Sept. 15, 2025 | GM CEO Mary Barra Interview Part 1

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Welcome to Daily Drive for Monday, September 15th, 2025.

I'm Kellen Walker in Las Vegas.

Today on the show, Ford plans to demolish its headquarters

and relocate to its engineering campus close by.

Elon Musk buys a billion dollars of Tesla stock

after his trillion dollar pay proposal.

And Tesla halts orders of its cheapest Cybertruck

while Ram cancels its EV pickup.

Plus, we'll hear the first part

of our exclusive interview with GM CEO, Mary Bara.

She talks about GM's EV strategy going forward

and what she thinks of the current trade landscape.

President Trump has been very clear

of wanting to have a level playing field.

I think terrorists were one part of that.

Let's run through all the news you need to know

to keep up in the auto industry.

Ford Motor will vacate its headquarters

of nearly 70 years,

the glass house in Dearborn, Michigan.

The automaker will move to the Product Development Center

that it's building nearby in a bid to have executives

closer to the engineers and designers who craft its vehicles.

Ford CEO, Jim Farley, an executive chair, Bill Ford,

told employees today in an email

that the 2.1 million square foot building called The Hub

will be twice the size of its current headquarters.

Some employees have already started working at the site,

which is scheduled to be dedicated in November.

Ford plans to demolish the 12-story glass house

by mid-2028.

CEO Elon Musk is buying about $1 billion worth of shares

in Tesla.

The move comes in the wake of Tesla's proposal

to give Musk an unprecedented compensation package

that could be worth up to a trillion dollars.

The billionaire bought the shares indirectly

through a revocable trust on September 12th,

according to a regulatory filing released Monday.

And Tesla's least expensive Cybertruck

has vanished from the automaker's US order page

as battery electric pickups across the industry

struggle with lackluster sales.

At the same time, Ram has canceled plans

for its first fully electric pickup.

It attributes that decision to slowing demand

for battery-powered vehicles.

The industry pullback comes as a $7,500 federal tax credit

for electric vehicles expires on September 30th.

And those are today's headlines.

You can find more details on all those stories

at AutoNews.com.

Here to talk more about Ford's decision

to move its global headquarters is our own Michael Martinez,

who covers Ford for us at Automotive News.

Mike, welcome back to Daily Drive.

Thanks for having me.

So, Mike, why is Ford making the move

to a new headquarters now?

Well, I think anybody who's been inside

the glass house headquarters

will understand that it's time.

That building has been around for 70 years.

It's pretty old.

The amenities aren't great.

The heating and cooling isn't really that great

in that building that all the windows

the sun tends to bake down on you

even when you're in the executive offices.

But Ford's doing this essentially

because it wants its executives

to be closer to the action.

The way it stands today,

if they wanna go to a product review meeting,

they have to get in their car,

drive a few miles, battle for parking,

walk down really long hallways,

and it takes a really long time.

Bill Ford said, even if you just have a one-hour meeting,

it takes two plus hours out of your day.

So, their goal is to co-locate everybody

in one large central campus,

make it walkable, make it a fun place to work

with good amenities,

and really try to attract and retain some top talent.

And also, Crosstown rival General Motors

is also moving into a new headquarters early next year.

We're about to hear an interview

with Mary Barra from that new location.

Is that just a coincidence

or is there something more to that timing?

I think the timing between GM and Ford

is purely coincidental.

I mean, maybe Ford's getting tired

of reading all the GM headlines

about moving into the Hudson's building downtown.

But I think there is that bigger trend

that we're seeing among any automaker

or any business really.

And that's what I had mentioned

in terms of attracting and retaining talent.

You saw that's why Ford spent all that money

and energy renovating the train station in Detroit.

They wanted something unique and special

for people to come to for their tech talent

to build that next generation

in terms of mobility and software and technology.

And in Dearborn,

they want people to want to come to work.

They just called all their workers back four days a week.

You see on all the chat forums

and Reddit and things like that.

People aren't super happy about it.

Partly because the amenities aren't that great.

The buildings are old and showing their age.

So Ford wants to be seen as one of the top places to work,

not in automotive,

but also in terms of software and technology.

Same with GM.

So by offering these new buildings,

state of the art, fun places to be in,

hopefully they can appease their workers.

Everyone likes a good work environment.

Mike, thank you so much for joining me.

Thanks for having me.

Coming up, the first part of Automotive News'

exclusive interview with General Motors CEO, Mary Bara,

from the company's new headquarters in Detroit.

That's next on Daily Drive.

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Welcome back to Daily Drive.

I'm Kellan Walker.

Making long-term product decisions

in the murkiness of today's climate

requires mapping out multiple scenarios.

That's what General Motors CEO, Mary Barra,

told our own Lindsey Van Hulley and Nick Bunkley

in an interview last week

after Automotive News Congress.

They spoke at Hudson Detroit,

the site of GM's new global headquarters,

which the automaker plans to occupy in January.

Today and tomorrow

will bring you the full exclusive interview

here on Daily Drive.

Here's the first part of that conversation.

Well, thank you very much for joining us.

Absolutely.

And congratulations as well

on being recognized with an Automotive News Centennial Award.

Well, thank you.

As I said to Casey,

I really, it's on behalf of the GM team,

my leadership team and every person at General Motors,

I think contributes to where GM is today.

Between the Centennial Award

and also being our five-year incarnation

of the 100 leading women list as well,

thinking about leadership and some of the discussions

that you kind of mentioned on stage

and how you sort of view the arc of your career

at this stage of it

and how it ultimately connects with the legacy

that you ultimately hope to leave.

Well, I kind of am focused on the business,

not so much on my legacy,

but I think creating the right culture at GM

where we keep learning and growing,

I wanna make sure GM is here

for the next 20 years, 50 years, 100 years.

So it's making those investments,

but it's also the culture,

this culture of continuing to learn and grow

and be curious.

And so hopefully we're creating that culture

that's gonna continue to propel GM forward

many, many decades into the future.

We recognized you in GM for a couple of years now

for being able to manage through uncertainty

without significant disruption.

Prices have remained strong,

incentives have remained lower than average,

inventory still kind of remains in line

with where you want it to be.

And just thinking about all of that taken together,

how you've been able to do that

through all of the ups and downs

that we've seen over the last few years.

Well, I think it is the resiliency of the team

and with whatever challenge,

whether from COVID to semiconductor shortages

to other supply chain disruptions that we've had.

But I think it's also staying focused.

I mean, when you look at our ability

to be growing market share

and while having discipline incentives,

the low end from an incentive perspective

from the rest of the industry,

maintaining our inventories,

that's all starts because we have great product

that people want to buy.

So I think that is the key

to being able to have vehicles

customers want to purchase and it starts there

and then the discipline that we operate the business

we will not overproduce.

And that allows us to maintain the inventories

and then also have lower industry leading type incentives.

How do you balance all of that

with the interest rate environment

that we're in right now as well?

And have you noticed that customers

are experiencing any kind of affordability challenges right now?

Well, we always look at affordability.

We think it's very important.

And we look especially at our entry level vehicles

to make sure that we have that affordability.

We get a lot of feedback from our dealers.

But we also want to make sure that

every year from a pricing perspective

there are changes based on what new technologies are added,

features, et cetera.

So it's a really dynamic environment that we operate in.

But again, it starts with making sure

we're focused on the customer,

continuing to do things more efficiently

so we can give them more without large price increases.

All of that obviously gets harder

when you factor in tariffs.

And I know you've said the expected cost this year,

four to $5 billion,

but that they get somewhat offset this year

and into future years is more of the mitigations

that you're working on come into play.

Is that four to $5 billion ultimately sustainable long-term

and how do you sort of look at what that point is?

Well, I think the four to $5 billion

when we said that that was unmitigated

and we said that our goal is to mitigate 30% of it this year.

And that's what we're intent on doing.

But we've also, we started off by making

when there was still a lot of uncertainty

what was gonna happen with the tariffs

and making what we called no regret moves,

shifting production.

So it served different countries

and mitigated the tariffs or eliminated the tariffs.

Working with our supply chain,

we found some of our suppliers

that they actually had USMCA compliant parts

that hadn't filled out the paperwork.

So, but then working with them

on what were the easy shifts that we could make

into then some of the more substantial changes

like the footprint changes we announced

and the $5 billion investment

between the production that we're changing

from an assembly perspective

and also where we allocated a new engine.

And so as we continue to do those

and will those plants will come online

in the next, you know, less than two years now

that we will continue to work.

There's also been, I think improvements

from a tariff perspective

with some of the executive orders that were signed

that recognize how many vehicles we do build

in this country and getting credit for those

as well as all the other work we do in this country

that really are important to the economy

and important to creating jobs across many spectrums.

And I wonder if some of that has been

sort of a wait and see approach

for some of those agreements to be reached

and finding out where things are going to settle long term.

You know, GM has absorbed a lot of the costs so far.

And I wonder if that is because of uncertainty

about how long they might last

or what those rates ultimately might be.

And does there come a point at which GM, you know

has to pass on more of those costs

whether to dealers or to consumers

or suppliers down the road?

Well, I think you hit the point

or you hit the point really well before

we do need to stay focused on affordability.

That's why we're working on how do we drive efficiencies?

How do we make shifts?

And we didn't just wait.

We're one of the companies that made a commitment

even when we didn't have a lot of certainty

that we have now with some of the different tariff rates

of making the decisions to move some things

to the United States.

So we're gonna continue to assess

what the right business is, recognizing we're long lead.

But we're gonna continue to work to have affordability

by working on every single aspect of the cost equation

but also giving consumers more value.

So how much conversation is there still happening

between you and the administration,

others in the industry in similar positions

as you to just talk about, you know

whether this is still even, you know

the right way to go about this

and show that, you know

this is what the consequences are.

I mean, you're taking billions of dollars

of hit to your bottom line because of this.

You know, how much effort is there to talk about

with the administration,

maybe things need to change at some point?

Well, I think that if you step back and look at it

I think the President Trump has been very clear

of wanting to have a level playing field.

I think terrorists were one part of that.

Wanted to strengthen manufacturing in the US

and jobs in the US.

Those are things that, you know

we are important to us as well.

So I think there's some aspects of it

and what I've always said is

let's have a level playing field

and for decades we haven't.

So when I look at some of the changes

that are happening it actually

I think is accomplishing what the administration said

that they'd like to do to have a level playing field

so US companies can compete.

And that's what we're intent on doing.

And I think, you know

we're seeing share growth right now

even in this environment.

And then to your first question

of course we continue to have dialogue

with the administration at different levels

to make sure,

because a lot of it is making sure they understand

the impact or in some cases

what is a secondary or down the road type event that happens.

And I have to say that they've been very responsive

to wanting to understand

and make sure that they're taking that all into account

as they set policy.

And you get the sense,

it sounds like then you get the sense

that some of the changes that we're seeing

or some of the policies and such are in response to that

they're receptive to the arguments you put forth

or the facts that you try to put on the table.

Well, I think some of the adjustments that have been made

or understanding, you know

if you're tariffing a vehicle

then also all the parts what that means.

So I think they have been receptive to understand that

but I also think tariffs are here to stay.

We're working on how are we aligned

with what the administration is trying to accomplish

and then make sure that we

they have the information to help encourage that.

And I think that's the productive way to move forward

and that's what we've been doing since day one.

Yeah, I want to talk about electric vehicles a bit

and it came up on stage today.

And I know there's going to be some shift in production.

It sounds like anticipating what the demand might look like

in the fourth quarter once that tax credit goes away.

You said earlier that you don't want to overproduce

and so there's going to be some downtime

at some of the EV plans,

plans to hold off on a second shift at Fairfax

when the Chevy Bolt comes back.

Talk I guess about what's behind that decision

and when you look at where inventory is,

where production is and where you're anticipating demand to go

when you have to make those kinds of decisions about output.

Well, we have monthly scheduling meetings

where we look at what do we need to build again

with the discipline that we've had for more than a decade

now of not overproducing

and being in line where customer demand is.

I think it's pretty clear as we get to the end of September

that the $7,500 consumer tax credit

is going to be going away for the most part.

I keep reading articles that,

but if you've made the deal,

but it's going to be gone relatively soon.

We do think there's pull ahead demand right now

from an EV perspective.

That's pull ahead that without that end

would probably have been in October, November or December.

So I don't think we're really going to have a good read

of what normalized EV demand is going to be

into early next year.

But I think if you look before there was an IRA credit,

what the demand was and the fact that now

we have much more charging infrastructure.

We have many more EVs.

I mean, General Motors, we have 14 models

all over 300 miles of range.

And so there's more desirable vehicles,

more affordable vehicles and more charging.

So we're going to be ready

because as we've said, EVs are our North Star,

but we also want to be led by the consumer.

The consumer will tell us.

And when you think about who buys it,

when someone buys a new vehicle,

when we all buy a new vehicle,

we're pretty rational about what do we need?

What can we afford?

What are the use cases?

I think it's different if you only have one vehicle,

if you're a two car family,

you can start to look at say,

hey, maybe one of those in the garage should be an EV

because if I have to make that unexpected longer road trip

and I'm not confident the charging infrastructure

is built out quite yet,

although that gets better every quarter,

I've got choice and then I can enjoy both.

So I think we're going to learn a lot in 26

of what demand is.

And I think, again, we've never expected it to be linear.

And I think charging is a big piece,

affordability is a big piece

and those will continue to improve.

Are you looking at in kind of in keeping

with the overall incentive strategy,

are you looking at having to offer anything

in the fourth quarter or into 26

to sort of offset the loss of the 7,500?

Is there an equivalent GM incentive that might be coming

or as you're thinking about pricing and incentives

on EVs going forward, what that looks like?

Well, I don't send incentives,

but if I was, I probably wouldn't tell you,

but I don't make that determination.

So I'm going to leave that to the sales and marketing team

because they do that very well.

And again, they stay focused on what the consumer

is telling them what they need

and then the very disciplined approach we have

and go to market.

I think big picture thinking about it more,

just if the tax credit goes away

and that's supported EV purchases and leases,

is it possible or is the company considering,

do we have to look at that maybe going forward

if demand doesn't pick up maybe the way that we hope it would?

Well, again, we have the opportunity

to sell internal combustion ice vehicles and EVs.

So we can go where we can build and supply

and have robust products, award-winning products,

leading products in each of those segments.

So again, I'm not going to comment

on our fourth quarter incentive strategy,

but I think what we offer is consumer choice

and we can adjust our production

to meet those demands.

And I'm really proud of the fact that at JAM,

we're growing right now

in both internal combustion engine vehicles

and electric vehicles.

So we have to see where this all settles out

and then we'll work through that period

and then we'll look at how we continue to grow

as we continue to improve the profitability of our EVs

while we continue to improve both ice and EV

from all aspects.

It feels like with EVs, this is an area

where you really got out ahead

of a lot of your competitors

and really bold approach to putting this big plane in place.

The kind of thing that people

and for old GM always used to say wouldn't do.

And then here we are

and there's so much pushback against EVs.

It's not even, it doesn't feel like it's linear,

but that it's like so much political

and just people say, people don't want EVs,

whether or not that's really true.

But how do you deal with that kind of environment

when you got out ahead

and then all kinds of things come together

to take EVs and make them this kind of issue

that nobody knows what to do with it in some ways.

Well, I think if you think, look at EVs.

I mean, we have seen what our EV buyers

and I think this is true across the industry.

Once someone buys an EV, they are very much inclined.

I can't remember the exact percent,

but overwhelming majority say I will buy an EV again.

And again, that's with where we don't have

is robust to charging infrastructure.

I think GM's been a big piece of that

with offering vehicles like the Chevrolet Equinox EV

and the Chevrolet Blazer EV

that really starts to get to a different part of the market

and offer great choices from an EV perspective.

Obviously a year ago we were on a different path

from a regulatory environment

and we invested because that was the right thing to do.

That's why we wanna see what the demand will be.

Again, without the $7,500 tax credit,

I would expect that we're gonna see a different level of EV

that again, may be on a slower path

but will still continue to grow and we'll adjust to that

and we'll make the adjustments that we need to make

across the whole manufacturing pipeline

and product pipeline,

but I'm really proud of the fact

that we were very strategic in the EVs

that we put into market,

looking at where were the value?

What were the right from a Chevrolet customer

to a Cadillac customer from a luxury?

What were the right segments?

We didn't just replicate

our internal combustion engine platform

and we still continue to invest

in internal combustion engines,

especially in continuing to drive fuel efficiency,

improvements, vehicle and model after model engine

after engine.

So obviously there was a pretty big change in direction.

So we're gonna evaluate and make the right changes

and then continue to move forward.

GM CEO, Mary Barra spoke with her own Lindsey Van Hulley

and Nick Bunkley in an exclusive interview.

Come back tomorrow for the conclusion of that conversation.

We're at the early days of the vehicle

is a software platform

and how do we continue to add things to it

that make the customer's life easier?

That's Daily Drive for today.

I'm Kellan Walker.

Thanks to automotive news executive producer, Jake Neer

as well as our own Michael Martinez,

Lawrence Ilyff and Vince Bond Jr.

for their reporting for today's podcast.

You can get the latest news on manufacturing,

product plans and everything happening

in the auto industry at autonews.com.

We'd love to hear from you.

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Send us an email at dailydrive at autonews.com

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Sept. 15, 2025 | GM CEO Mary Barra Interview Part 1

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