The writer, a Los Angeles freelancer and former Detroit News business reporter, writes a blog, Starkman Approved.
By Eric Starkman
Let’s hope U.S. auto writers don’t fatally choke on the free-range egg splattered across their collective faces.
For more than three years, mainstream and trade auto journalists have promoted the false narrative that GM CEO Mary Barra is a “transformative” environmental leader boldly disrupting a complacent auto industry and championing the adoption of electric vehicles. Fortune last year named Barra America’s most powerful female business leader, citing her EV credentials, and the year before, ranked her alongside Elon Musk as one of the auto industry’s top disruptors.
InsideEVs even named Barra its 2024 Person of the Year.
“Under Barra’s leadership, GM executed an electric turnaround that may be taught in business schools someday,” gushed editor Patrick George. “That took some doing, and it’s why she is the InsideEVs Breakthrough Awards’ Person of the Year for 2024.”
Barra’s leadership may indeed be studied in business schools—but likely as a cautionary tale. Her story is one of chasing prevailing political winds and making strategic pivots based on short-term optics, all while relying on the expectation that U.S. taxpayers will endlessly subsidize GM’s operations, including its faltering EV ambitions.
After Joe Biden—whom Politico reported had a close relationship with Barra—was elected, Barra styled herself as an EV evangelist. She pledged to make GM an all-electric manufacturer by 2035 and embraced Biden’s climate agenda.
“As Chairman and CEO of General Motors, I now have a unique opportunity—and responsibility—to use my engineering mindset to help make the world a better place on a much larger scale,” she said. “At General Motors, we have a vision of zero crashes, zero emissions, zero congestion. It is our north star that guides everything we do.”
Falling Short
Barra’s results have so far fallen far short of her stated goals and objectives.
Barra famously predicted GM would outsell Tesla in EVs by the end of 2025. In the first quarter of this year, Tesla sold 336,681 EVs, while GM moved just 31,886. Even though GM’s EV sales nearly doubled, they still made up just 5% of the company’s total U.S. volume—well below the national average of 7% for EVs overall.
Tesla Cyber truck
In California, the most EV-friendly state in the country, GM’s performance has been especially dismal. Even the Tesla Cybertruck—dismissed by the media as a commercial failure—outsold most of GM’s electric offerings in Q1. The one exception: the Equinox EV, which qualifies for generous U.S. tax credits despite being manufactured in Mexico, and beginning in 2025, with key parts sourced from Mexico and South Korea.
Now, in what amounts to a tacit admission of failure, Barra appears to have shifted course again—this time siding with the Trump administration’s efforts to weaken California’s aggressive EV mandates.
According to the Wall Street Journal, GM urged thousands of its white-collar employees in Michigan to contact U.S. senators in support of legislation that would overturn California’s landmark rule banning the sale of new gas-powered vehicles by 2035—a mandate since adopted by 11 other states.
“We need your help!” read the GM email. “Emissions standards that are not aligned with market realities pose a serious threat to our business by undermining consumer choice and vehicle affordability.”
A GM spokeswoman, who the Journal unfortunately didn’t identify, said GM wants to protect “consumer choice.” That’s comical, given that five years ago, Barra pledged to eliminate gas-powered options entirely by 2035.
This isn’t Barra’s first alignment with a Trump-era environmental rollback.
In 2019, the Trump administration moved to revoke California’s long-standing authority under the Clean Air Act to set its own stricter emissions standards—a power the state had exercised for decades to accelerate clean vehicle adoption. Rather than standing with California and other environmentally forward states, GM backed the Trump administration, joining a coalition supporting efforts to weaken federal fuel economy rules and undercut California’s regulatory independence.
By contrast, Ford, Honda, BMW, and Volkswagen signed a voluntary agreement with California to meet tougher emissions targets. GM’s position sparked swift backlash from Democratic lawmakers and environmental advocates, who rightly accused Barra of hypocrisy.
When President Biden took office, Barra reversed course again—rebranding herself as a climate ally. Just months after Biden assumed command, Barra announced a $1 billion investment to convert GM’s Ramos Arizpe plant in Mexico for electric vehicle production. The move infuriated the United Auto Workers, who saw it as a betrayal of American labor.
“At a time when General Motors is asking for a significant investment by the U.S. government in subsidizing electric vehicles, this is a slap in the face for not only UAW members and their families but also for U.S. taxpayers and the American workforce,” former UAW Vice President Terry Dittes said in response. “GM automobiles made in Mexico are sold in the United States and should be made right here, employing American workers. That is why our nation is investing in these companies. Taxpayer money should not go to companies that utilize labor outside the U.S. while benefiting from American government subsidies. This is not the America any of us signed on for. Frankly, it is unseemly.”
Trump's Tariffs
Even more unseemly: Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act, which extended generous tax breaks to EVs built in Mexico—including the Equinox EV, Blazer EV, and Cadillac Optiq. If not for Trump-era tariffs, Barra likely would have shifted even more EV production to Mexico, where GM is the country’s largest automaker.
Barra’s latest pivot is no surprise. GM last fall abandoned its self-imposed goal of building 400,000 EVs by mid-2024 and has twice delayed the reopening of its Lake Orion plant, which was slated to produce the electric Silverado. The company also pushed back the launch of a new Buick plug-in hybrid.
Notably, nearly half of GM’s Buick dealers took buyouts in 2023 rather than invest in the infrastructure needed to sell and service EVs—suggesting they may have had a better read on consumer demand than Barra herself.
Still, GM’s latest retreat from its electrification targets hasn’t sparked any humility within its leadership ranks.
Last week, Dave Richardson, a former Apple executive who now oversees software at GM, told reporters the company is working on a breakthrough called “mechatronics”—a system that integrates mechanical, electrical, and computing systems in vehicles. Tesla has been deploying this type of technology for more than a decade.
Given Richardson’s background, one might assume that integrating GM’s vehicle apps with the Apple Watch would be an easy win. Yet the project has been suspended because of glitches -- while Tesla rolled out seamless Apple Watch integration last December.
Kurt Kelty (GM photo)
Meanwhile, GM claims to have made a significant advancement in battery technology with its lithium manganese-rich (LMR) chemistry, which reportedly offers 30% greater energy density at the same production cost and helps reduce reliance on Chinese intellectual property.
“LMR will complement our high-nickel and iron-phosphate solutions to expand customer choice in the truck and full-size SUV markets,” said Kurt Kelty, GM’s vice president of battery, propulsion, and sustainability. He added that the new chemistry would “advance American battery innovation and create jobs well into the future.”
Silicon Valley Hotshots
Kelty, formerly of Tesla and Panasonic, and Richardson are among several Silicon Valley hotshots recruited by Barra to help recast GM as a tech-forward company. Yet while GM’s top tech leadership is based in California, Barra insists the company’s headquarters remains in Detroit—even though CNBC recently reported that President Mark Reuss’s office is located at the Warren Tech Center.
Every media interview I’ve read with Barra the reporter noted that it was conducted at GM’s Tech Center.
Richardson and Kelty have been with GM for less than two years. Time will tell whether they stick around. Notably, Barra last year trumpeted the hiring of JP Clausen, another ex-Tesla executive, to lead GM’s global manufacturing.
“JP’s unique expertise in global manufacturing innovation, engineering, and operations will accelerate our ability to deliver on our vision for GM with the highest quality vehicles for our customers,” Barra said in a press release.
Clausen recently disclosed on LinkedIn that he had left GM, citing that the decision “makes sense for me and my family right now.”
