

Investor's Corner
General Motors emphasizing faster electric vehicle launches after positive 2021 earnings
General Motors (NYSE: GM) is gearing up for a major shift in 2022 thanks to its evolving electric vehicle program, planning for record profit levels that could surge the company into a more well-rounded placement in an increasingly competitive sector. The automaker is preparing for faster vehicle launches, according to CEO Mary Barra, who said more models would come to the market at a quicker pace. GM reported its Earnings for Q4 and its guidance for 2022 last night, sharing expansive details for the coming years, including new models, production plans and start dates, and more information regarding GM’s Cruise investment.
In general terms, General Motors reported a strong Q4 and Full Year 2021 in terms of financials. GM’s 2021 full-year earnings included a net income of $10.019 billion, a net income margin of 7.9 percent, and revenue of over $127 billion, a $4.5 billion increase from 2020. For Q4, GM had a weaker quarter than it did in the same period in 2020. The company reported $33.584 billion in revenue for Q4 ’21, which is nearly $4 billion less than Q4 ’20. Net income also decreased, but the full-year figures and profits undoubtedly outshine the losses for the quarter.
“For the full year, we generated $127 billion in revenue, $14.3 billion in EBIT-adjusted, 11.3% EBIT-adjusted margin, $7.07 in EPS diluted adjusted, and $2.6 billion in adjusted automotive free cash flow,” GM CFO Paul Jacobson said. “In the fourth quarter, we generated $34 billion in revenue, $2.8 billion in EBIT-adjusted, 8.5% EBIT-adjusted margin, $1.35 in EPS diluted adjusted, and $6.4 billion in adjusted automotive free cash flow. Free cash flow in the quarter was largely driven by working capital rewind as we were able to complete and wholesale over 80,000 vehicles that had previously been built without certain components, as well as dividends from GM Financial.”
GM’s Earnings Call was the highlight of the evening as it shed new light on the automaker’s planned expansion of its electric vehicle lineup. “We also recognize that we need to launch more EVs faster,” CEO Mary Barra said during the call. GM plans to launch deliveries of the Cadillac LYRIQ in “less than 60 days.” The LYRIQ will join the GMC Hummer EV, which recently started deliveries, as GM’s two newest electric vehicles for consumer use. In the commercial sector, GM said that production of the BrightDrop EV600 will begin late this year at the company’s CAMI Assembly Plant in Ontario, Canada. The automaker said that the site currently has a production capacity of 30,000 vehicles and should be doubled by mid-decade.
GMC Hummer EV sports its massive size alongside full-size SUV
GM said that the Silverado, Equinox, and Blazer EVs will all begin deliveries in 2023. The three vehicles will contribute to GM’s plan to deliver 400,000 EVs in North America in 2022 and 2023. These plans are supplemented by battery cell and assembly capacity investments in Michigan, which were recently announced. These new facilities “will give [GM] more than 1 million units of EV capacity in North America by the end of 2025, and this includes 600,000 full-size trucks,” Barra added.
Interestingly, Barra held high regard for Cruise, a fully-autonomous ride-sharing company with investors such as GM, Honda, Softbank, Microsoft, and Walmart. Barra said that riding in a Cruise vehicle a couple of weeks ago was “the highlight of my career as an engineer and as the leader of General Motors.”
“It’s like having an experienced and attentive driver behind the wheel,” Barra said. “Now, as Cruise announced this morning, it is inviting members of the public to sign up for their own driverless rides through a waitlist on the Cruise website. This is the first truly driverless ride-hail service offered to members of the public in a dense urban environment. To maximize its learnings, Cruise will prioritize use cases that are a natural fit for autonomous ride-sharing.”
Barra believes that the first paid rides for Cruise could generate $50 billion by the end of the 2020s.
Semiconductor Forecast
“We saw improved semiconductor availability in the fourth quarter compared to the third quarter, which enabled us to increase our wholesale sequentially while substantially reducing our inventory of vehicles built without certain components,” Jacobson added. GM expects semiconductor availability to improve throughout 2022, reporting that the company has seen stabilization in the semiconductor environment. This leads GM to believe that it can reach a “normalized run rate toward the beginning of the third quarter [2022] with a target of around 800,000 units in North America on a quarterly basis.” This figure includes GM’s combustion engine vehicles.
Questions from Deutsche Bank analyst Emmanuel Rosner prompted Barra and other GM executives to give more information regarding their opinions of the semiconductor shortage and when it could begin to subside. Barra believes that, by the time Q3 and Q4 2022 roll around, “we’re going to be really starting to see the semiconductor constraints diminish.”
Analyst synopsis
GM’s Earnings Call was strong, giving investors more to be excited about in the way of its EV project and ability to avoid semiconductor issues. “We are big believers in the GM EV strategy as it’s all about converting 10%-15% of its customers to EVs by 2025 with 30 new EV models,” Wedbush analyst Dan Ives told us. “There are clear challenges, however, with massive resources dedicated towards EVs, we view this as the right move at the right time for Barra & Co.” In terms of keeping up with competitors, namely industry leader Tesla, Ives believes battery tech and GM’s exclusive Ultium platform is the roadmap to success for the Detroit company. “Ultium is the foundational piece of GM’s battery strategy and key to keep up in this EV arms race with Tesla leading the charge,” Ives added.
Ives has a “Buy” rating on GM stock with an $85 price target. Ives is ranked 59 out of 7,776 analysts on TipRanks.
GM shares were down 3.43 percent at the time of writing, trading at $52.22 per share.
Disclosure: Joey Klender is not a GM Shareholder.
I’d love to hear from you! If you have any comments, concerns, or questions, please email me at joey@teslarati.com. You can also reach me on Twitter @KlenderJoey, or if you have news tips, you can email us at tips@teslarati.com.
Quotes provided by the Motley Fool.
Investor's Corner
Tesla Board member and Airbnb co-founder loads up on TSLA ahead of robotaxi launch
Tesla CEO Elon Musk gave a nod of appreciation for the Tesla Board member’s purchase.

Tesla Board member and Airbnb Co-Founder Joe Gebbia has loaded up on TSLA stock (NASDAQ:TSLA). The Board member’s purchase comes just over a month before Tesla is expected to launch an initial robotaxi service in Austin, Texas.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk gave a nod of appreciation for the Tesla Board member in a post on social media.
The TSLA Purchase
As could be seen in a Form 4 submitted to the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on Monday, Gebbia purchased about $1.02 million worth of TSLA stock. This was comprised of 4,000 TSLA shares at an average price of $256.308 per share.
Interestingly enough, Gebbia’s purchase represents the first time an insider has purchased TSLA stock in about five years. CEO Elon Musk, in response to a post on social media platform X about the Tesla Board member’s TSLA purchase, gave a nod of appreciation for Gebbia. “Joe rocks,” Musk wrote in his post on X.
Gebbia has served on Tesla’s Board as an independent director since 2022, and he is also a known friend of Elon Musk. He even joined the Trump Administration’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) to help the government optimize its processes.

Just a Few Weeks Before Robotaxi
The timing of Gebbia’s TSLA stock purchase is quite interesting as the company is expected to launch a dedicated roboatxi service this June in Austin. A recent report from Insider, citing sources reportedly familiar with the matter, claimed that Tesla currently has 300 test operators driving robotaxis around Austin city streets. The publication’s sources also noted that Tesla has an internal deadline of June 1 for the robotaxi service’s rollout, but even a launch near the end of the month would be impressive.
During the Q1 2025 earnings call, Elon Musk explained that the robotaxi service that would be launched in June will feature autonomous rides in Model Y units. He also noted that the robotaxi service would see an expansion to other cities by the end of 2025. “The Teslas that will be fully autonomous in June in Austin are probably Model Ys. So, that is currently on track to be able to do paid rides fully autonomously in Austin in June and then to be in many other cities in the US by the end of this year,” Musk stated.
Investor's Corner
Tesla hints at ‘Model 2’ & next-gen EV designs
Tesla’s Q1 2025 update confirms new models this year, with production tied to existing factory lines. Could it be time for the Model 2 debut?

During its Q1 2025 earnings call, Tesla executives hinted at the much-rumored “Model 2” and other next-gen EV designs.
Tesla slightly addressed whether or not it will be pushing forward with the debut of new models later this year in its latest earnings call. The company’s product development executive, Lars Moravy, shared some details about Tesla’s design process and the upcoming affordable models.
“We’re still planning to release models this year. As with all launches, we’re working through, like, the last minute issues that pop up. We’re knocking them down one by one. At this point, I would say that the ramp might be a little slower than we had hoped initially…But there’s nothing that’s blocking us from starting production within the next, within the timeline laid out in the opening remarks.
“And I will say it’s important to emphasize that, as we’ve said all along, the full utilization of our factories is the primary goal for these new products. And so the flexibility of what we can do within the form factor and, you know, the design of it is really limited to what we can do on our existing lines rather than building new ones. But we’ve been targeting the low cost of ownership. Monthly payment is the biggest differentiator for our vehicles, and that’s why we’re focused on bringing these new models with the, you know, the lowest price, to the market, within the constraints I just highlighted.”
The Model 3 is a hell of a deal, ngl. With the federal tax credit, it'd be silly to get a comparably priced combustion-powered car.
Now for the big question. Is the Model 3 currently the best-looking Tesla? https://t.co/5E37J9OKhU— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) April 24, 2025
In January, Tesla’s Chief Financial Officer Vaibhav Taneja teased several new product introductions for this year. There is at least one product that most Tesla supporters and investors are hoping to see: the company’s affordable vehicles, which have been dubbed by the EV community as the “Model 2” or “Model Q.”
Before Tesla’s Robotaxi event last year, many speculated that the company would also unveil its affordable next-gen vehicle. Gene Munster from Deepwater had expected Tesla to release a stripped-down version of the Model 3 as its affordable vehicle during the Robotaxi event. In the end, Tesla unveiled its Robotaxi vehicle and its Robovan design.
It’s been a while since the Robotaxi event, and Tesla has kept mum about its affordable vehicle. Considering its Q1 2025 performance, TSLA investors look forward to catalysts that could boost the stock.
The “Model 2” has been labeled a potential catalyst for Tesla. As such, TSLA investors and supporters have been itching for news about the new affordable vehicle. The main questions surrounding the “Model 2” revolve around its design and price. Based on Moravy’s statement, the “Model 2’s” design will heavily depend on Tesla’s current assembly lines and supply chain structures.
Elon Musk
Tesla regains Piper Sandler’s confidence with Robotaxi plans & Q1 Results
Piper Sandler says Tesla delivered the best-case scenario for bulls. $TSLA has catalysts ahead to silence the bears.

Tesla gained Piper Sandler analyst Alexander Potter’s confidence following its Q1 2025 earnings call. Piper Sandler reaffirmed its Overweight rating and $400 TSLA price target, signaling optimism for the company’s robotaxi and affordable vehicle launches expected this year. The firm’s stance reflects Tesla’s resilience amid market challenges.
Despite expectations of weak Q1 financials, Tesla’s stock edged up in after-hours trading, defying skepticism. Piper Sandler’s Alexander Potter noted that the results met the hopes of Tesla supporters, particularly as the company held firm on its timelines. Potter emphasized that anticipation for robotaxi details and new vehicle launches should keep critics at bay, supporting the $400 target.
“In our preview last week, we predicted that (at best) Q1 would be a non-event. With the stock trading up slightly in the after-hours session, it appears our best-case scenario has materialized. Considering generally weak Q1 financials, we think this is the best result that TSLA bulls could’ve reasonably hoped for.
“In our view, the most important Q1 takeaway is this: Tesla didn’t hedge expectations re: launching Robotaxis or lower-priced vehicles in 1H25. With <2 months until the end of June, investors can look forward to some interesting catalysts in the weeks ahead. In our view, this alone should be enough to keep the bears at bay, at least until we have a better idea re: the details of Tesla’s new products, as well as the scale/scope of the Robotaxi launch,” wrote Potter.
Wedbush Securities’ Dan Ives, a longtime TSLA bull, echoed Potter’s optimism for Tesla. Ives raised his price target for Tesla stock from $315 to $350 with a BUY rating. His Tesla upgrade came after Elon Musk’s announcement during the Q1 earnings call that he would reduce his involvement with DOGE, signaling a sharper focus on Tesla.
Tesla’s steady Q1 performance and unwavering commitment to its 2025 roadmap, including the Robotaxi launch and lower-priced models, bolster investor confidence. Piper Sandler’s analysis underscores Tesla’s ability to navigate a competitive electric vehicle market while advancing its technological edge. The upcoming Robotaxi launch and affordable vehicle introductions are pivotal, with analysts expecting these initiatives to drive stock value through 2025.
As Tesla prepares for these milestones, its stock movement reflects market trust in Musk’s vision. With Piper Sandler and Wedbush reaffirming bullish outlooks, Tesla’s strategic moves will remain under close scrutiny, positioning the company to capitalize on its innovation pipeline in a dynamic industry landscape.
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