to be offering. And so we're going to meet the customer where they are. But when you have that dramatic a change that happens in that short a period of time, you have to make adjustments to run the business well.
8:22 Speaker 03 Let me ask you about that specifically. Obviously, the tax credit going away, it drove a lot of EV adoption. I am one of those people. I rushed and made sure that I bought this car before that tax credit went away. I'll tell you, the dealer I bought my car from, he gave me a great deal. And he told me, I will move as many EVs as I can because that's how I get allocations on gas powered Escalades. And in particular, I think the CTSV Blackwing. That's, the thing he wanted is like, I gotta move this many EVs to get allocations on that car where I'm going to make a lot of money. That's all changing, right? That, that table has been flipped, the tax credit's gone away, we don't know what the market's going to do. Are you taking the $1.6 billion charge preemptively? Or have you already seen the change such that you're taking that charge?
9:05 Speaker 04 One of the things that we made an adjustment already was the fact that we were planning to have one of our factories in Lake Orion, Michigan be an electric plant. And when we looked at the shift and what's happening with tariffs, we decided that we were going to expand the capacity because right now in some, for instance, full-size utilities, we can't build enough. The demand is so strong. And so we're going to use that plant. So, once you make a change like that, that's something that already has happened. I don't think we're going to know for sure what true EV demand is until next year because, like you and many others, there was definitely a pull ahead for people who wanted to be able
9:45 Speaker 04 to have access to the $7,500 tax credit. So, we'll see potentially a little bit lower in the fourth quarter. We don't know yet. And as we get into next year, we're going to see that. But again, when you talk about $7,500 on a vehicle, that's pretty substantial. We do expect, and I think the industry expects, and the external forecasters believe that we're going to see slower EV growth. But I think the important thing is, we think we'll still see growth.
10:09 Speaker 03 Can I put that in the context of new versus used cars? I see what's going on with new cars, right? And most new EVs are leased, and every company, including GM, played games with residuals on leases to bring those prices down on top of the tax credit. And then I look at the used market, and I see EV depreciation is out of control. And there's just, honestly, financially, buying a used EV might be the only smart car purchase you should make today. That's not growth in new sales, but it's obviously more people coming into EVs as owners, as having the experience. Do you think that will have any effect on how you market and sell your new EVs?
10:44 Speaker 04 Well, first, I would say, I don't think we played games with residuals. I mean, General Motors has been very disciplined for more than a decade about understanding what pricing does, and when you make dramatic changes in pricing, what that does to the residuals. And then it takes almost a new generation of that vehicle to get the residuals to be where they're at. So, we manage that very, very carefully because we want to make sure the people who buy our vehicles keep that value. And now, when someone leases, that then, you know, be- Becomes the, you know, the leaser or for our, in our case, many of our vehicles are bought through GM Financial. So, but we look at that as well because it's still something very important.
11:25 Speaker 04 But again, I think it's too soon to tell. I mean, generally what we see, there's a new car buyer and then there's people who buy used vehicles. And so we're just going to have to see what the equation is. But I think one of the things you're getting at is the consumer is very rational. So I think they're going to be looking across the board.
11:42 Speaker 05 If I can add one, one thought there and Eli, you're now in a Vistec, so getting a little more of this experience with some of these cars.
11:51 Speaker 05 For many, getting over the hump of that kind of initial activation energy of being comfortable with an EV, being comfortable with the range, being comfortable, getting comfortable with setting up level two charging in their home and these other things. I think there is incremental value to, as you say, kind of the penetration that we get in the secondhand market for people that get comfortable with these vehicles. They are better cars. They're better on a number of dimensions. And as that comfort grows, I do hope that it's value accretive to kind of future purchases.
12:21 Speaker 04 Well, and to your point, Sterling, we have already seen with our consumer feedback, our customer feedback, that once they own an EV because of those benefits, they very much are likely to buy another EV. So, but we're still in early days. And again, I think we're going to see as charging infrastructure gets more broadly or more widespread across the, across the country, I think we're going to continue to see EV adoption grow. But the beauty, the great thing or the beautiful thing from a General Motors perspective is we've got a vehicle, whatever they choose. And I think that puts us in a very unique position as we move forward.
12:57 Speaker 03 In one way, and don't take this wrongly, but in one way, what you're saying here is what I've heard about EVs for a long time. They are better cars. You don't have to do the maintenance. They have instant torque, right? Like you charge them at home and you never have to think about going to a gas station again in your life. Those have been the arguments for some time. I think in the pandemic, a lot of companies reacted to what seemed like. Infinite demand for the Tesla Model 3. They could not sell as many as they're making. And you made a lot of bets, right? And those bets right now are paying off. I would say my car feels like the payoff of a big bet you all made some time ago. It is a mature platform. It's a great car. I have no complaints with it really. I mean, I do, but we'll come to this, Sterling. Just do it.
13:41 Speaker 03 But it's very hard to nitpick that car. But then the whole market changed around you, right? That infinite demand for Tesla products is no longer infinite, even for Tesla. They're doing sales. They're doing pricing changes. And we're seeing the tax credits go away. Do you think it's your gas vehicles that are going to carry you through this period of uncertainty? Or do you think the EV sales are actually going to hold their own?
14:05 Speaker 04 Well, again, I think it's too soon to tell. And I've been in this job too long to make predictions like that. We'll see. We're well positioned either way. But I think an important point is even in this period over the last two years, General Motors was taking share. We were growing share and continue to have vehicles that were highly rated year after year and model after model. So again, we're well positioned. We'll meet the customer where they are. But I don't think that it's dramatically going to change. I think our internal combustion engine vehicle business has been important. We're still on a journey to get to like profitability from an EV perspective. So we're going to continue on that journey.
14:50 Speaker 04 And we're investing in the technology that takes cost out of the vehicle while taking nothing away from the customer. So we're going to be in a good position there as well.
15:00 Speaker 03 California Governor Gavin Newsom says GM sold out to the Trump administration over this tax credit. I'm just going to read you the quote. Mary Barra sold us out, eliminating Ronald Reagan's work, eliminating the progress we made under the California Air Resources Board in 1967. The Republicans rolled that back this year under Donald Trump's leadership. But the American automobile manufacturer allowed that to happen. GM led that effort. Your response to that?
15:22 Speaker 04 Well, I would say we worked tirelessly for more than a year trying to make sure that the states that were following CARB, we have worked with CARB for decades. But we got to a point where, when you looked at what was required for model year 26, and as you know, those sales start in calendar year 25, those states following CARB needed to get to a 35% EV penetration. The consumer wasn't there. We worked with the different states, we worked with CARB, but it got to a point where we were weeks away from not being able to sell customers the cars they wanted because the penalties were so strict in some cases.
16:02 Speaker 04 So, we have always consistently, and I think for my entire term here as CEO, been really working hard to get one national standard. Because we have really strict regulations across the board, and to have varying by state makes it even more complicated. So, we've always said we needed harmonized standards, and that's what we've always worked toward. In this situation, there were other automakers who equally supported getting the CRA passed. I think, though, apparently I was the one singled out there, but I still stand by what we did because we worked for a long time, and I think there were a lot of governors
16:46 Speaker 04 and other lawmakers who were relieved that CRA passed because we were approaching a situation that could have had an impact on jobs, on plants not being able to produce because literally we would have been limited in what we could sell.
16:57 Speaker 03 On the one hand, the Trump administration made it easier for you to sell the cars you have and the cars you're making today without what you're describing is the regulations that would have prevented you from doing that. On the other hand, we're talking about the tax credits going away, and we're talking about costs rising for the automotive industry because of Trump's tariff policies. Does that feel like a holistic conversation with the Trump administration about the automotive industry in America, or is it all things happening at once? Because from the outside, it feels like no one's talking to each other.
17:28 Speaker 04 We are talking a lot to the administration on many aspects, on making sure that we have a strong manufacturing base in this country, making sure that we have strong automotive companies, American automotive companies, getting a level playing field. When you look at the tariff, what's happening in tariffs, I've long said, let us have a level playing field and we're compete, but we have not had a level playing field with many countries for many, many years. And so, as you make those changes, yes, it can be disruptive, and we're making adjustments so we can compete in that market. When you look at the change from a regulatory environment, again, we don't set those changes, we just try to help
18:10 Speaker 04 people understand. It was very clear the Trump administration felt strongly about wanting consumers to choose versus being regulated into having to buy a certain vehicle. I'm a big believer in consumer choice. And even for years, I've been saying, I want to get enough EVs out there that are great EVs, that a consumer chooses it because they love it, and it's the car they want to drive. Once you get into regulations driving consumer behavior, you're already in a difficult place. So, yes, has a lot happened this year, absolutely. But I think it's what we do and respond. We responded to COVID, we responded to the semiconductor shortage, and I'm really proud of the team. Yet, this has been some change,
18:52 Speaker 04 but we were going to need change regardless, because the regulatory environment was getting in front of the consumer. And largely, the charging infrastructure hadn't built up as much as I think people thought it would be, or where it would advance by the time some of these regulations kicked in. So, to me, I look at tariffs is one about a level playing field and having a strong manufacturing capability in this country. I think the regulatory change was about consumer choice. We want to just do great vehicles that people choose, and that's why I still say EVs are our North Star. And I've had many conversations with the administration and with the president, talking about that I fundamentally believe
19:35 Speaker 04 EVs will continue to grow over time, albeit a little bit more slowly, because we don't have the consumer tax credit anymore, but because they're great vehicles.
19:45 Speaker 03 Do you think that consumers are going to feel the impacts of the tariff policies on GM or other carmakers the way that it feels like we're, you know, if you, we just ordered clothes for a wedding and we got hit with tariff charges by DHL at JFK? Like, is that going to come to consumers in a real way in the auto industry? Are you managing against that? Because we're already talking about prices going up in other ways.
20:04 Speaker 04 Right. We're, I mean, we're looking at how do we maintain our focus on affordability? How do we continue to drive efficiency? How do we comply with tariffs to make sure that we aren't paying a big tariff bill? And then we're also continuing to communicate with the administration and members of the cabinet so they understand some of the unintended consequences of some of the policies. And I have to say, they've been incredibly receptive to, and really have become students of the industry to make sure they understand the ramifications and they've made adjustments to make sure we're working toward having strong manufacturing in this country and having a level playing field.
20:46 Speaker 03 Can I just ask you one more question about the broader car market? And I want to do the decoder questions, which I think will lead into all of the news here. You're talking about affordability, we're talking about your cost rising with tariffs, consumer cost rising as credits go away, all these sorts of things. Broadly, the car market is as K-shaped as the rest of the economy. I think I saw a report today that said average car prices are headed north of $50,000 while defaults on financing are at an all-time high. That's not a good split, right? The cars are getting more expensive than ever and people are not able to pay their bills. A lot of people can't afford these ever more expensive cars. And when I hear from our readers, whenever we publish about a new EV, the first thing that people say in our comments is, well, that's too expensive. How are you thinking about that?
21:30 Speaker 04 Well, that's why I'm extremely proud of what we have from a Chevrolet perspective. Whether you're looking at the The Chevrolet Trax and Trailblazer that are internal combustion engine vehicles and start at around $20,000 and then go up. Or you're looking at now the Bolt we are bringing back that we just announced will be at that 30,000 level. The Equinox is mid 30s. So I think we're offering great choice for the consumer in a very affordable price range with great vehicles that have beautiful design, incredible safety. I mean, if you look at the screen on the Equinox EV, it's a large screen with great safety features.
22:12 Speaker 04 And so I look at it and say, I understand what the broad industry trends are, but when I look at it from a General Motors perspective, we're doing extremely well in these entry level segments in both ICE and EV, as well as we're doing, I think, really strong work at the top end. And we keep seeing some consumers are saying they want a more premium truck. They want a more premium SUV. And so we're meeting that demand when you think about a Denali on the Yukon or the Cadillac Escalade and Escalade IQ. But then we also have great vehicles that are very affordable. So we're a full portfolio manufacturer and I'm very proud that we can meet the customers where they are.
23:00 Speaker 03 We need to take a quick break. We'll be right back.
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23:42 Speaker 02 This episode is brought to you by Michelob Ultra. Good times mean competitions between you and your friends, like seeing who can throw some pigskin the farthest or rush the field the fastest. Winner gets an ultra because it's not just a superior light beer. It's also giving fans superior access to their favorite sporting events. Superior is worth playing for. Visit michelobultra.com/superioraccess to enter. Enjoy responsibly. Copyright 2026 Anheuser Busch InBev Michelob Ultra Beer, St. Louis, Missouri.
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24:34 Speaker 03 We're back with GM CEO Mary Barra and Head of Product Sterling Anderson. Before the break, I was asking Mary about some of the big bets GM has been making these past five years on electrification and autonomous cars and how she's navigating the current economic and political climate here in the United States. But now it's time for the Decoder questions. Let me ask you the Decoder questions. GM, I think people understand it as nameplates, right? There's GM and GMC and Chevy and Cadillac and Buick and all the rest. How is GM structured as a company, as an operating company? How is it structured? Is it just the divisions and the brands or are you more functional than that?
25:10 Speaker 04 I think we're more functionally and, you know, Sterling is responsible for our products globally as the chief product officer because we leverage that to get the scale. But then we also understand for the different brands, what we need to do to make sure we're delivering on that brand promise, whether it's true luxury with a Cadillac. Value, but you know, the unique American heritage that Chevrolet has. Buick is premium and has been doing very well in growing. And then GMC, which is a, you know, a very premium truck. So each of our four brands are very specific for what they mean to the customer. So we make sure when we're, we do a portfolio of vehicles or when we're doing, for instance,
25:54 Speaker 04 full-size trucks, that we understand what it needs to be, means to be a Chevy, means to be a GMC or a Cadillac. We look at all of that. And so it's really a cross-functional team working together to make sure we deliver on that. And then we do have regional, regional sales and marketing team that, you know, really understand the customer in each of our markets. So at a broad brush, at the most senior level, that's, I would say, the way the company is organized.
26:20 Speaker 03 So walk me through in a little more specificity. What you're describing, it sounds complex. So you have centralized product development. We're going to make a pickup truck. And then you have brand expressions of but one pickup truck. How do they decide what goes where? Is that, the brands themselves have teams that get to do it? Do they have their own designers? How does that work?
26:41 Speaker 04 Well, I would say, first of all, Sterling and I just came from design and we were looking at a platform that's going to have both a Cadillac and a Chevrolet. And, you know, so there's the brands in the studio, they have people dedicated to Chevrolet and then a different team that's dedicated to Cadillac. But then we also have product planning people that are looking at what is the technology roadmap? What, again, what features and functionality needs to be on that vehicle? How are we going to make sure that we achieve how we want to go to market from a price perspective? You know, getting back to that affordability or that true luxury? And so, but it's, it's done with people, for instance, the brand is managed for the globe as well.
27:26 Speaker 04 So it's not like a Chevy in South America has a total different team managing it than a Chevrolet in the United States or in another part of the world. So it, it's not really complex. It actually simplified it and we get what is so important in the auto industry is scale. Because once you have scale, that's how you get to give the customer more than they think they would get for a price point because we're leveraging General Motors scale. And I'm very proud that we sell more vehicles in this country than anyone else. We're extremely strong in South America. We have a great business in the Middle East. We still have a significant business in China. And leveraging that scale is one of the things that allows us to keep vehicles affordable or give people more functionality than they expect.
28:11 Speaker 03 That's actually one of the things I'm most interested in is there's the US market and sort of the markets that are related to the US market or have similar tastes and desires, similar brands competing. And then there's the Chinese market. And, you know, I watch a lot of car YouTube, for better or worse. And car YouTubers are increasingly saying, look at these Chinese EVs. They're better than the cars that we can get here. The United States protectionism is keeping us from having these cars. And then they go through all the quirks and features of the cars. And I think that's great because I really enjoy watching car YouTube. But I was in your seat, I'd say, oh, boy, the stuff we have to do to compete in China is radically different than the things we have to do to compete in the United States. How do you manage that split across this portfolio of brands?
28:52 Speaker 04 So our business for China, already, you have to use technology in China for China because that's the requirement in China. So already, there's a little bit of a fence around that. And there also, right now, is an incredible price war going on. There needs to be a sorting. You can't have over 100 different OEMs in a country trying to compete, especially now as they're competing on price. And I think if you read what's happening in country right now, there's a lot of change happening. I would also say there's overcapacity in China, which is causing, you know, I think, from a business perspective, exporting to other markets. But they're also doing it, in many cases, highly subsidized. So we are
29:35 Speaker 04 regularly benchmarking our Chinese competitors, like we do, global competitors, understanding where they're putting features, where they're not, what they're adding. But I would also say, we've got to meet the regulations in this country. The safety standards are different. There's different emission standards. And there's also standards and requirements around connectivity. Like I mentioned, for instance, autonomy in China is you need to use a system that's Chinese based because the country actually controls the maps. So there's also regulations or executive orders, I can't remember exactly, but there's rules we have to follow of what we're able to use in country. So there's already differences.
30:20 Speaker 04 So just to look, you know, at the, from a, what the offering is and not understanding what the rules of the different markets are going either way, I think is a, is a very big simplification. And I, I don't know, Sterling, if you have anything to add with what you saw at your time at Tesla or just even when you were at Aurora and understanding where, what markets you could compete.
30:41 Speaker 05 Yeah, a couple of quick things. As Mary said, as we benchmark across these vehicles, if we strip away the subsidies and the other support that the Chinese government is providing to many of these players, we compare favorably on most dimensions with our EVs. In particular, we've got, we've got some work that we're doing around a next generation electric vehicle and electric vehicle architecture that compares very favorably to what we see. So we, we do, I'm impressed by what they've done. I'll, I'll start with that. I think it's, I think we don't want to be resting on our laurels that way. I think there's more that we can be doing, but we're on it. We recognize very acutely kind of the, the, the speed at which an industry that is so
31:26 Speaker 05 heavily subsidized tends to move and we don't intend to wait for it.
31:30 Speaker 04 And I think, you know, Sterling makes a really great point. So we are regularly looking at how do we make every part of our, our business more efficient. We don't control what the government policies are. It's evident by what's changed this year. So we just need to have the best product that we have as efficiently as possible. And that's what we're focused on every day.
31:51 Speaker 03 We just had Ford CEO Jim Farley on the show. My friend Joanna Stern interviewed him as a, I was on leave, so she filled in for me. That was very nice of her to do. He is very clear that BYD makes a better car than Ford, right? He drove around in a BYD for a while and like publicly announced, like, this is better than our car. On our show, he said to Joanna, you know, we're going to have a better car for you when your Mach-E lease is done. It's going to be a better car. Don't lease it on a Mach-E. To do that, Ford had to set up an entire Skunk Works. That was the payoff of the structural change inside of Ford. We're going to take a bunch of people, we're going to put them aside, we're going to take them out of the Ford ecosystem, let them rethink the car from the ground up. They also announced a new architecture, they announced a new manufacturing process. That was notably led by a Tesla veteran at Ford.
32:36 Speaker 03 Sterling, you worked at Tesla as well, you're at GM now. Did you need to do anything similar inside of GM's culture to get to your new platform, your new ideas?
32:45 Speaker 05 Couple of quick comments. So I like Doug a lot. We worked together and I worked with Alan Clark, who's been leading the Skunk Works program for Ford. Both great people. So, so, nothing about that. What I will say is, I've seen a fairly oscillatory behavior from some OEMs when it comes to EVs, right? In one moment, it's a, we'll force an electric powertrain into an ICE platform and we'll end up with a fairly compromised product as a result, that turns people off to certain segments, right? Electric, battery electric trucks, there's some things that just aren't, weren't great about the way that that started in some of this space. And then I see a pendulum swing all the way to a, it's got to be Skunk Works project, it's going to be done, you know, fully independently from a clean sheet, and then we're going
33:30 Speaker 05 to somehow try to ingest it into the broader organization. That ingestion is where the risk lies. I think what I've seen that General Motors has been doing since before, I only got here four months ago, so there's only so much that you can attribute at all to me at this point. But what I'll say is, General Motors has taken a much more steady approach to this development. Electric vehicles designed and developed and manufactured on electric vehicle architectures, which are not nearly as compromised. A focus on the the cost basis for these vehicles, on what are the value-added components that we can put in them? And what are the things that just don't add that value that we can strip out and kind
34:15 Speaker 05 of refine? Whether it's reduction in menial stuff like spot welds, right? So some of our next-generation platforms, dramatic reduction in those. You'll never see those. You'll never hear about them. But they drive an enormous cost. I think at one point, the estimate was $40,000 per spot weld. If you advertise kind of all the costs of the robots and everything else across it. But to the battery chemistry and some of the battery innovations, I think you may be aware that we've been pioneering. We are today the largest manufacturer of cells in North America. This is larger than Tesla today. We have been pioneering work in lithium-manganese-rich, or LMR, battery chemistry that has something closer to the energy density of high nickel batteries that you're familiar with, at closer
34:59 Speaker 05 to the cost of lithium-ion phosphate, or LFP. So a lot of the, and those will come to market first in GM vehicles, in some of our larger vehicles in 2028. So what we've done is oriented the company in some of this kind of the functional strength that Mary references in common design, common engineering, to innovate on many of the foundational enablers of compelling battery-electric platforms done through the streamlined kind of process that we have for our global product development across the company. So my expectation is when this hits, as it hits, as LMR hits, as our architectures
35:41 Speaker 05 hit, as our manufacturing improvements hit, as some of our robotics work that we can talk about hits, what you'll see is those immediately kick in. And what's done initially in one model, in one plant, in one brand, rapidly scales across a massive portfolio of vehicles. So I think that the leverage that we realize by doing this, much, much higher than what we could do if it were an isolated effort. Nothing against isolated efforts. That's sometimes the thing that you do, you have to do to really move the needle on something. But I'm really impressed by what the company's been doing since well before I joined. But we're certainly moving that forward. And we can talk about some of the ways in some of our electric architecture, Mary referenced
36:24 Speaker 05 a little bit about what we're doing there around software-defined vehicles. But there's a lot of work to come. But Yeah, I guess the core story is I think we leverage our scale and we leverage our people best when we do this through a streamlined process that's part of the company.
36:40 Speaker 04 Our goal was let's get the right people in the right functions. And so we've brought in, from a software perspective, we've brought in a tremendous amount of talent from Silicon Valley, you know, big and small companies, the Mag7, etc. When we started to look at it and we said, okay, from a battery perspective, bringing in someone with Kirk Kelty, who has just, has worked his whole career in batteries, and then he came and went, oh, my gosh, you've got the capability to do not only core R and D, so when you have a promising startup, you can take that into one of our R and D centers and really see if it's going to scale and it's manufacturable, to actually being able to work on process improvements, because
37:24 Speaker 04 you need all of that to get the cost out of the battery to get EVs profitable. And then there's a lot of learnings that flows back in, you know, from a software perspective, it doesn't matter what the propulsion system is. And so our strategy has been to get the right and the best talent in and make them part of the team. And so, like you said, it's across the board.
37:43 Speaker 03 You're kind of describing really long-term bets, right? I mean, battery chemistry is one of those things where you start on the battery chemistry journey and hopefully it pays off. And that's a step change in the car. Autonomy is one of those things, I'm actually very curious, Mary, you described bringing in startups and seeing if they'll scale, right? That was Cruise, it didn't work out, but we're here to talk about hands, or eyes-free Super Cruise, and that bet paid off. So as you think about all of that...
38:08 Speaker 04 What I would say about Cruise is there's a tremendous amount of Cruise talent that's still here. As we looked at what it was going to take, I mean, I think everyone, I remember back in 2016, you know, I made the prediction we would have, you know, an autonomous vehicle by 19. It, you know, it really was a couple of years later that we had that. I think you've seen the whole industry, whether you're a tech company or an OEM, realize it's a pretty significant challenge. I think we're closer today. But as we made that change and as we continue to see progress, we looked at it and said, As we want to deploy capital, where do we want to do that? And do we really want to put all that capital into all the vehicles for Rideshare?
38:50 Speaker 04 When our business today isn't Rideshare 1.0, it's not taxis, it's not rental cars. And so, we made a strategic decision to focus that talent and to have them work closely with engineer and technical talent within General Motors to be able to focus and be in a leading position from personal autonomy. And that's what we're focused on now. And Sterling coming in, he's got great experience from knowing the car industry from his time at Tesla. And then, most recently, the only trucking company that has autonomous trucks on the road. Again, I think that represents somebody who brings in that expertise that I think is going to help us continue to be on the forefront and lead with these technologies.
39:35 Speaker 04 So, from a cruise perspective, we did pivot away from robo-taxi. But I would say there's a lot of core assets that we're attributing to our personal autonomy journey from an overall autonomy perspective.
39:50 Speaker 03 Let me ask you the other decoder question, and I want to put all this into practice against the announcements that you guys are making, because it all ties together. So, this is another decoder question I ask everybody. How do you make decisions? What's your framework for making decisions? You've obviously made a lot at GM. How do you organize that process?
40:06 Speaker 04 Well, I mean, a lot of the decisions we make are complex. And so, one of the things I like to leverage is the senior leadership team. There's nine people that are core to the company that lead all the functions. Sterling is on that team as our chief product officer, along with a few others. And we look at trends both inside and outside our industry. We look at what's happening with technology. We're very focused on where the consumer is. Of course, we benchmark where the competition is. But then, we also look and try to say, where is the consumer going? And I think there's been many times we have found white space in even vehicle segments. When we first put the Buick Encore out, no one thought, they were like, no one's going
40:51 Speaker 04 to buy it. That segment now has grown for us to four vehicles and is profitable and growing. And we can't build enough of those vehicles. And so, that's just one example. But it's really getting the team together and understanding. Where is the consumer going? Where is technology going? And then what is the roadmap we're going to put forward? I would also tell you, though, it used to be, I would say, five, seven years ago, we would put the portfolio together and usually it was an annual event. I would say it's a more frequent event now as we continue to take new learnings and make adjustments because the minute you have new information, you just don't want momentum to put a program forward. You want to pivot and make the change to make sure you're going to be relevant going forward.
41:36 Speaker 04 But I would say my decision making is largely based like, let's look at it as a team, different experiences, different skills, and I think together we get to better solutions and a better strategy.
41:51 Speaker 03 We need to take a quick break. We'll be right back.
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43:26 Speaker 03 We're back with GM CEO Mary Barra and Head of Product Sterling Anderson. So far, we've spent a lot of time asking Mary about the car industry's biggest problems and how she's reorienting the company, trying to solve them. But if you go look at the day-to-day conversations about GM EVs on the forums and subreddits, you'll see that they're dominated by one very important decision: the choice to ditch Apple CarPlay in Android Auto. GM has been very adamant about the decision to move on from phone projection in its EVs. And now, as Chief Product Officer, that's Sterling's decision to justify. So I wanted to hear it from him. Does he still feel good about moving on from CarPlay and Android Auto? And what's he building in the future that will make this entire debate irrelevant?
44:08 Speaker 03 The big announcement that I'm really curious about is Gemini powered assistant in the car. That's coming, obviously, in 2026. That's, I would say, an expansion of the idea that GM should have a software platform in its cars. Right? That we're running Android Automotive in the cars, there's an app platform, there's a data platform, there's Google Assistant in my car. My daughter was asking it to play Taylor Swift. That's basically all we use that platform for today, because she won't let us do anything else. But it works, it's there. The big decision there, and I know you know this question is coming, is that you bet against putting smartphone projection in your EVs. And there's no Apple CarPlay or Android Auto in the EVs, but the gas cars still have it. How did you make that decision?
44:48 Speaker 04 Well, I think it's really a question of timing as we look at that, because really, and I want to make sure that we get Sterling's input on this as well, but as we looked at it and as we made that decision, we were getting a lot of feedback from customers that it was very clunky moving back. It wasn't seamless, and frankly, in some cases, could be distracting to move back and forth between if you were doing something that you could do on a phone projection type of system versus if you needed to do something in the vehicle. And we also know that's only going to increase when you look at some of the things we're going to talk about of how we can just make your life better and assist you as we move forward. And I think we're at the very, very early stages of services we can have on a vehicle to improve.
45:33 Speaker 04 The overall customer experience and make the journey smoother. And so we looked at that and we decided that we needed to have a great system in the vehicle that allowed people to have one system and we're going to continue to make that better and add new features and Sterling.
45:52 Speaker 05 Yeah, I agree with that. Neil, one thing that I'd say here is what we're talking about is the inevitable performance degradation when jumping between S-curves. And what I'll describe as those S-curves is, you know, the first one was, you know, for some time, I think you and others got attached to phone projection applications largely because the in-vehicle HMI was pretty bad. The, you know, your opportunity for doing some of these things was better when you were using that. We've now gotten to a point where, I mean, you're driving a Vistix, I understand, I mean, you've got Dolby Surround Audio, you've got giant screens, you've got giant displays.
46:33 Speaker 05 The analog I would use here is we're on this new S-curve, there is inevitably a jump that has to happen for you to get over to it. That's uncomfortable for many, right? But frankly, it's a very Jobsian kind of approach to things, right? And the removal of the disk drive, nobody liked that. Everybody on the forums and Facebook was complaining about it. But it was really a, "Look, guys, flash storage really is the future. Get on board, you'll see that." That's kind of what we're saying here. That's exactly what we're saying. In fact, and the analog that I use for folks is, look, you've got, if you're talking to me about CarPlay, it's very likely you've certainly got an iPhone, you've probably got a MacBook. You have the opportunity to use phone projection on your MacBook, right? A phone mirroring application.
47:17 Speaker 05 How many of you are accessing online services like email, social media, and otherwise through the phone projection app in your laptop? Almost none of them do. Why? Because you've got a much larger screen on your laptop. You've got a much more convenient HMI via the keyboard. You've got better speakers. Now, now, take that same analog to the car and ask the same question. Is it in a car that has not only just laptop speakers, not only a laptop screen, but something better and that can move you and that can integrate with, you know, charging infrastructure, with Super Cruise availability on your maps, all of these other things. You're in a much more immersive environment that can do so many more things. Why would you use the equivalent of a phone mirroring application
48:01 Speaker 05 on a laptop in your car? And so for us, it's a, look, we're taking out the disk drive, guys. Get on board with flash stores. That's where, that's where the future is. It's kind of the analog.
48:12 Speaker 03 Okay, I have a number of responses for you.
48:13 Speaker 05 All right.
48:14 Speaker 03 I spent a lot of time hearing from our readers about this specifically.
48:17 Speaker 05 Sure.
48:17 Speaker 03 The first thing I will say is most people don't use the phone mirroring app on their laptops because it's not illegal to also use your phone while you're using your laptop. And it is very illegal to use your phone while you're driving your car. So that this is the first difference that most of our readers would point to. Right, that this, this thing where I need to see my phone and you access to all of the applications and data on my phone without relogging in or having multiple user profiles. It's fine with my laptop. It's fine with my iPad. It's not fine in the car. Because I, what I actually, and I've, I've, the one specific one that sticks in my brain about the library of applications is I'm actually not a huge CarPlay fan. And I complained about it on our other show. And I got this long note from a reader and he said, look,
49:00 Speaker 03 I use between six and eight audio applications on my three hour commute. And one of them is just this like very, I believe it was a very niche like Bible app. And he's like, they're never going to support this on these other platforms. It's on my phone and it has a CarPlay extension. And so that's one thing, right? I just want the library of content. Then there's Consumers being unable to affect what feels like business dealings at a much higher level. And the example I'll give you there is, yes, my car has Dolby Atmos in it. The number one provider of Atmos tracks in this industry is Apple Music. And Apple Music will not have an app on your phone because I'm confident that Apple wants you to have CarPlay and that is a business dealing that the consumer demand cannot affect.
49:41 Speaker 04 Well, I would say-
49:42 Speaker 03 And that's kind of the shape of the puzzle, right?
49:44 Speaker 04 Yeah. But Neelai, I would say we have a good relationship with Apple. I meet at the most senior level with both with Apple, with Google, with all of the tech companies. We're bringing the wallet. We will be announcing that shortly, that we'll have that and have the ability to do some of the vehicle functions through that. So we're having continual conversations with Apple and I would say we're talking about the opportunity and looking for win-wins. We also have a very good relationship with Google and we don't have enable Android Auto either. So I would say you're talking about a moment in time versus where the industry is heading
50:26 Speaker 04 from Adobe Atmos and the relationship that we have with Apple. So I wouldn't make some of the broad-based assumptions you're making.
50:34 Speaker 05 No. I think, yeah-
50:36 Speaker 03 Do you think I'm going to get the Apple Music app in my Cadillac?
50:39 Speaker 05 We don't have anything to share on that right now. But what I will say is there are, so your first comment really struck at the HMI, right? The ease of use. And do you have to log into each of these different services and applications in your car? Because if you do, you get some breakage. Some people just will never do that, right? It's a pain. We're looking at that as well, right? What can we do about federated IDs? What can we do to eliminate that friction of you engaging with your car? I'm not sure I quite follow the whole, like, it's illegal to use your phone when you're driving and not when you're on your laptop. I think that cuts against your argument a little bit because if you're sitting with your laptop and your phone-
51:20 Speaker 03 Well, I mean, like, if the cops see you looking at your phone while you're driving, you get pulled over. If the cops see you looking at your phone while you're using a laptop, I don't think they're going to-
51:28 Speaker 05 My point being, if you've got your phone in your laptop, or you've got your phone in your car, if you're sitting next to your laptop, you don't typically open your, pick up your phone to answer an email. You'll answer on your laptop. If you're sitting in your car, you wouldn't pick up your phone to use a map application if it's sitting there on a bigger screen in front of you in the car, right? And if you have a convenient HMI by which to
51:49 Speaker 03 Not wait, no, hold on, not to get too weedsy. But I know we have a lot of readers who have Windows laptops, for example.
51:55 Speaker 05 Okay.
51:56 Speaker 03 And they are constantly picking up their phone to use iMessage on their iPhones. Because that is not an experience that you can project.
52:01 Speaker 05 Correct.
52:01 Speaker 03 To Windows in a meaningful way.
52:03 Speaker 05 And that kind of gets to Mary's point, right? Which is, don't count out the expected, don't expect that we won't have a growing list. I mean, today, we use Google Automotive Services in these cars. That's got access to the Play Store, quite a few apps available through that. That will only grow in time, as will availability of apps from other places.
52:22 Speaker 04 And I think, you know, overarching, we want to give the consumer a great experience in the car that's not clunky, that allows them to, getting to this point of safety that one of your viewers talked about, that you can be the least distracted and pull even more information from the vehicle to improve the way, your whole experience overall. So, you know, we're at, I'd say, the early phase of making that shift and now continuing to add more to it, continuing to make it more intuitive. How do we make, you know, access to more apps and more things you want to leverage? So, we're excited about the future that we have coming for what's going to be available
53:06 Speaker 04 in the system we put into the vehicle.
53:10 Speaker 03 So let me ask you the second part of that question again. Because I think it's, again, we're talking so much about the future. And I understand the argument about the future you're making. But you still have the smartphone projection in the gas cars. Why is it still in the gas cars?
53:23 Speaker 04 Well, if you look at it, a lot of it depends is when do you do an update to that vehicle? When you look at the fact that we have over 40 models that we, you know, across our portfolio, you don't just do this and they all update. So, I think you'll see as we move forward with each new vehicle and major, you know, major new vehicle launch, I think you're going to see us consistent on that. We made a decision to prioritize our EV vehicles during this timeframe. And as we go forward, we'll continue across the portfolio.
53:54 Speaker 03 So we should expect new gas cars will not have smartphone production?
53:58 Speaker 04 As we get to a major rollout, I think that's the right expectation, yes.
54:03 Speaker 03 Let's talk about that next rollout. I'm very interested in the fact you're putting Gemini into cars. We obviously use Google Assistant in our car today. AI has often been described to me as a platform shift. And in particular, like, natural language interface has been described as a major kind of platform shift. And then maybe the way we write applications will change with MCP and these other technologies. But the platform shift is, you're going to talk to the computer, it's going to understand it, it's going to take some action for you. Are you feeling that way about the car, that AI, and particularly these assistants, will let you have a platform shift inside the car?
54:34 Speaker 05 Yeah, yeah, we are. So we're thinking about AI across the business, right? Not just in kind of what it does to the product experience, but what it does to our development of the product, what it does to kind of what we can do to bring, to bear the massive data that this company has in our production systems, in our CAD and development systems, to leverage in development of AI for production for the product. As it relates to the product, though, what I'll say is, this is one of the really important enablers of speed in a company with
55:14 Speaker 05 a portfolio this broad, is development of a common platform or undergirding infrastructure on which we can deploy, including over-the-air software updates. As Mary mentioned, there are some legacy platforms that will kind of work their way out of the portfolio. But one of the things we're working on in the software-defined vehicle space is a new electrical architecture that centralizes all compute in the vehicle. It doesn't just move the compute to zonal aggregators, it centralizes all of it. In the upper trims, it leads to about a 35x increase in the computational power of these vehicles. It allows for-
55:55 Speaker 03 This is the announcement, this is the 2028 Escalade IQ, right?
55:58 Speaker 05 It will arrive first on the 28 IQ. That's right. That's right. What it does is, from a networking's perspective, right, it moves to Ethernet-based networking, which allows us to move to sub-millisecond response times, right? Take magnetic suspension systems, dampers, as your example. From accelerometer through controller back to actuator, we're talking sub-one millisecond, right? You're talking 1,000 hertz, that's a 10x improvement over previous electrical architectures. It's a massive, massive opportunity, not only for the dynamics, which I've found General Motors is extraordinarily good at, but for the software that we can deploy on this.
56:40 Speaker 05 Because now we've got a centralized architecture, now we've got a central compute on which we can run a variety of applications, to which we can deploy updates to those applications at a much higher pace than what we do today. And so that flexibility that comes via abstraction of hardware and software with this new electric architecture is really going to be a powerful enabler for us going forward, and something that I'm excited about. So going forward, you know, your questions about why can I get some things on one car and not another, you're going to have far fewer of those, because you're going to have a lot more kind of commonality throughout the portfolio based on this platform that separates hardware from software.
57:20 Speaker 03 You keep calling HMI, it's Human Machine Interface, for people who are not total nerds like us. The idea, though, that you will be able to just speak, right? You'll be able to say, "Hey Gemini," and you'll just have some natural language conversation with the car. There's a lot of things you could do with that. There's also a lot of questions about how well that might work. Even today, as expressed in ChatGPT and Gemini itself, a lot of questions about how those things might fundamentally operate, what kinds of applications might we build, how reliable they be, how much hallucinate, how many hallucinations might we have. Is that going to be enabled by your new architecture too, or are you going to send all of that to the cloud?
57:56 Speaker 05 There are a number of things that we're going to infer directly on the vehicle, and we've got quite a bit of, as I mentioned, that the computational power is there for us to do a lot of on-vehicle inference.
58:08 Speaker 05 What I'll say, though, is step one, what you're referencing is that in the Gemini-based conversational AI work that we're going to release next year, that's really about vocal interaction, voice-based interaction with your car. It's about asking about your destination. It's about asking about a number of other things where it can give you kind of contextual responses. I think you're hitting at the heart of many elements of the car. If you're going to directly control them, they're safety critical. And how can you deal with the kind of accuracy that you get out of an untailored LLM if you're giving it direct access to those things? And the short answer is we're not. We are developing,
58:49 Speaker 05 in addition to the contextual AI that comes out next year, a more powerful, specifically tailored AI that will learn from not just your preferences and not just the data that you have available via a variety of other mechanisms, but it will be specifically tailored, customized, and learn from the vehicle itself, its functions. It will have specific access to specific functions. It will have other controls in place that a generic LLM doesn't have. So I think that the value of these large models oftentimes can be realized in much greater effect through tailoring and fine-tuning for specific application areas.
59:32 Speaker 05 And that's what we're going into post the Gemini conversational AI work.
59:36 Speaker 04 And the only thing I would add, at General Motors, we always prioritize safety. We were the first to have a driver assistance technology out with Super Cruise, but we very much prioritize the safety of that and enable different features as we were, we saw it demonstrate that it could meet the safety standards that we have. I think that's what Sterling's talking about now, is as we do this, we won't just go wide open, but we'll make sure that the integrity of the safety systems are there.
1:00:05 Speaker 05 If it's controlling a temporally sensitive or safety-relevant function, it will happen locally.
1:00:13 Speaker 03 One of the reasons I'm asking about that very specifically is I'm watching your partner, Google. I'm watching Amazon. I'm watching Apple. They control a lot of that stack, right? They control the LLMs, they control the inference, they control the smart home platforms, and they have not been able to connect those assistants in the way that you're describing, right? Alexa Plus exists, and it has to fall back on some complicated deterministic system to flip lights up and down, and they have to do some orchestration. Google Home, they're doing the same thing over there. Gemini is rolling out, and it has to fall back, and I... It's working however it works. Apple has not been able to ship this product, which they have promised people. But I say, "Hey, Google, turn off the lights." By the way, my Google's going to turn off the lights, so I shouldn't say that. But if I ask my assistant
1:00:57 Speaker 03 here to turn off the lights, and it doesn't happen, maybe the worst outcome is my wife is once again annoyed at me for trying to voice activate our home, right? If I get that wrong in the car, like many other things can go wrong.
1:01:08 Speaker 05 That's right. That's right, 100%. This is something that we are very keyed on, right? Whether it's the development of our self-driving system, where we are acutely familiar with and aware of the challenges that arise when you have a kind of monolithic end-to-end system about which you can't make any strong guarantees, to other controls across the car that are safety relevant. So, as I said, we are... I mean, that's probably a much longer conversation than we have time for here, but this becomes architecturally relevant in the design of our self-driving system. It's architecturally relevant in the design of the rest of our AI and how it interfaces with vehicle controls, and we are taking that very carefully.
1:01:53 Speaker 04 And we have a safety group within the company that really looks at that and is looking at all those decisions are made, because they can think through second order, third order, you know, down the road, really thinking through to make sure that we've interrogated it, to make sure we're making good decisions, and we're not going to put the driver or the passengers into a situation that no one wants to be in.
1:02:14 Speaker 03 I actually have a call in question from Joanna Stern. She let me do a call in question on her episode. And it tracks here, so I'm gonna, I'm gonna play this for you from Joanna.
1:02:23 Speaker 07 Hi, Mary, it's Joanna Stern here. As you may have heard, my lease on my Ford Mach-E is up in August 2026. If I buy a Chevy Equinox when the lease is up, will I be able to chat with Gemini in the car?
1:02:37 Speaker 03 So what she's asking is if she buys one with Google Assistant in it today, will that get upgraded to Gemini?
1:02:44 Speaker 04 I don't, I personally don't know the exact rollout plan, so I say, let me, let me get, email me and I'll, we can talk to you about that of what, I don't know what our rollout is, and I don't know what we've released yet. This isn't one of those situations, so I don't know, certainly if you know, but I know we haven't made it public yet, so we'll get back to you.
1:03:02 Speaker 03 Yeah, I'm very curious. I mean, I obviously want the upgrade in my car as well. So when I was, when we were discussing the call in, I was like, you should ask that, because she is very much in the market for a new car. So if you can sell her one, because she likes talking to ChatGPT in the car. This is my other question. Why pick Gemini? When you evaluate all the universal partners, obviously ChatGPT, OpenAI, huge consumer market share, Google obviously is very capable, you already have the partnership. Was it as simple as we already have the partnership? Or did you do the full evaluation?
1:03:28 Speaker 04 I think the team, I know the team did the full evaluation. And as we looked at what, what we needed to do, clearly they've been a good partner to us, but it was a full evaluation.
1:03:38 Speaker 03 When you think about the, the long term future, right? You're also announcing a robotics division, you're announcing batteries in the home, you're announcing eyes free driving, what, level three autonomy in the 28 Escalade. That's a big shape of how we will interact with cars, right? You're gonna get to the house, your car will be part of your energy system in your house. You'll have robotics that will let you take the technologies you're building for autonomy and AI in the car and put them in your house. That's a pretty tight integration of how people feel about their cars today and how people feel about the things in their home. And somewhere in there is what is the next generation of devices? Right? This is like the big question that's animating the tech industry around me. How are we going to graduate from our phones? You've obviously made a big bet, right?
1:04:23 Speaker 03 We're going to graduate from our phones in a car and the car is going to be a big part of that platform. But then you got to go in the house and there's going to be a GM robot? There's going to be a GM power supply? How are you thinking about that extension as the rest of the industry grapples with what happens after the phone?
1:04:38 Speaker 04 Well, we already have, you know, quite an extensive offering from a GM energy perspective. And then the ability that your, you know, your vehicle can actually power your home and power out of this. So that's something we're continuing to work to make that vehicle work even harder for the owner. Beyond, when we talk about robotics, there's a lot that, that's a broad term and I'm sitting here speaking to someone who has his PhD in robotics, so I probably should turn it over to him. But, you know, when we look at, you know, what we're doing on the factory floor with a cobot that is able to take over and do things that create safety issues for our team members or create ergonomics issues or get rid of what, you know, non-value-added
1:05:21 Speaker 04 activities that makes everyone more efficient. But that learning and what we're doing, I think, is something that we can look at for broader application. But I would say, you know, start when we look at it from that perspective and we already look at what we're doing from a GM energy perspective for the home. I think there's a lot of, lot of potential as we move forward. And Sterling, what would you like to add?
1:05:45 Speaker 05 Yeah. The only thing I'll add is we are focused on growth areas that are both tangential to and kind of synergistic with our core business. When you say batteries and energy storage, we've recently announced a partnership with Redwood Materials, for instance, where our second life batteries are currently powering the largest second-use energy storage system in the world, the largest microgrid in North America in Sparks, Nevada, at 63 megawatt hours, I think, I remember that being. So there's tremendous opportunity there. When we talk about kind of grid rebalancing, particularly as we move into LMR, which has
1:06:27 Speaker 05 much higher cycle life, we get into a world where By parking your car, by plugging your car in when it's at home or your place of work, your car can be an active participant in the rebalancing of the grid, right? Pulling power from in lulls and putting, pushing power to in at peak times. This is an enormous opportunity for the industry, it's an enormous opportunity for kind of, I mean, energy is going to be a very constrained resource. If the last several months of discussion in the AI space has taught us nothing. I mean, we're talking about a triple of kind of the capacity needed online. We can play a pretty big role in that.
1:07:09 Speaker 05 As the largest cell manufacturer in the United States, there's a lot we can be doing there. In robotics, I'll just kind of paint the picture for a moment, particularly in a world of learned models, right? Which is effectively where AI is taking us. Data is really important, right? And the quantity of data, the cleanliness of that data, the availability of that data in training systems that can take on more tasks than what they've ever done before. Look at a business like General Motors and you see a product, each of whose parts is known in detail. It's sitting in CAD, we know the mass, we know the materials, we know the response to manipulation.
1:07:54 Speaker 05 We know the flows of that material through a production system. We know what happens at each step of the production system. Every single step is meticulously outlined in work instructions. That is an enormous kind of database from which to develop really competent physical AI systems, right? Embodied AI systems that can be powerful enablers both of our own production and the safety of our employees. So today, we got, I think, 30,000 robots operating alongside on the order of 97,000 production associates in 11 facilities. You think of automotive robots and you're probably thinking of giant arms that sit in cages with e-stops on the outside that can't operate in and around humans because
1:08:39 Speaker 05 they're simply not designed for it. We're developing autonomous mobile robots that move materials through our factories. We've started deploying those. We're developing cobots or collaborative robotic systems that can operate alongside associates that are currently in our factories and are scaling up that can, for instance, manipulate and bring a part to the line to hand it to a kind of worker, hold it in place for that worker to shoot the bolts. So there's tremendous opportunity for us to build that not only for our own use and improves the safety, the efficiency, the throughput of our own business, but to expand that to our supply base, to increase our competitive moat, and then ultimately to productize
1:09:20 Speaker 05 it and commercialize it for others in the kind of industrial automation space.
1:09:25 Speaker 03 At least in my head, it is a small jump from we have an AI-enabled robot that can bring a factory worker bolts to I have a robot at my house that can bring me a beer, right? Like, the kind of manipulation you're describing actually has a pretty massive general purpose application. Are you thinking that far ahead?
1:09:42 Speaker 04 Well, I would say we think of a lot of things. I mean, one of the things that General Motors were constantly innovating, as I mentioned, we were just in design and looking at, you know, what the future holds of what we can bring forward. I think we continue to imagine what the application, our applications can be, but we're not making any commitments or announcements today, but, you know, we do. We recognize, as Sterling said, the amount of information that we have and the very complex work that is done today in our factories and what we can do to better support our team members. So I think there's a whole new world that, you know, is in front of us and opportunity for us as we move forward.
1:10:25 Speaker 03 You've described a lot of things that a lot of other companies are doing. Obviously Tesla does a lot of these same things. They've pushed really far ahead with what they refer to as full self-driving. They're demoing Optimus, however well Optimus works or does not work, unknown. The difference in culture is stark, right? I can just identify the difference in culture. They are less worried about safety. Elon Musk is less worried about the safety of full self-driving than GM, than Mary is about supercruise on the highways, right? It's just obvious. They're less worried about making promises that they might not be able to keep with Optimus. In many ways, this is to GM's credit. I think you should hope more car companies are worried about safety. But in many ways, it has contributed to the perception that Tesla is vastly ahead. Do you think about that balance?
1:11:09 Speaker 03 Because that is, if I had to just identify the cultural difference, and Sterling, I'm curious, since you've worked at both places, if I had to just identify the cultural difference, that would be it.
1:11:19 Speaker 04 Well, I would say I've been at this company for over 40 years and it's existed for well over 100. And I would say safety is an overriding priority. Safety of our workforce, you know, not just for injury, but also preventative from an ergonomic perspective. We are committed to, and we're very proud that we have an industry-leading record. And it translates into safety of our vehicles. And I probably get three or four letters a week from someone sending me a picture of them, and they'll send me a picture of the vehicle that is somewhat unrecognizable. And I can tell you, many of them, they walked away with just a scratch.
1:12:02 Speaker 04 I've had letters sent to me from people in a hospital bed thanking me and say, "I will be buying a General Motors vehicle for the rest of my life because I know what you do in design into safety." And so, and we have the highest loyalty scores from a manufacturer perspective or from a car company perspective for our consumers. So I think safety is not just a kind of a cultural perspective, it is a commitment to our customer. Now, as we look and we go forward, how do we deliver that safety and how do we do it more efficiently? We're always looking for ways that we can be better. But I think it's a very important of the promise. And if you read half of the letters that I get from our consumers and you look and
1:12:45 Speaker 04 see what they walked away from, I think it would be something that motivates you every day to continue to deliver on that promise.
1:12:55 Speaker 03 Do you ever perceive that it's holding you back?
1:12:57 Speaker 04 No, I perceive it as serving the customer. Now, and so we'll look at, you know, decisions we're making. But also, we have a very, we have a, you know, we all have a regulator with NHTSA. But we look at that and we are very forthright and transparent because we want them to know what we're working on, what we're looking at. And, and again, they're our regulator, but I think having that so they understand how we look at safety for the long term is going to pay dividends, and I think it's going to pay dividends for the consumer. So I don't think it holds us back. I think it keeps us focused on what's really important.
1:13:40 Speaker 04 Time will tell, but I, you know, again, I'm proud of our safety record and I'm proud of what our customers say. And you, you've seen it, you see it from a different perspective, so please.
1:13:49 Speaker 05 Yeah, Neelai, if, if the stereotypical view that I think has been expressed of, you know, a traditional automaker, super focused on safety, might suggest we are sitting still and just putting out vehicles with great airbags, seat belts and crumple zones, right? Like, and we're good with that. I think the reality is far different for GM. Our customers have driven over 700 million hands-free miles with Super Cruise without a single accident attributed to the technology. Right? I led autopilot.
1:14:25 Speaker 05 You can't say that for autopilot.
1:14:28 Speaker 05 I think the, this is, this is a long-term play. Right? We build trust with customers by delivering safe products. Look at, in the autonomy space, look at every company that's had a major incident that could be attributed to that company. How'd it go for them afterwards? All right? They might have gotten there quicker, but it didn't go well, once the public lost trust. We, we have earned that. We will retain it and we're going to build on it. And so the work that we're doing in, whether it be at autonomy, be it robotics, be it a number of other areas. We, I think this caricature of a traditional OEM doesn't fit.
1:15:12 Speaker 05 This caricature of, you know, bubble wrapped vehicles that aren't innovating, it just doesn't work, right? The, the, the number of bets that we're making, that Mary's made, I mean, Mary years ago, when I was in the autonomy space, I watched her make the investment in Cruise. I watched her kind of lead that to a place where Cruise was, you know, the first to deploy commercially in a densely urban setting. There's, I, I think the, the, the reality of what GM has done simply doesn't match the caricature.
1:15:42 Speaker 03 All right, I have one very, very small feature request, but it's very important to me.
1:15:46 Speaker 05 All right.
1:15:47 Speaker 03 The buttons that control the seat memory on the door in my Cadillac Vistak do not also switch the user profiles on the infotainment system. So to get in the car, I need to push the button to move my seat to my seat memory and switch the profile from my wife's profile to my profile. And I have no idea why I have to do both. I just want to be able to push the seat memory button and have that switch the profile as well. Can you fix that for me?
1:16:11 Speaker 05 I'm going to take a quick look. That, that can't be hard. Let me take a quick look.
1:16:17 Speaker 03 If you read the forums, I will tell you, that is the basic shape of the response to this problem is that can't be hard.
1:16:23 Speaker 05 It can't possibly be. Let me, let me take a look. These are different, different systems.
1:16:29 Speaker 04 And also what it would take to do it.
1:16:30 Speaker 03 Yeah.
1:16:31 Speaker 04 We'll look at both. We're, we are open to customer feedback and we love the fact that you're driving a Vistak.
1:16:38 Speaker 03 Oh, you will come to regret it as I have more and more feature requests the next time you're back on the show. Mary Sterling, thank you much for being on Decoder. I'm excited to have you back again soon.
1:16:46 Speaker 05 All right. Thanks.
1:16:50 Speaker 03 I'd like to thank Mary Barra and Sterling Anderson for taking the time to join me on Decoder and thank you for listening. I hope you enjoyed it. If you'd like to let us know what you thought about this episode, or really anything else at all, you can drop us a line. Email us at [email protected] . We really do read all the emails. Or hit me up directly on Threads or Blue Sky. We also have a TikTok, an Instagram, and now a YouTube channel for all these interviews. Check them all out at DecoderPod. They're a lot of fun. If you like Decoder, please share it with your friends and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. Also, good news, paid subscribers to The Verge can now listen to Decoder, Version History, and The Vergecast completely ad-free. Just head to your account settings page to opt-in to start listening without ads. If you're not a member of The Verge yet, you can sign up at theverge.com/subscribe to get ad-free podcasts plus other perks like exclusive newsletters and unlimited access to everything we publish.
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