SA Asks: How can General Motors get back on track?

Shares of General Motors (GM) slid significantly this week after the legacy automaker released a weaker-than-expected forecast, fanning concerns about the company's rising costs and product strategy.

We asked Seeking Alpha analysts Daniel Jones and Bernard Zambonin how they thought GM (GM) could get back on track.

Daniel Jones: This year has not been particularly pleasant for General Motors (GM) shareholders. The car giant has seen its share price drop significantly at a time when the market is up double digits. Global car production is down about 1%. In the U.S. it is up a surprising 1.4%, but in other parts of the world, it is falling rather rapidly. In China, for instance, it has fallen 5.8%.

But even though the U.S., which is where GM gets a lot of its value, is doing surprisingly well in the automotive production space, the company is losing ground. It has seen its market share go from 17.3% in the first half of last year to just 16.7% during the same period this year.

In China, GM's (GM) market share has fallen from 7.2% to 6.8%. And in the Asia Pacific, Middle East, and Africa combined region, its market share has fallen from 4.7% to 4.2%. Only in South America is the company doing surprisingly well, with market share virtually flat. But that accounts for just a small slice of its overall output.

A year ago, the company was doing far better. I would say that a lot of its recent pain can be attributed to its decision to scale back drastically on electric vehicles. Citing weakening demand in the final quarter of last year, the company took a $6B charge related to its EV investing plans.

Some of this scale-back may have made sense. After all, the U.S. government ended the $7,500 EV tax credit in September. But now, with oil prices skyrocketing because of the war against Iran, the decision looks like a bad one.

In a relatively short period of time, the company went from being a marginal player in the EV space to being the second largest in the U.S. In Q3 2024, it had a market share of 9.3%, up from 6.1% a year earlier. By Q3 2025, it had ballooned to 15.2%. The latest data that we have covers the final quarter of last year, and in such a short window of time, it had dropped to 10.8%. Almost certainly, it is lower now.

At the same time, EV sales are rising in the U.S. The third quarter of this year saw a total output of 262,649 vehicles, 6.1% higher than what we saw for the second quarter.

There's also the longer-term picture. According to one analysis, by 2030, EV sales in the U.S. will account for up to 38% of new car sales.

Management made a long-term decision based on short-term conditions, and shareholders are now paying the price. Reversing that course of action and remaining committed to it is the best path forward for the business to create value for investors.

(Daniel Jones runs the SA investment newsletter Crude Value Insights.)

Bernard Zambonin: To me, General Motors (GM) already seems to be on the right track.

In Q3, for example, adjusted operating income grew 22%, and GMNA margins jumped from 6.2% to 8.7%. GM also projects ~$15B in adjusted operating profit for 2026—around 18% higher than in 2025—while its adjusted free cash flow forecast has been raised from $10B to $12B since the beginning of the year.

In other words, not only has the thesis not been weakened, but GM itself is more optimistic about its operations.