Ahead of the General Motors (GM) earnings call this week, the automaker has new union contracts and is expected to report around $10 billion in earnings. However, challenges remain for GM, including electric vehicle (EV) production constraints and the ongoing effects of an accident involving one of its self-driving subsidiary Cruise’s robotaxis in October.
GM will report Q4 and FY 2023 earnings on Tuesday, and the company said in November it expected to earn almost $10 billion throughout 2023—despite around $1.1 billion being lost during historic six-week strikes from the United Auto Workers (UAW) union.
Analysts will be looking to see how GM plans to manage its upcoming launch of the Equinox EV, despite past production issues. In addition, onlookers will want to see how the automaker can navigate its self-driving unit Cruise this year, after an accident with a pedestrian in October rocked operations at the startup.
ARK Invest’s Cathie Wood: Ford and GM’s EV slowdown may benefit Tesla
Morningstar U.S. Auto Equity Analyst David Whiston says he hopes to see what kind of tone CEO Mary Barra and CFO Paul Jacobsen are setting for 2024 during the call, along with the company’s financial expectations given the recent events (via Automotive News).
According to Whiston, this year “should be at least a solid year for them, if not better.”
Other analysts expect the effects of the UAW strikes to have a larger impact on GM’s 2023 numbers, as highlighted by Bank of America analysts in a BofA Global Research note published last week.
“GM and Ford are likely to post a lighter finish to 2023 given pressures from the UAW strike, which impaired production,” the note said. “The greatest focus [will] be on EV expectations since sentiment on electrification has quickly soured.”
In November, GM also announced a $10 billion share buyback plan to help boost Wall Street confidence following the new UAW labor agreement.
EV Production Constraints at GM
GM has struggled to ramp up production of its Ultium EV platform, partially due to an issue with an automation equipment supplier that significantly delayed assembly of battery modules. Last month, the automaker was forced to issue a stop sale on the Blazer EV to address software quality issues.
In November, Barra highlighted the recent production issues, saying that GM “didn’t execute well this year as it relates to demonstrating our EV capability.” In 2024, however, Barra said she expects production to be “significantly higher.”
GM plans to begin production of its upcoming Equinox EV later this year, expected to be a mass-market vehicle priced around $35,000 with shipping.
“That needs to be a flawless launch,” Whiston added. “There’s a space of affordable EVs that Tesla is not in yet, and you don’t want Tesla to be first.”
GM Self-Driving Subsidiary Cruise Runs into Trouble
Along with GM’s need to smooth things out on the production side, the company’s robotaxi company Cruise has been spiraling since one of its driverless vehicles dragged and pinned a pedestrian in October. The startup’s license to operate self-driving vehicles was immediately revoked by the California Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV), which went on to say that the company “misrepresented” and “omitted” critical details about the accident in its follow-up correspondence with the state.
Since then, the company founders have resigned along with several executives, and the GM subsidiary has laid off almost a quarter of its workforce. Following an independent review of the accident from GM-hired law firm Quinn Emanuel, the results of which were shared last week, it was discovered that a lack of internet connectivity may have hindered Cruise’s ability to share video from the incident with regulators.
Cruise is set to appear before the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) in a hearing on February 6.
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Elon Musk
Tesla stock gets another analysis from Jim Cramer, and investors will like it
“Tesla is morphing right now. It’s in transition from being a car company to being a technology company.”
Tesla stock (NASDAQ: TSLA) got its latest analysis from Jim Cramer, and investors will like what he has to say.
Cramer has flip-flopped his thoughts on Tesla shares many times over the years. One time, he said CEO Elon Musk was a genius; the next, he said Ford stock was a better play. He’s always changing his tune.
However, Cramer’s most recent analysis is of a bullish tone, as he talks about the company’s evolution from an automaker to a tech powerhouse. He made the comments on CNBC’s Mad Money:
“Tesla is morphing right now. It’s in transition from being a car company to being a technology company. You wanna be in there because the tech is worth a lot more than what it’s selling for right now. Don’t care where you bought it, care where it’s going to.”
Jim Cramer last night on $TSLA: “Tesla is morphing right now. It’s in transition from being a car company to being a technology company. You wanna be in there because the tech is worth a lot more than what it’s selling for right now. Don’t care where you bought it, care where… pic.twitter.com/WzlPdQD7gq
— Sawyer Merritt (@SawyerMerritt) August 5, 2025
Tesla has always been looked at by the mainstream media as an automaker. While that is its main business currently, Tesla has always had other divisions: Energy, Solar, Charging, AI, and Robotics. Some came after others, but the important point is that Tesla has not been an automaker exclusively for a decade.
It launched Powerwall and Powerpack in April 2015, marking the start of Tesla Energy.
But Cramer has a point here: Tesla is truly becoming much more than a car company, and it is turning into an AI and overall tech company more than ever before. Eventually, it will be recognized as such, more so than it will be as an automotive company.
Cramer’s comments also follow a recent prediction by Musk, who stated on X that he believes a $150,000 investment in Tesla shares right now would eventually turn someone into a millionaire:
I think this is probably correct
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 5, 2025
Musk has said he believes Tesla could be headed to a serious increase in valuation. Eventually, it could become the most valuable company in the world. He said this during the Q2 Earnings Call:
“I do think if Tesla continues to execute well with vehicle autonomy and humanoid robot autonomy, it will be the most valuable company in the world. A lot of execution between here and there. It doesn’t just happen. Provided we execute very well, I think Tesla has a shot at being the most valuable company in the world. Obviously, I am extremely optimistic about the future of the company.”
Elon Musk
Elon Musk teases crazy new Tesla FSD model: here’s when it’s coming
Tesla CEO Elon Musk continues to tease some big improvements to Full Self-Driving.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk teased a crazy new model of the Full Self-Driving (FSD) suite that could be a major improvement over current models.
Tesla’s Full Self-Driving suite has seen increases in performance over the past few years, with the latest versions being the most robust in company history. There is also an unreleased version, which is operating in the Robotaxi platform in Austin, which does not require supervision from the driver.
The Austin Robotaxi program does use a Safety Monitor who sits in the passenger’s seat.
However, Musk has been teasing improvements to the public version for some time. The CEO said that the new model, which is currently being trained, has roughly ten times the parameters of what is out there now.
He said something similar during the company’s Q2 Earnings Call in July:
“On the full self-driving front, we continue to make significant improvements just with the software. We are expecting to increase the parameter count to what we think can probably tenfold the parameter count. This is a tricky thing to do because as you increase the parameter count, you get to choke on memory bandwidth. But we currently think we can tenfold the parameter count from what people are currently experiencing.”
He reaffirmed these thoughts last night in a post on the social media platform X. Musk believes the version could be released at the end of next month if testing goes smoothly:
Tesla is training a new FSD model with ~10X params and a big improvement to video compression loss.
Probably ready for public release end of next month if testing goes well.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 6, 2025
Increasing parameters will help improve the capabilities of the FSD suite, but as Musk mentioned during the Q2 Earnings dialogue, an increase in parameters can limit memory bandwidth.
Increasing the parameters could lead to unsupervised FSD, or even an expansion of the suite into other regions across the world. Tesla has been hoping to expand into Europe, Asia, and other areas, but regulatory hurdles are the real bottleneck, not FSD’s capability.
Even still, getting more data will make FSD safer and more robust, increasing its usefulness in real-world scenarios and helping Tesla get to a point where autonomous travel is within reach.
Elon Musk
Tesla gives Cybertruck clever new towing feature that increases safety
Tesla is making towing upgrades to Cybertruck through a new update.
Tesla has given the Cybertruck a great new towing feature that will not only increase safety but could help avert damage and help with longevity.
While Tesla has boasted some impressive examples of towing with its vehicle lineup, until the Cybertruck was released in late 2023, the company did not have a car or pickup that was overly capable.
Its Dual Motor and Tri Motor All-Wheel-Drive configurations have 11,000 pounds of payload capacity. There are times when owners might push the limit, and previously, there was no true way that the vehicle would advise the owner that it was coming close to, or potentially exceeding, the capacity.
In a new update for the pickup, Tesla has added a new feature that will help identify when this is happening.
According to Not a Tesla App, Tesla, in software update 2025.26, added an undocumented feature that is referred to as the “Smart Warning System.” This will detect an overloaded rear axle and will provide a warning to the driver to prevent damage:
“Rear axle load exceeds recommended limit. Remove cargo or rebalance trailer to prevent damage.”
These two suggestions will help advise owners to take one of two solutions: they can either remove weight or rebalance their load to prevent damage.
Tesla hasn’t yet revealed how the vehicle can recognize this, but it likely uses its air suspension data to recognize the additional stress placed on the rear axle.
This is one distinct advantage that vehicles with software updates have over ones without the ability to get better through OTA downloads. These features are added through an internet connection and downloaded to the vehicle.
Tesla stock gets another analysis from Jim Cramer, and investors will like it
Elon Musk teases crazy new Tesla FSD model: here’s when it’s coming
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