But nothing is off the table in ensuring that GM has a strong future to generate the right profitability and the right return for our investors.
John Murphy: And if I could just sneak one follow-up on the plug-in hybrid comment of potentially bringing those here to the U.S. to fill sort of maybe this interim gap. What kind of capacity or volume could you hit there here in the U.S.? I know the dealers are clamoring for those vehicles.
Mary Barra: Yes. We are going to be bringing those in at a time where we need them from a compliance perspective. This year, we’re very focused in — I think as we are able to get the delivery to our dealers, they are going to see the strength of the EV portfolio. So I’ll have more to share on the hybrid capacity. We’ll adjust the capacity because, again, we have the technology. We know the targeted segments that we’re going to apply it to. So we’ll have the ability to flex and do what we need to from a hybrid perspective. But I think for calendar year 2024, EV is our focus. And we think we’ve got tremendous growth opportunity as we free up getting the availability of the products to customers.
John Murphy: Great. Thank you very much.
Operator: Thank you. Our next question comes from Ryan Brinkman with JPMorgan. Your line is open.
Ryan Brinkman: Good morning and thanks for taking my question. Obviously, the 2024 outlook is far stronger than investors expected. How much of the higher outlook versus consensus do you think stems from different industry-related factors that are a matter of debate, such as expectations for volume or pricing in different markets versus how much do you think stems from company-specific factors that you would naturally have a better handle on internal to the company such as lower Cruise spending, a potential for more structural cost reduction, the magnitude of guidance [indiscernible] you may be more positive on industry factors, but your pricing comments also seems pretty in line. So not really sure. How are you thinking about like how much of your meeting this great guide in 2024 will come down to factors under your control versus out of your control?
Paul Jacobson: So Ryan, thanks for the question. I’ll take a shot at that. When you look at the macro backdrop, I think we’re approaching it pretty consistently to what we have for the last few years. So we’ve talked about a 16 million SAAR, about 2% to 2.5% of sort of total pricing pressure across the board. A lot of it is, I would say, a testament to what we achieved and overcame in 2023 that we don’t expect to repeat. Of course, there will be some things that pop up as there are every year. And I think the team has done a good job of knocking those things down and overcoming some of those challenges going forward. So against the macro backdrop, that feels a little bit consistent with some conservatism in there on the pricing side of it.
I think a lot of it is on our ability to execute. And we have had a lot of challenges, as Mary mentioned. I think 2023 was a big year of learning for us. But as she talked about with the work that we’re doing on the module assembly and where we see EV ramp as well as the customer response to the EVs that we’re producing, I think this is a year of our executing. And a lot of it is in our control.
Ryan Brinkman: Okay. Great. I just wanted to ask on Cruise too, starting with whether the guided $1 billion of lower spending in 2024 versus the 2023 full year $2.7 billion figure or maybe the 4Q run rate of $3.2 billion. And then what has the response been so far? I realize there hasn’t been a lot of time passed, but from the regulators to the recently released comprehensive review. Previously, I think you’ve guided to potentially significantly less than the non-Cruise, maybe on the business update call, but then followed a day or two later at Barclays by saying several hundred million, now it’s $1 billion. So of course, you were still waiting for the review at that point. Is there anything to read into the $1 billion being higher than several hundred million?
Is that maybe the reception of the review could lead to a more prolonged suspension of commercial operations? And then just finally, the outlook for the EBIT loss in 2024 or whatever is $1.7 billion [indiscernible] it’s greater than the $1.3 billion of cash that Cruise had at year-end, right, on, I think, Slide 26 or so. So it’s that just capital raise, curious on the thoughts there?
Mary Barra: So, Ryan, there’s a lot in there, but let me first by saying the response from regulators has been positive. So — and we’ll continue to have that outreach and build that relationship and be transparent with them. You shouldn’t read too much into what we said shortly thereafter we learned of the situation. We went in and did a lot of work. And I got a — I have to give our co-presidents, Craig Glidden and [indiscernible] credit for going in and really staying focused on the technology, making sure we keep the very talented software engineers that are doing incredible work and have allowed us to already clock 5 million miles of driverless miles. So it was really just going to look a lot of where the opportunity to cut costs came from, the change in strategy to really focus on one city to demonstrate it as opposed to — you remember at one point, they were talking about 20 cities this year.
And so, there were a lot of people who had been recently added more from an operational standpoint that we were able to exit those employees. But clearly a focus on the technology. And the way I look at this is, we’re going to make sure we do it right from a regulatory, a consumer, a customer relationship perspective, get the technology where we think it would be. And then once we’re informed by doing it well in the cities, then we’ll have the opportunity to go quickly and scale from there. So don’t read anything into the $1 billion other than we went and did the work and saw the opportunity.
Ryan Brinkman: Very helpful. Thank you.
Operator: Thank you. Our next question comes from Dan Levy with Barclays. Your line is open.
Dan Levy: Hi. Good morning. Thanks for taking the questions. Two questions on cash. One is, you’re guiding to $8 billion to $10 billion of free cash. And that pro forma gets your cash balance on the balance sheet to something like $28 billion to $30 billion at the end of 2024. To what extent are you willing to put forward another share buyback plan beyond what you have — if the target is to have cash balance of $20 billion? And the second question is on Cruise on cash. They’re at roughly $1.3 billion. I think that gives you a little less than a year of runway on cash. So what’s the plan on further funding for Cruise? Thank you.
