GM CEO Mary Barra (GM photo)
CEO Mary T. Barra (GM photo)
It was in downtown San Francisco, not Detroit, that General Motors CEO Mary Barra rode in the back seat of a prototype of a self-driving electric car. That was a year ago.
Bill Vlasic, the Detroit bureau chief of The New York Times, writes:
After that drive, Ms. Barra made her own decision to speed up, convinced that such cars were worth betting the company on. Within six months after what she called her “aha! moment” in San Francisco, a fleet of self-driving Chevrolet Bolts, the company’s new electric car, was being built at a G.M. assembly plant in Michigan, the pace accelerated at the direction of Ms. Barra and her senior management team.
It was a first for any major car company, and the first leg of a race she is determined to win. The question now is whether a company identified with the industry’s bygone glory days can be a trendsetter in 21st-century transportation — and beat out Silicon Valley rivals like Google, Tesla and Uber with no legacy business to encumber them.
“The auto industry is on the cusp of significant change, and G.M. has to prove that a longtime established player can be up to the task,” said Michelle Krebs, a senior analyst with the car-shopping site Autotrader, who has followed the company since the 1980s. “If you look at their past performance, their record has been spotty at best.”
