Jan. 9, 2026 | GM takes $7B in EV charges; AI dominates CES floor

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Welcome to Daily Drive for Friday, January 9th, 2026.

I'm Kellan Walker in Las Vegas.

Today on the show, General Motors takes over $7 billion in charges

as it scales back electric vehicle production.

Volkswagen partners with Qualcomm for a long-term chip supply deal

to power its software-defined vehicles.

Aftermarket parts maker First Brands Group launches a sale process

as it navigates Chapter 11 bankruptcy.

Plus, we'll hear a piece on our live panel discussion on the CES floor

about how AI is reshaping the auto industry.

We're not even seeing half of the story or even 10% of the story as of today

because the potentials of AI are so significant.

Let's run through all the news you need to know to keep up in the auto industry.

General Motors is taking over $7 billion in charges

as it scales back electric vehicle production.

$6 billion covers reworking its EV footprint mostly for canceled supplier contracts.

Another $1.1 billion relates to restructuring its China Joint Venture.

The move comes as GM shifts a major Michigan plant

back to building gas-powered Silverados, Sierras, and Escalades

and stops producing bright drop vans amid weak demand.

The automaker expects more charges in 2026, though significantly less than this year.

Volkswagen is partnering with Qualcomm for a long-term chip supply deal

to power its next-generation software-defined vehicles.

Announced here in Las Vegas at CES,

the agreement makes Qualcomm the primary provider of infotainment

and connectivity technology for VW's new platform developed with Rivian.

The chips will enable AI-driven features like personalized climate control

and automated driving functions across VW Group brands.

The technology debuts in VW's ID-1 electric minicar launching in 2027.

VW says securing semiconductor access is critical

as infotainment and driver assistance now account

for a significantly higher share of vehicle value.

And aftermarket partsmaker First Brands Group launched a sale process Wednesday

as it navigates Chapter 11 bankruptcy.

It's marketing its business either as a whole or in parts.

The company makes Fram filters, Rebestos brakes, and AutoLite spark plugs.

First Brand will run out of cash in late January without new financing.

The bankruptcy stems from billions in debt tied to what restructuring advisors call

fraudulent factoring transactions involving fake or inflated invoices.

Founder Patrick James faces fraud allegations

and a Justice Department investigation claims he denies.

And those are today's headlines.

You can find more details on all those stories at AutoNews.com.

Joining me now to talk about GM staring down $7 billion in charges

is our own Lindsey Van Hulley, who covers General Motors for automotive news.

Lindsey, welcome to Daily Drive.

Hi, Kel. Happy New Year.

Same to you.

So, Lindsey, how should we interpret this strategic pivot

and what does it mean for GM's competitiveness going forward?

So, yeah, $7 billion is a big number.

You know, they announced ahead of their fourth quarter financial results

at the end of the month that they're going to take $7.1 billion in charges.

The bulk of that about $6 billion is related to reworking its EV production footprint.

Another $1.1 billion is related to the restructuring of its China joint venture

that they've announced earlier.

But really, I mean, the bulk of it is related to EVs.

You know, it follows a $1.6 billion charge GM took in the third quarter for the same thing.

And I think what that signals is really the changes that they're making

in production and capacity given how the market is slowing down.

You know, we all know that with the ways that consumer adoption has unfolded,

it hasn't been as fast, I think, as automakers had expected and planned for several years ago

as they were working on battery cell and EV development.

And now, especially with some of the policy changes around emissions regulations

and the end of the $7,500 tax credit, that that's slowing even more.

You know, GM talked about record third quarter EV sales right before the tax credit went away.

But, you know, they dropped 43% in the fourth quarter.

So they're looking at all of this, recognizing where the market is,

and trying to basically kind of fit their production to match what demand is.

They don't want to overbuild EVs that are going to sit on dealership lots and, you know,

require a lot of incentives and discounts in order to sell.

And so they've taken a lot of steps to try and shrink what that capacity looks like.

So one plant in Michigan was going to be retooled to build electric pickups.

It's now going to be retooled again to build gas versions of those,

plus the Cadillac Escalade SUV.

It was planning three joint venture battery plants with LG Energy Solution

and sold a stake in a third plant back to LG,

recognizing that it has the capacity it needs with two plants at the moment.

And in October, GM said it'll stop building the Chevrolet Bright Drop electric commercial van

that it was made in Canada because demand was lower than expected.

So I think GM is accounting for these changes that they've made,

and they're trying to stay competitive and focus on costs and production

by trying to match as best they can what that output looks like with where demand is.

You know, this $7 billion is a significant hit for the company.

Does this suggest the company believes the EV market just isn't going to materialize

or is this more about GM specific execution challenges?

I think it's a recognition that the market isn't materializing at the pace

that they had sort of set up for, and that's not unique to GM.

I mean, I think all automakers are having to look at what they had planned for,

what they had set up and really where adoption is.

And so I think that's what we're seeing here.

You know, when we talked with GM CEO Mary Barra back in the fall, she said,

you know, EVs remain the company's North Star.

They have not said that they're making any changes to their portfolio.

So all of the EVs that they sell from Chevy, from Cadillac, from GMC

are still in production.

They're still going to be sold, so they're not making any changes there.

They're not closing any plants or anything like that.

I think what they're trying to do now is really, you know, try and see where customers are

and build the vehicles in the supply that customers are looking for.

I think they want to be very careful that they're not overbuilding

because that creates more challenges in incentives and aging vehicles on lots and things like that.

So I think they still expect that the market is going to...

There are still people who are going to want electric vehicles.

They're still going to make them.

They're bringing the small Chevy Bolt back early this year.

It'll be on sale, so they're not backing away from them.

I think they're just trying to be conscious and mindful of how many they're building right now,

based on where customers are.

Perfect. Lindsay, thank you so much for joining me.

Thanks, Kel.

You can read Lindsay Van Hulley's reporting on General Motors at AutoNews.com.

Coming up next, we'll hear from a live panel discussion at CES featuring

McKinsey's Kirsten Heineke and automotive news reporters

discussing how AI is transforming the auto industry.

That's next on Daily Drive.

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Welcome back to Daily Drive.

I'm Kellan Walker.

Earlier this week here at CES, Automotive News hosted a live panel discussion on the floor

in the West Hall of the Las Vegas Convention Center.

Mackenzie Partner, Kirsten Heinecke, joined Automotive News reporters Molly Boygon and

Laurence Eiliff for a conversation about AI's transformation of the automotive industry.

Here's a piece of that discussion.

Let's start with AI.

Kirsten, how has the focus on AI at the show changed from previous years?

So I think the main change is it's everywhere now, right?

So we used to have AI sort of as a side topic.

It used to be startups talking about it.

It used to be the innovators talking about it.

And now I feel like everybody's talking about it.

And given that we're at CES, we're talking more about the customer facing applications.

You mentioned the whole notion of consumer centric thing, how you interact with the car,

how you can also integrate all of the different things you have in your vehicle and basically

have on AI assistant to go into navigation, infotainment and everything else in the car.

But we're also talking a lot at least sort of behind closed doors.

We're talking about the optimization potentials you have around AI.

I'm just coming from a breakfast where we were talking about the challenges of having AI now

as part of the development team and how you actually need to upskill your entire team.

Even people who are fresh out of university, sort of fresh out of university,

need to continuously upskill.

So I think it's everywhere.

And we've got these conversations that are very much around the consumer

and how the consumer is going to benefit from it.

But we also see massive benefits on the internal side of each company, efficiencies, that's all.

Up and down the value chain.

100%.

And Lonnie, obviously AI has played a big role this year in accelerating the deployment of autonomy

and robotaxies.

What are you seeing from the show about the use of AI and those applications?

Well, it's really interesting because I was talking to, you know, John Kraftjic from

the ex-Waymo CEO.

And one thing he was talking about was there was a time when all these 10 years ago,

all these companies were going to make autonomous vehicles and they raised a lot of money

and they spent a lot of money and they burned a lot of money and then they disappeared, right?

Waymo survived, right?

Because they took a kind of a slower approach.

And but now with AI, a lot of companies are springing up.

Even, you know, like Rivian wants to now have, you know, autonomous vehicles in the future

and the neuro because they can use AI to write the software, to have the vehicle

have perception kind of like a human.

They're recreating human perception.

You know, Tess was doing that without LiDAR and stuff, but others are doing it with LiDAR

and radar.

And I was also talking to the head of a Chinese LiDAR maker, the biggest LiDAR maker, Hsai.

And he was talking about how they're able to incorporate cheaper LiDAR because of AI software.

In other words, they have, you have the hardware and the software are working together and it's

bringing down the cost.

And he was telling me that one in four EVs in China have LiDAR.

Even a simple LiDAR that's looking out ahead of you could slam on the brakes if it's dark

or if the sun is coming in your eyes, which is a very common scenario for car accidents,

somebody hitting a pedestrian.

And so it's just amazing.

Like, you know, we were talking about earlier, it's like AI is everywhere.

And it's just enabling all these really interesting things in the in the car space

and the robot space and the robot taxi space.

It sounds like it's sort of able to fill the gaps that had been dogging the industry for so

long with deployment of some of these technologies.

At the same time, there is a question that you hear and read about, are we in an AI bubble?

Is the influence of AI overstated or overvalued?

Kirsten, I'd love to hear you answer that question.

So I guess we're only going to find out in a couple of years if this is a bubble or not.

What I do believe is we're not even seeing half of the story or even 10% of the story

is what we're seeing as of today, because the potentials of AI are so so significant.

And if you just think about the capabilities of a tool like chat GPT, how that's improved over

the last couple of generations compared to what it was five years ago, two years ago,

and how quickly it's accelerating now.

And I think we're going to see that same development happen also over the next couple

of months and years.

And I do believe that while it might be a bubble in some cases and while maybe some

of the investments are a bit sort of overdoing it, nonetheless, I do believe that we're only

seeing 10% at least of the potential.

So there is definitely much, much more to come.

More to come.

The thing I would add is just I've heard some really skeptical voices who say like there's

this incredible hype machine that in two years your car will drive you around and you'll be in

backseat, that robots are going to be building everything.

And not just Elon Musk, who's kind of at the forefront of these kind of wild predictions

or ambitious predictions, but also other people in the robotics space.

And some of the people I've talked to says, wait a minute, it's going to take longer.

It's going to be a process like the Waymo process.

Little by little, it's going to be incremental.

There's a lot of really hard things to figure out.

So I just, I do hear some skeptical voices saying be careful of the hype machine.

Yes.

And if I may comment there, I think especially for autonomous driving and robotex, right?

You're 100% right in saying that AI is accelerating many new companies and it's also

making it much, much easier to get to a solution very quickly.

Nonetheless, the safety of all of the systems still needs to be ensured.

You still need to make sure that these vehicles work perfectly well.

And that's what I like a lot about the Waymo approach.

I think they could have scaled much, much faster if you think about how much technology

leadership they have, but they took a cautious approach, which I think is good,

because we need to make sure that the public also accepts the technology and that they

don't freak out about any potential accidents that happen, because obviously accidents are

happening and aren't going to happen just by scaling up the number of vehicles out there.

But the safer we make it and the more time we give it, I think this is the right strategy.

Yes, I think.

And in terms of that public safety and public trust approach, I wonder if you see

that as a part of the conversation at CES, because I agree that that's important,

but so much of the show is about the technology and you mentioned Waymo as having this kind

of disciplined approach. Do you think that that's being echoed across the industry,

or what is being done to kind of facilitate that consumer trust?

I think so. I mean, we're having these discussions almost on a day-to-day basis with our clients,

because now take robotexies again. I think with robotexies, we're now at a point where we show

that the tech is working. We also show that the economy, the economics are starting to work.

So now we need to scale it. And what does scaling mean? Scaling means you're always going to find

thousands, a million adopters somewhere globally that love the tech and are doing it for it.

Take the Waymo users in the valley. Obviously, these are all people that love the tech and

they're very open to it. But if you want to convince not only the folks in the Silicon

Valley or in San Francisco, but also the folks somewhere else in Europe, in the US, doesn't

matter where, you need to make sure that you include the public in the dialogue. And I think

actually you mentioned some of the companies failed, right? Some of the companies failed because

they didn't do a proper job in getting community buy-in and making sure that everybody's involved,

right? And that's why we need to have this dialogue and why it's very important not to get to a

thousand vehicles in a city, but once you want to get to 10,000 vehicles, 15,000, 20,000 vehicles,

and get it to a scale like Uber or other right-hailing players are today, we need to do that. And

we're having these conversations. And speaking of Uber, what were you going to add to that?

I was just going to say, in addition to the race for robotexies, like for the technology and the

deployment, there's a race for funding. And so I think sometimes we hear there's going to be this

and there's going to be that because these companies need money, need a lot of money to do this. And

there's a lot of competition in the space. I mean, in Silicon Valley, how many AI startups are there?

I mean, I have no idea. It's probably in the thousands. And so I think that that's part of the

hype. I just want to make that comment. I was in San Francisco last year and in driving to the

airport, as you know, Lonnie, there's billboards everywhere for everyone is an AI hyperscaler,

whatever. It's very popular industry right now on the on the robotexie side. So Lucid,

Nero and Uber have been talking about their partnership at the show. Lonnie, why are they

joining forces? And what what does it say about the state of robotexie development?

You know, I think there's a there's a really interesting case for Tesla, right? Just like

with EVs, where they built their infrastructure from the ground up, they built it in a bubble

and they had all the elements there, the charging, they're also doing that they make cars, they have

the software, they've been working on FSD for 10 years. So in the case of like Nero, Uber,

and Lucid, Lucid makes the cars, right? Because Nero and Uber can't do that. Nero,

which is an outgrowth, I mean, it has founders from Waymo, right? They're going to create the

software, the Nero driver and then Uber has the platform. So because they don't have all the pieces,

they're coming together and you're seeing a lot of those, you know, collaborations, you know,

right now Rivian says they're going to do it on their own, but we don't know, maybe they'll

collaborate, maybe they'll bring Volkswagen in because you know, there's money and volume scale

there, right? And so I think these companies are trying to bring together the different elements,

the funding to make it happen because it's complicated. You can watch the full recording

of our Congress Conversations live stream from the floor of CES on the automotive news, LinkedIn,

YouTube and Facebook pages. That's Daily Drive for today. I'm Kallen Walker. Thanks to automotive

news executive producer Jake Nier, as well as our own Lindsay Van Hully for her reporting for

today's podcast. We also had reporting from Douglas Bolduck of our sibling publication,

Automotive News Europe. You can get the latest news on AI and automotive, GM's EV strategy

and everything happening in the auto industry at AutoNews.com. Come back tomorrow for our weekend

drive episode. Our own Molly Boygon and Jerry Hirsch break down the biggest takeaways from CES

2026 and discuss the week's other big news stories.

We'd love to hear from you. Let us know what you think of the show and the topics we cover today.

Send us an email at dailydrive at autonews.com or leave us a voicemail at 313-444-2774.

And if you enjoy the podcast, remember to like, leave a review and subscribe so you never miss an episode.

Jan. 9, 2026 | GM takes $7B in EV charges; AI dominates CES floor

About this episode

General Motors

software-defined vehicles

Volkswagen

Qualcomm

Chapter 11 bankruptcy

Sierra

Chevrolet Silverados

Gm Sierras

Cadillac Escalades

infotainment

AI-driven features

VW ID.1

First Brands Group

Fram

Rebestos

AutoLite

emissions regulations

tax credit

EV

electric pickups

Cadillac Escalade Suv

Chevrolet BrightDrop

Chevrolet Bolt

AI in the auto industry

autonomous vehicles

Waymo

AI

Rivian

Lucid

robotaxi

EVs

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