A CEO of a publicly traded automotive company has their choice of vehicles for their personal use. What General Motors Corp GM CEO Mary Barra drives might surprise readers.
What Happened: Barra currently drives a Chevrolet Bolt electric vehicle that is under recall.
“I’m driving a Bolt EV. I’m loving it,” Barra told Andrew Ross Sorkin at the New York Times DealBook Conference, the Detroit Free Press reported.
The article also confirmed that Barra drives a vehicle that has been recalled by the company. A GM spokesperson confirmed the vehicle Barra referenced is a company car and could not confirm if it had been fixed yet.
General Motors recalled 140,000 Bolt EVs, representing model years from 2017 to 2022. The recalls come after 13 Bolts caught fire while parked over the years.
Related Link: GM CEO Mary Barra Set To Be First Woman To Lead Business Roundtable
Why It’s Important: The show of support for one of General Motors’ electric vehicles could be important, since Barra and the automaker are betting heavily on this area of growth.
“When people get to drive an electric vehicle, I think they’ll find that they’re not giving anything up, in fact they’re getting it, the customer experience is great,” Barra said.
Barra added that she is waiting for the GMC Hummer EV pickup to be built and has placed an order.
“We’ll soon own a Hummer. I got my name on the list along with 200,000 other hand-raisers for the Lyriq.”
Barra admitted that she is on the list like many others and won’t receive favoritism for her place in line.
“I signed up like everyone else for the Hummer. When we started the Hummer, we overloaded the internet.”
Barra said her husband and son like the Camaro and Firebird. The family also owns a Corvette.
General Motors has said it plans on having a full lineup of zero emission vehicles by 2035.
Barra said seeing Tesla Inc TSLA with a higher market cap than General Motors doesn’t bother her.
The GM CEO said the company is “so undervalued” by Wall Street and the automaker will be rewarded once it completes its electric vehicle plan.
“I see it as a huge opportunity for General Motors to capture significant more value.”
Price Action: GM shares were up 2.56% to $63.40 on Friday. Shares of GM are up 48% year-to-date in 2021.
© 2024 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved.
Trade confidently with insights and alerts from analyst ratings, free reports and breaking news that affects the stocks you care about.
