The Chevrolet display is seen at the New York International Auto Show on April 16, 2025.
Danielle DeVries | CNBC
While Tesla remains the No. 1 electric vehicle manufacturer in the U.S. by a wide margin, General Motors said on Tuesday it has secured the No. 2 position and believes it has an “inherent advantage” when it comes to EVs.
Executives on GM’s quarterly earnings call on Tuesday said the company is focused on reaching and improving profitability for its EVs. When asked on the call about how GM aims to do that when Tesla is facing the same uphill climb, GM CFO Paul Jacobson said the company’s advantage lies in the diversity of its lineup across gas and electric vehicles, as EV demand fluctuates.
“A lot is made about Tesla’s simplicity and their scale,” Jacobson said. “And clearly, within a couple of narrow segments, they do have that, and they’ve realized some good advantages. And hats off to them. It also leaves them overexposed to a demand set that has been highly volatile.”
GM currently has 12 EVs in its lineup, while Tesla has five models. Tesla does not break out sales by model, but lumps them together in groups.
Jacobson’s comments come as automakers are faced with changing demand for EVs, heightened by President Donald Trump’s new tax-and-spending bill, which is set to end the $7,500 tax credit for new electric vehicles and $4,000 credit for used EVs after Sept. 30.
Sales of new EVs in the second quarter of 2025 were down 6.3% year over year, which marks only the third decline on record, according to the auto industry forecaster Cox Automotive.
Those sales amounted to a 4.9% uptick from the first quarter of 2025, according to Cox Automotive, which Cox Senior Analyst Stephanie Valdez said may represent the start of a rush to buy EVs before the tax credit ends.
Valdez predicted there will be record new EV sales in the third quarter of 2025, followed by a collapse in the fourth quarter as the EV market adjusts to its “new reality” without EV tax credits.
GM CEO Mary Barra acknowledged that EV growth has been slower than expected, but said on the earnings call Tuesday that “we believe the long-term future is profitable electric vehicle production, and this continues to be our North Star.”
Amid this fluctuating demand, a July 17 Barclays note said Tesla’s demand and fundamentals remain weak, while its autonomous vehicle and robotaxi narratives have been front and center.
In the second quarter, Tesla reported around 384,000 vehicle deliveries, a 14% year-over-year decline and its second straight quarterly decrease. Deliveries are the closest approximation of vehicle sales reported by Tesla but are not precisely defined in the company’s shareholder communications.
But Tesla is still the vast EV leader by far. GM’s electric vehicle sales totaled 46,300 for the quarter, more than double the 21,900 a year ago. That’s a relatively small portion of the Detroit automaker’s total vehicle sales in the second quarter of 974,000.
Cox Automotive noted that GM’s 78,000 EVs in the first half of 2025 amount to more than twice the volume posted in 2024.
Jacobson said on Tuesday’s call that GM is prepared for changing EV demand because it has built flexibility into its manufacturing plants by investing in both EVs and internal combustion engine cars.
“That built-in flexibility for us to switch between EV and ICE and make sure that we meet customers where they are is an inherent advantage that we have because we can absorb some of the costs of that manufacturing facility with more ICE production if EV demand goes down,” Jacobson said.
He highlighted GM’s new investments in its Spring Hill plant in Tennessee and Fairfax plant in Kansas as an example of this diversification. GM announced last month that it was investing $4 billion in several American plants and is set to increase U.S. production of both gas and electric vehicles.
GM said on Tuesday that Chevrolet holds the No. 2 spot and Cadillac sits at No. 5 in EV brand rankings.
— CNBC’s Lora Kolodny contributed to this report.
