JAKARTA - General Motors (GM) CEO, Mary Barra, gave her views on the current development of autonomous vehicles, the vehicle market in China, and Tesla's company's competitors. This view was raised before the company's investors on Friday, June 2.
According to Barra's predictions, self-driving cars will be present in the market before the end of this decade. That's why he said, a profitable future is in autonomous vehicles. Barra expressed confidence in "very large growth opportunities" in the GM Cruise autonomous vehicle unit.
As reported by Reuters on June 2, Barra estimates that Cruise could generate an annual revenue of US$50 billion by 2030. The target is assumed to be the deployment of Cruise technology and services outside the United States, with Dubai and Japan as one of the future markets. Barra also mentioned an expansion is needed into autonomous goods and private vehicles.
Currently, GM itself suffered a loss of $2 billion per year on Cruise. Its competitors, such as Ford Motor Co and Volkswagen AG, have also stopped their autonomous vehicle development efforts due to losses.
GM has developed Cruise this year to markets outside San Francisco, including in cities in Arizona and Texas. Barra said that the state has a more friendly regulatory environment for self-driving vehicles.
However, GM is facing regulatory constraints in Washington, where they have struggled for more than six years to obtain permission to launch a large fleet of specially designed self-driving vehicles. GM has petitioned the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) for the deployment of 2,500 of their vehicles, which have doors such as subways and without steering wheels. However, NHTSA has not yet responded to the request.
For the Chinese market, Barra believes that GM's company is moving too slowly in launching electric vehicles in China. He said that the launches of Chevrolet and Cadillac EV in China in the next 18 months will be very important to rebuild market share.
As for competition with other electric vehicle manufacturers, Barra admits that Tesla Inc is leading the lead in EV technology, profitability, and scale, but says that the advantage is not permanent. In addition, according to him, the cost of electric vehicle batteries is still too high to build profitable mass electric vehicles, which can be sold at affordable prices.
However, he estimates that by the end of the decade, or maybe a little longer, the price of electric vehicles with combustion engines will match each other.
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