通用汽车财报后承认将大规模进入混动市场，但指引下修已被股价反映，丰田仅获间接受益叙事

NEW YORK -- After a big bet on electric vehicles that has failed to pan out, General Motors is becoming one of the last major U.S. automakers to enter the hybrid market, a field that top competitor Toyota Motor has leveraged to close in on the leader in U.S. auto sales.
"We will have hybrids in our portfolio in multiple segments," GM CEO Mary Barra said in an earnings call Tuesday. The company has provided no details about its planned lineup or release timeframe.
Under Barra, who became CEO in 2014, GM sought to spearhead the shift to EVs. It had aimed to produce 1 million EVs last year, anticipating a boost from purchase subsidies implemented by previous U.S. President Joe Biden's administration.
But EVs did not take off in the U.S. as GM had hoped, and many Biden-era green policies were rolled back under President Donald Trump. The automaker changed its development direction, resulting in heavy losses last year. Even then, however, Barra had positioned hybrids as a transitional option, contending that they were not a real solution for cutting carbon emissions.
GM's hand has been forced by persistently high gasoline prices amid the war in the Middle East, as well as concern about rivals catching up.
The company's net profit more than doubled on the year in the July-September quarter to $3.34 billion, thanks to a strong showing in North America driven by high-priced models. But its shares still fell 7% on Tuesday after it downgraded its full-year forecast in light of higher costs for inputs such as semiconductors and steel.
In a report Tuesday, J.P. Morgan analyst Rajat Gupta said he expects uncertainty to continue in 2027 on high commodity prices.
The outlook for the pricey internal combustion engine vehicles that drove GM's earnings seems increasingly murky. The automaker's U.S. sales volume sank 5.5% on the year to about 670,000 units last quarter. On top of the fall in EV sales, high fuel costs are leading consumers to avoid big gasoline-powered autos in favor of smaller, more fuel-efficient models.
GM expects sales of internal combustion engine vehicles to be lower than usual next quarter, owing in large part to a decline in popular models stemming from its shift to EVs over the past few years.
Faced with these headwinds, GM's position as the top-selling U.S. automaker is on shakier ground as Toyota -- which is better positioned to capture the surge in hybrid demand -- comes within striking distance.
The Japanese automaker's U.S. sales last quarter rose 0.6% on the year to 633,223 vehicles. This was only about 38,000 fewer than GM, narrowing from more than 80,000 a year earlier. If Toyota surpasses GM to take the lead, it would be the first time it has done so since January-March 2022, in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Toyota's U.S. market share last quarter came to 15.46%, compared with GM's 16.37%, according to Cox Automotive. The gap between the two stood at nearly 2 percentage points a year earlier.
"The large majority of product development dollars have been going into EVs over the last four or five years, and that's led [to] a massive vacuum in product last year, this year, and next year," auto analyst John Murphy said.
Though U.S. policy changes have led GM to move away from its all-in bet on EVs, this could prove to be a miscalculation, as high fuel prices are now reviving U.S. interest in electric models.
High interest rates and inflation are also pushing American consumers toward affordable small and midsize cars, raising the prospect of competition from China.
High tariff barriers are currently keeping Chinese cars out of the U.S. market, but Trump suggested before his summit with Chinese President Xi Jinping last month that he would be open to Chinese automakers manufacturing in the U.S.
With these companies already growing their sales in Canada and Mexico, some industry observers see their entry into the U.S. as just a matter of time.
Murphy also sees Chinese companies becoming strong competitors for the Big Three U.S. automakers -- GM, Ford Motor and Stellantis -- even in internal combustion engine cars. "They're getting better on ICE, and they're getting much better on hybrids," he said. "And those are the powertrains that people want, so they'll make them."