General Motors‘ Chief Financial Officer Paul Jacobson previewed on Wednesday the company’s first quarter vehicle sales.
Jacobson flagged that weather conditions and reduced inventory levels had a greater impact on first-quarter sales than rising fuel costs, the latter related to the ongoing geopolitical conflict in the Middle East.
“Usually it takes four to six months of sustained high oil prices before people start to think, ‘Maybe I should go for less mileage, or maybe I should buy down,’ I don’t think we see that,” the CFO said.
Speaking at the Bank of America 2026 Automotive Summit, the finance chief said the inventory shortage was particularly pronounced for trucks, as the automaker prepares to introduce new full-size models.
“When you look at 2026, I think I may have jinxed it, because I said a few weeks ago at a conference that this was probably the most stable start to a year that we’d seen in my five here,” Jacobson said.
However, he also noted that “on the ground at the retail level, we haven’t seen any meaningful shift.”
Tariffs
Questioned about the company’s demand outlook for 2026, Jacobson noted that one cannot “talk about 2026 without spending just a minute on 2025,” which he sees as “almost a setup year, if you will.”
“Just over 12 months ago, we were thinking that tariffs were gonna be the end of the business model and the success that we’ve seen,” he admitted, adding that what they found instead was “that the auto industry is really important to the Administration.”
Last April, US President Donald Trump announced country-specific duties and added a 25% tariff on imported auto parts and vehicles.
According to the CFO, GM was able to offset more than 40% of the tariff impacts last year.
EV Strategy
At the same time, Jacobson acknowledged that GM is facing “a significant, sort of special cash headwind in 2026,” referring to the $6.7 billion impairment from its EV business restructuring.
Of the $7.6 billion total, $4.6 billion is expected to be settled in cash, primarily related to contract cancellations and supplier settlements.
In 2025, GM made approximately $400 million in cash payments and expects to pay the majority of the remaining balance — $4.2 billion — this year.
“We are working very aggressively to get that behind us,” the CFO said, with his goal being “to have all of this behind us by the end of the second quarter.”
He highlighted that the financial team is currently “working with hundreds and hundreds of suppliers, going in and trying to negotiate these claims, and making really, really good progress with it.”
EV Plans
Alongside other Detroit automakers, GM cut back on EV production last year, after federal policy changes and rising tariffs (mainly affecting its Canadian-based factories) impacted its strategy.
In October, ahead of its third-quarter earnings report, the Detroit automaker announced that it would take a $1.6 billion hit as it was restructuring its business, after the termination of the federal EV tax credit.
By then, the company stated that it may incur additional significant cash and non-cash charges in the future, which came earlier this year with the final quarterly financial report of 2025 — in which GM said it would be charged $7.6 billion.
According to quarterly disclosures, the company sold over 2.8 million vehicles in the United States last year, of which 169,886 were fully electric — representing a share of 6% in the total volume.
BEVs reached their highest share in the third quarter, hitting 9%.
This surge was driven by consumers rushing to buy electric vehicles before the federal EV tax credit was set to expire.
Sales Figures
General Motors stopped reporting monthly sales figures in 2018, opting for quarterly disclosures instead.
Motor Intelligence estimates that the automaker sold 128,735 Chevrolet vehicles last month, with 9,755 Cadillacs, 12,743 Buick units and 47,782 GMC trucks joining the list — totaling 199,015 vehicles.
In January, the company registered 191,111 vehicles across the four brands, according to the same source, which indicates a sequential increase of about 8,000 units.
February sales fell by 7.5% compared to the same period a year ago.
General Motors produces both vehicles with internal combustion engines (ICE) and battery electric vehicles (BEV) — however, Motor Intelligence does not provide a breakdown by model or powertrain.
CEO Comments
Chief Executive Officer Mary Barra indicated late last year that the company intends to keep pushing for better fuel economy and lower emissions across its lineup — regardless of the Administration’s plans to ease regulatory pressure on automakers.
“Every new vehicle we come out with, every engine we invest in for internal combustion, we work to have significant improvement from a fuel economy perspective, from an emissions perspective,” Barra said in an interview with the New York Times.
She also acknowledged the difficulty of planning long-term EV investments when government policy swings dramatically between administrations.
“We have to make the investments to get to where the regulatory environment they set. We’ve seen a complete change in that 180 degrees one way and 180 degrees back. That’s the world CEOs of automakers are living in,” Barra stated.
