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GM wants you to know that it’s also unhappy with the slow pace of its EV business

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GM wants you to know that it’s also unhappy with the slow pace of its EV business

General Motors is dealing with a lot right now: a slowing EV business, delays in battery manufacturing, a safety crisis with its robotaxi unit, Cruise, and financial headwinds from the monthslong autoworker strike. On top of it all, its stock price is still struggling to get back to where it was this summer before the strike started.

With all that in mind, GM CEO Mary Barra hopped on a call with investors early Wednesday to address these compounding challenges and assure them that they have a number of fixes in mind. Costs will be reined in, factories will be delayed, and stock buybacks will recirculate cash to shareholders. It’s a crucial moment for GM, which is locked in a tight race with Ford, Tesla, and others to develop EVs and roll out autonomous driving safely and profitably.

Costs will be reined in, factories will be delayed, and stock buybacks will recirculate cash to shareholders

Barra said she is “disappointed” with the slow pace of its Ultium battery development, which is supposed to underpin the company’s forthcoming lineup of EVs. She is “not satisfied” with GM’s low stock price. And the Cruise “incident,” in which a driverless vehicle drug a pedestrian 20 feet after she was struck in a hit-and-run, is now under independent review, but the robotaxi company will be smaller and slower going forward.

“We will be very transparent with what our go-forward plan is,” Barra said. “But I think there’s been some concern about when that comes.”

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Cruise, in particular, was under the microscope. The company has paused all robotaxi operations in the aftermath of the incident in San Francisco in October. Two top executives, CEO Kyle Vogt and chief product officer Dan Kan, have resigned, and the company has said that layoffs will be coming.

In the call, GM offered more details on Cruise’s uncertain future. The company hired two outside law firms to review Cruise’s safety protocols as well as determine whether Cruise purposefully withheld video footage from the California DMV of its driverless vehicle dragging the hit-and-run victim to the side of the road. The company issued a voluntary recall of all 950 Cruise vehicles earlier this month to update the software to prevent similar incidents in the future.

Photo by Tayfun Coskun / Anadolu via Getty Images

GM has lost $8.2 billion on Cruise since 2017 but expects to lose much less going forward. The automaker didn’t share specific cash reductions, but chief financial officer Paul Jacobson said it would likely amount to “hundreds of millions” of dollars.

“We are projecting to have a little bit of a narrower scope as we focus in on safety and scaling up in a much narrower view,” Jacobson said.

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But unlike some of its competitors, GM is not pulling out completely from the autonomous vehicle business. “We’re going to be very deliberate about how we go forward,” Barra said, adding that when Cruise restarts its operations, it will be in only one city. The company also will need to “build trust” with local leaders and first responders, Barra said, in a nod to complaints from San Francisco officials that Cruise’s vehicles obstructed city operations.

“There’s been a lot of uncertainty in our industry and frankly, we didn’t execute well this year”

On the Ultium battery delays, Barra was blunt in her assessment. “There’s been a lot of uncertainty in our industry and frankly, we didn’t execute well this year, as it relates to demonstrating our EV capability and the capability of Ultium because of the module manufacturing automation equipment issues that we had,” she said. “So I’m disappointed in that. I think that has created some concern.”

Recently, GM said it would delay production of its upcoming slate of electric pickup trucks at its plant in Michigan’s Orion Township by “a few months.” Barra assured investors that the issues with Ultium manufacturing were being resolved.

“Our module production issue is not really related to Ultium,” she added. “As I’ve said before, it is really an automation manufacturing issue.”

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Barra said that while EV growth has slowed, demand is still heading in the right direction, noting that US car buyers were on track to purchase 1 million EVs this year for the first time.

“There’s really no reason that EV demand won’t be higher in the years ahead,” she said. “Consideration is rising, the policy environment is favorable. The public charging infrastructure is growing and customer choice is expanding.”

She also acknowledged that the recent contracts with the United Auto Workers union are spooking investors because of their associated costs. GM estimates that the new contracts will result in added labor costs of around $500 per vehicle in 2024 and $575 on average over the life of the contract. The company also expects to raise battery costs by about $3 per kilowatt-hour, but it still expects to achieve “mid-single digit profitability” on its EV business by 2025.

GM expects to reduce net costs by $2 billion through 2024, which includes lower salaries, lowering marketing expenses, and additional overhead reductions. And tellingly, Barra also managed to slip in some praise for the company’s internal combustion engine vehicles, which continue to generate profits for the company at a time when costs are rising across the board.

“Our strong ICE business that frankly has gotten stronger, and we still believe there’s growth there,” Barra said.

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GM has said it expects to go completely carbon neutral by 2040.  

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You can slap a Pixel Watch 2 on your wrist for just $224 right now

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You can slap a Pixel Watch 2 on your wrist for just 4 right now

The Pixel Watch 3 may be the shining refinement Google’s wearable lineup needed, but the last-gen Pixel Watch 2 is still a great buy. That’s especially true when you can get it for as low as $224 ($26 off) — which is the watch’s current starting price at both Amazon and Best Buy.

Although the Pixel Watch 3 introduces a host of solid improvements — including a bigger and brighter display, a new 44mm size, AI-generated workout suggestions, and offline Google Maps — the second-gen Pixel Watch is still a looker. It only comes in one size (41mm), and the usable display area is only about 10 percent smaller than the third-gen model. It also uses the same Qualcomm Snapdragon Wear W5 Gen 1 chip, though it lacks the ultra wideband chip that lets you unlock nearby Pixel devices and select BMW vehicles.

Overall, performance between the two is similar and battery life on the 41mm models is about the same, averaging about 24 hours per charge. With the Watch 2, you’re only really missing out on the new workout features (other once-exclusive Wear OS 5 features have started to trickle down to the Watch 2), plus a screen that’s said to be twice as bright. If you don’t feel those Watch 3 traits are worth the $350 starting price, we’d still happily recommend picking up the older model.

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Fox News AI Newsletter: 'Fargo' creator: 'We've got a fight on our hands'

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Fox News AI Newsletter: 'Fargo' creator: 'We've got a fight on our hands'

Welcome to Fox News’ Artificial Intelligence newsletter with the latest AI technology advancements.

IN TODAY’S NEWSLETTER:

– ‘Fargo’ creator warns AI is a threat, ‘we’ve got a fight on our hands’
– AI will tamp down inflation, provide greater ‘social safety net,’ Silicon Valley businessman says
– Man paralyzed in diving mishap has medical miracle a year after getting AI-powered brain implant

Noah Hawley attends the premiere of FOX’s “Lucy In The Sky” at Darryl Zanuck Theater at FOX Studios on Sept. 25, 2019, in Los Angeles. (Tibrina Hobson/WireImage)

READY FOR BATTLE: “Fargo” series creator Noah Hawley is wary of the good and bad in artificial intelligence.

AI OPTIMISM: A prominent Silicon Valley businessman and venture capitalist believes artificial intelligence can spur deflation and create enough growth to help those whose jobs will be lost to the technology.

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MEDICAL MIRACLE: A New York man who was left paralyzed after a diving accident is starting to regain movement a year after receiving an artificial intelligence-powered implant in his brain.

Keith Thomas with care team

Keith Thomas, who lives with paralysis, poses with the research team at Northwell Health’s Feinstein Institutes for Medical Research that worked with him for months to restore lasting movement and feeling in his arm and hand. The first-of-its-kind ‘double neural bypass’ system uses brain implants and artificial intelligence to allow signals to and from Thomas’ brain to bypass the site of his injury. (Northwell Health’s The Feinstein Institutes for Medical Research)

PUNTED: A federal judge on Wednesday blocked a California bill that outlaws AI-generated “deepfake” content and required the removal of “deceptive content” from social media.

A California law signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom was blocked by a federal judge.

A California law signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom was blocked by a federal judge. (Anadolu / Contributor)

Subscribe now to get the Fox News Artificial Intelligence Newsletter in your inbox.

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Stay up to date on the latest AI technology advancements and learn about the challenges and opportunities AI presents now and for the future with Fox News here.

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An Android feature now rolling out locks your screen if your phone is swiped

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An Android feature now rolling out locks your screen if your phone is swiped

Google is rolling out a new set of features aimed at making it less easy for thieves to access your data. That’s according to Mishaal Rahman, who posted on Reddit that the features are showing up in a new update after seeing that his Xiaomi 14T Pro phone now has Theft Detection Lock and Offline Device Lock, two of three features Google announced in May. Others say they only see the third one, called Remote Lock.

The flashiest of the new features is Theft Detection Lock, which uses AI to lock your screen when it detects “common motion associated with theft,” like someone snatching your phone out of your hand. Meanwhile, Offline Device Lock locks a device’s screen when it’s offline for a while, and Remote Lock lets users lock their phone using only their phone number when they can’t log into Find My Device with their password.

So far, I’m not seeing any of the features on my own Pixel 6. You can see screenshots of the new features’ settings in the overnight Threads post from Rahman below.

Theft Detection Lock and Offline Device Lock are supported on any Android device running Android 10 and up, while you’ll need at least Android 5 for Remote Lock. If you don’t have the features yet, you can try updating Google Play Services, though Google tends to roll out new features over time, rather than to everyone at once, so, like me, you may have to wait.

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