GM plans autonomous driving push to challenge Tesla

General Motors had a relatively strong quarter when viewed in isolation, but the company is now focusing on its future strategy, expecting to significantly reshape the autonomous driving industry by 2028, News.Az reports, citing foreign media.

GM released its first-quarter earnings results before the opening bell on Tuesday, April 28. The company reported declines across several key metrics, with earnings, revenue, and global vehicle deliveries all down, including in North America, the United States, China, and the Asia-Pacific region. As a result, the automaker’s stock fell following the earnings announcement.

The slight increase in earnings per share (EPS) and EBIT guidance was not enough to offset weaker comparisons with the same period last year.

The broader U.S. auto industry had received a temporary boost in the previous year after President Donald Trump introduced auto tariffs, prompting consumers to rush to dealerships ahead of their implementation. Dealers also contributed by offering incentives to attract additional buyers.

In 2026, however, General Motors reported that U.S. net revenue fell to $36.4 billion in the quarter, down from $37.4 billion a year earlier. Total revenue also declined by $400 million to $43.6 billion, mainly due to lower electric vehicle sales volumes. Adjusted earnings came in at $3.70 per share, compared with $3.35 in the previous year.

Despite these declines, GM highlighted positive developments in its autonomous driving and driver-assistance technologies, particularly its OnStar system. The company also presented its strategy to compete with rivals such as Tesla in the autonomous driving space.

GM’s Super Cruise system has now reached 1 billion miles driven, which the company said is helping pave the way toward “eyes off/hands off” driving technology expected to debut in the Cadillac Escalade IQ by 2028.

The company has also begun public road testing of its next-generation Super Cruise system on limited-access highways in California and Michigan, and plans to deploy more than 200 supervised development vehicles.

While Tesla supporters often point to scale, noting that its Full Self-Driving (Supervised) system has accumulated more than 8.6 billion miles as of April 28, GM emphasized that it is working toward a different objective in autonomous technology development.

“We are doing something unique. Developing a system for personal vehicles that we can deploy on both ICE [internal combustion engine] and EV,” GM said during its earnings call. Unlike many competitors focusing solely on electric vehicles, GM said it aims to bring hands-free, eyes-off driving capability to both traditional gasoline-powered and electric vehicles.

Super Cruise added 50,000 new subscribers during the quarter, and GM expects to add more than 1 million OnStar subscribers in 2026, with around 30% of users opting for the premium service tier.

News.Az 

By Nijat Babayev