General Motors put $888 million into a V-8 engine plant for trucks and SUVs, and the next day its chief executive told a conference the company still believes in an all-electric future. Mary Barra spoke at the Wall Street Journal’s Future of Everything event on May 28, 2025.
“We have more EVs in the market right now than anyone else in this country,” Barra said. “I see a path to all electric vehicles. It depends on getting the infrastructure ready, but I think we’ll get there because electric vehicles are better.” She said the engine money fits GM’s aim of improving fuel efficiency and giving customers more choice.
A softer timeline
In 2021, Barra said GM planned to phase out gas and diesel engines and go all electric by 2035. In 2024 she began backing away from that date, saying the company lacked the production capacity and that the shift would play out over decades.
At the conference she defended GM’s support for a Senate vote the week before to end California’s EV mandate. “I’ve been saying for a couple of years now that I thought the regulatory environment was getting in front of the customer,” she said. By her numbers, 37% of new vehicle sales would need to be electric to meet the mandate. In April the national average was 7%.
Tariffs and China
GM had said earlier that month it expected a $4 billion to $5 billion hit from the tariffs President Donald Trump imposed in April. Barra would not say whether the company would pass those costs to buyers, describing vehicle prices as “very dynamic.” About half of GM’s vehicles are built in North America and comply with the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement, which keeps them out of the 25% tariff on many other imports from Mexico and Canada. She said she talks regularly with Trump and administration officials.
“Tariffs is one tool the administration can use to level the playing field,” Barra said. She also pointed to Chinese electric car makers selling high-tech cars abroad at prices far below what Americans pay. “We can’t let ourselves fall behind,” she said.
The 2022 pitch
Her tone three years earlier was more aggressive. Talking to “CBS Mornings” in January 2022, Barra said: “We want to lead in EVs. Full stop.” GM was spending nearly $7 billion in Michigan on a new battery plant and a factory overhaul for electric trucks, which the company said would create 4,000 jobs, and planned $35 billion in total spending by 2025.
Tesla then held nearly 70% of US EV sales against GM’s roughly 6%. A recall of every Chevy Bolt and Bolt EUV over battery fire concerns, plus a chip shortage, left GM with just 26 EV sales in the fourth quarter of 2021. “We did the right thing,” Barra said of the recall.
Sources
- CEO Mary Barra says GM "aggressively moving" on electric vehicles, says automaker could top Tesla
- GM CEO says company is committed to all-electric future
