GM's Barra Doubles Down on EVs and Sets 2028 Autonomy Target

General Motors expects to offer eyes-off-the-road highway driving on the Cadillac Escalade IQ in 2028, CEO Mary Barra said in an interview for Fortune's Titans podcast. The commitment anchors a strategy she describes as riding out the messy middle of the electric-vehicle transition without abandoning it.

"I don't think it's shifted our mission," Barra said of the slowdown. "We still think EVs are the endgame."

A few years ago, automakers were planning for 40% to 50% of their vehicles to be electric by 2030. The Trump administration then unwound key incentives and rules encouraging EV adoption, and consumer habits proved more resistant than industry forecasts assumed. Barra, CEO since 2014, has responded by keeping a broad portfolio: GM's lineup includes more than a dozen EVs alongside highly profitable internal-combustion pickups and SUVs.

"Wherever the customer is," she said, "we have a vehicle."

Investors have endorsed the approach. GM stock trades near its all-time high and is up nearly 6% year to date. The $185 billion company built its reputation on American trucks, and Barra frames the strategy as customer choice rather than retreat.

What changed on autonomy?

Barra, once bullish on fast-arriving self-driving cars, now refuses to forecast timelines broadly. "I'm done making predictions," she said. The 2028 Escalade IQ target is her exception. It builds on Super Cruise, GM's hands-free driver-assistance system that already lets drivers remove their hands from the wheel and feet from the pedals on compatible roads.

"What we plan to do in 2028 is you'll be able to not have to keep your eyes on the road," Barra said. "And that will be the start of then getting to full autonomy."

She acknowledged consumer unease and stressed that "safety will be the overriding priority as we roll out this technology." The stance draws directly on GM's ignition-switch crisis, which erupted shortly before Barra became the company's first female CEO in 2014. The faulty switch caused at least 124 deaths and 274 injuries; GM recalled millions of vehicles and paid billions in penalties and settlements.

"When's the best time to solve a problem? … The minute you know you have one. Because problems don't get smaller. Rarely do problems get smaller," Barra said.

Why GM walked away from Cruise

GM acquired robotaxi startup Cruise in 2016 for roughly $1 billion in cash, stock, and incentives, then invested billions more before winding the business down in December 2024. Barra said she would still have made the acquisition based on what GM knew at the time, citing the capabilities and talent it brought. But the business fit poorly.

"We don't run a bus fleet," she said. "We don't run a taxi fleet."

Personal autonomous vehicles, she argued, are a natural extension of GM's 118 years building vehicles for individual customers. "That's where we're focused because I think that's where our strength is," she said.

Can GM rebuild the skilled trades pipeline?

GM has invested more than $250 million in skilled-trades training over the past five years. Barra, whose father spent 39 years as a GM diemaker and who joined the company herself as an 18-year-old co-op student, called the labor-market case straightforward: manufacturers, utilities, construction firms, and data center operators all need workers who can build and repair complex systems. Dealer technicians can earn $80,000 to $90,000 or more, she noted.

"We really make sure high school students understand this is a great career and frankly maybe a little more AI-proof than some others," Barra said. She added that Europe shows "much more respect for the trades" than the U.S. does.

GM is also testing AI as an assistant to that workforce. Designers use AI-enabled tools to test aerodynamic changes digitally before physical wind-tunnel runs. "But who knows?" Barra said. "Maybe at some point the technology will be so accurate we won't even do that."

What did Warren Buffett tell her?

Early in her tenure, during the 2014 recall crisis, Barra had lunch with Warren Buffett, whose Berkshire Hathaway held a major GM stake. Buffett asked whether GM would operate differently if it were private and free from quarterly reporting. Barra's answer was no.

"He said, 'I don't want you running the company for the quarter. I want you running it for the long term. That's how you're really going to create value,'" she recalled.

That long-game framing now governs a company defending its traditional business while investing through uncertainty—in EVs, autonomy, software, AI, manufacturing, and defense—and watching China race ahead in batteries, robotics, and EV scale. Barra called the threat real but expressed confidence in the response.

"I think we're making strides," she said. "I believe in American ingenuity and innovation, and I think we can compete."