GM North America President Marissa West: Assessing plug-ins and which segments need them

Marissa West took over as president of General Motors North America this year at a pivotal time of execution at the automaker.

West, who was promoted in January from leading GM Canada, will head the company's largest and most profitable region through a series of high-profile vehicle launches that include some well-known gasoline-powered nameplates and a bevy of new electric models.

GM also plans to add plug-in hybrids to the mix in North America in the coming years. And the automaker continues to roll out a digital sales tool to its dealerships as part of an effort to modernize the retail process.

"There's a lot of complexity within their businesses, but it's fundamental for them, as well, to streamline their processes and help to keep some of the structural costs within their stores down," West said of the rollout. "I would say we have quite a bit of receptiveness from the dealers, and they're working through us to make sure that we're identifying the issues and we're working through those."

West, 42, spoke with Staff Reporter Lindsay VanHulle about the industry, the electric vehicle transition and GM's dealer network. Here are edited excerpts.

Q: What are your thoughts generally on the outlook for the North American market this year, thinking about volume, demand, inventory and market share?

A: It's a very stable industry. The SAAR is holding steady here one quarter into the year — really where we anticipated it. We're focused on our opportunity to continue to capture market share by launching a broad portfolio of EVs along with the great investments that we've made in the ICE side of the business. I mentioned the strength of our portfolio right now, and that's really the result of years of intentional strategic investment.

Has GM seen impact on demand from affordability concerns, between pricing and higher interest rates? How does GM balance pricing and profitability with affordability?

We've spent a lot of time making sure that we have a portfolio for every price point. And certainly, we see a lot of momentum in the affordable segments — the Trax and the Envista, the Trailblazer. We continue to have great market share in the full-size truck space and our full-size SUVs. So we are remaining really strong in those really important segments. And from an EV perspective, we're launching the Equinox, the Blazer has launched, the Lyriq has a lot of momentum. So I think our approach and our strategy is to make sure that we have a vehicle at every price point so that when there's affordability needs, we have a vehicle — and, actually, multiple vehicles — and choices for those customers.

GM's strategy has been to launch its EVs with higher-contented trim levels at higher price points. The Equinox EV is coming. The Bolt is coming back next year. Are those models in particular key to EV affordability? What has launching at the high end of the market allowed GM to do, and then do those new models coming help at the entry level?

The luxury market is following a steeper trajectory for EV adoption, and that's great for not only our Lyriq, but also many of the Cadillac products. But certainly, this is a scale business, and the value of the Ultium architecture really comes with the flexibility that it affords, the commonality that it affords. With the scale, it gives us the opportunity to present really affordable electric vehicles to our customers as well, and the Equinox is very critical to that. We're really excited to get the Bolt with the Ultium architecture underpinnings to have the most affordable vehicle on the market by 2025.

Is there any more you can tell us about the Bolt when it comes back on the Ultium platform?

We're going to build on the momentum that we had. The final model year of the Bolt production was actually our highest-volume year yet, so it just spoke to the demand for an affordable vehicle. We're excited to bring the product back better than ever, underpinned by the Ultium technology, really presenting to the customer a great value solution. It will have great styling, it'll have great range, really good charging time. It'll come at a point when affordability is important and also the infrastructure continues to build out.

You mentioned the ability to flex between ICE and EV and having both in the stable. We know that the EV adoption curve is a bit slower than automakers initially thought, and hybrids are becoming a piece of that. How do plug-in hybrids factor into that balance and what does that look like for GM's strategy as a bridge to full electric?

We remain really focused on our ambidextrous strategy — the foot in both camps. But recognizing that both from a compliance standpoint as well as a customer's journey to fully electric, we do believe that there's a place for the PHEVs, so we're assessing. We have PHEVs in markets in other parts of the world, so capital-wise and the technical implementation of that is within our capabilities. And so we see that that will be a part of the solution for a period of time for customers. And our focus really is on the customer during this industry transformation. We are going to meet them where they're at, whether they are interested in a PHEV because they like having some capability of electric vehicle range, but perhaps they're not ready to fully take the plunge with an electric vehicle. However, we also have a hypothesis that as the infrastructure builds out across the continent, which is happening quite quickly, as the battery technology is optimized and there's more high-speed chargers, a lot of the anxieties that people are feeling, we believe, will dissipate. And a full electric vehicle is an incredibly elegant, high-value solution for that customer, as opposed to multiple propulsion systems that you get with a PHEV.

GM has had hybrids in North America before, so it's not completely unfamiliar. Are there particular segments that might make most sense for that plug-in technology?

We think so. And that's what we're assessing. Part of it is keeping in mind the regulatory environment and where the demand is at, and so it seems that a PHEV is appealing to people with the range anxiety where they want to do perhaps most of their day-to-day driving on an electric vehicle range. And perhaps they're doing long road trips on weekends or trailering, or things where they just want that added confidence that they don't have to worry about where they're going to charge when they're out and about.

There's been a lot of software quality validation processes put in place because software glitches affected the launch of vehicles like the Blazer EV. How important is it for GM to get software right at launch?

It's critically important. Organizationally, we've gone through a massive change and we've gotten new software leadership in place. We've put in place significantly enhanced processes for validation and software development robustness. And all of that is so important because we know that we have to get the quality right for our customers. And the Blazer situation was an example of our customer-first culture. It was when we recognized some of the instability with the public charging that was inherent — we didn't have software that was robust to some of the variety of public charging stations — and we knew that was important to customers. So examples like that where we had to stop, breathe and refocus, and really do the right thing for the customer, ensure that the software is right, and then present it to our customers was an important learning for us, but really a proof point of how focused we are on making sure that we present our customers with the quality and the robustness and the confidence that they deserve when they purchase one of our new vehicles.

Are there places that GM has identified that might make the most sense for revenue-generating opportunities with software and services, whether it's with OnStar or Super Cruise?

We're on the onset of the truly software-defined vehicle, and the connectivity and the opportunities. There's some that we've identified, and there's certainly more opportunity that we're really excited about. Some of our semi-autonomous driving and Super Cruise is really indicative of that. We've had some in-market enhancements with our Lyriq. We were able to present Velocity mode. And so we're going to continue to innovate on what can we present to a customer to keep making their vehicles better throughout the entire ownership experience.

GM has said as that process evolves, dealers would be part of that approach. There's discussion about where does that sale happen — is it through GM or is it through the dealer? Are talks ongoing still with dealers about what that looks like and how they play a role in those kinds of future revenue opportunities?

Absolutely. We talk with our dealers all the time. When you're helping to connect our customer and you're helping to sell product, there's absolutely going to be a compensation component for our dealers in that.

Has anything around that been finalized?

It's still in discussion. A lot of the products and services are being presented as standard content, and so of course that's coming through with the regular margin and construct of selling a vehicle at this point. But we have ongoing communication and discussions that, as we have features that are presented and dealers are doing the work and the communication and the selling, it will absolutely be a part of that.