Are EVs the Future of GM?

Summary

WSJ Tech News Briefing: Are EVs the Future of GM?

Release Date: June 3, 2025
Host/Author: The Wall Street Journal

The June 3, 2025 episode of the WSJ Tech News Briefing delves into two prominent topics shaping the technology and automotive industries: the rise of generative artificial intelligence (AI) tools enabling non-coders to develop applications, and General Motors’ (GM) steadfast commitment to electric vehicles (EVs) amidst evolving market dynamics and regulatory landscapes.

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1. Vibe Coding: Democratizing App Development

Overview
The episode opens with a discussion on how generative AI tools are transforming app development, making it accessible to individuals without traditional coding expertise. This segment features insights from Jasmine Sun, a technologist and writer at Jasmy News in San Francisco, as interviewed by journalist Victoria Craig.

Key Points:

• Definition and Origin of Vibe Coding
  Jasmine Sun explains, “Vibe coding is a term coined by Andrej Karpathy... it’s basically an approach where you're coding in plain English” (02:01). This methodology leverages AI to translate natural language instructions into functional code, lowering the barrier to entry for app creation.

• Practical Applications and Examples
  Sun shares personal experiences and user stories, highlighting the creation of personalized applications. For instance, Michael Keating, an E-Bike founder, used Vibe Coding to develop an AI-powered 20 Questions game for his son, eliminating the need for repetitive human interaction (03:22). Additionally, two New York mothers developed "Baby Time," a FaceTime variant tailored for children, emphasizing safety and simplicity by removing ads and in-app purchases (04:27).

• Impact on Professional Software Engineers
  The conversation addresses concerns about the potential displacement of professional coders. Sun references feedback from software engineers who distinguish between Vibe Coding and traditional software engineering, noting that while Vibe Coding is ideal for personal projects, complex applications requiring robust security and scalability still rely on professional expertise (04:43).

Notable Quote:

“Vibe coding is an opportunity to create a digital environment that she knows is safe and introduces the opportunities that she wants for her child.”
— Jasmine Sun, 04:27

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2. General Motors’ Electric Vehicle Strategy

Overview
The latter half of the episode features an in-depth interview with Mary Barra, CEO of General Motors, conducted by WSJ Editor in Chief Emma Tucker at the WSJ's Future of Everything conference. The discussion centers on GM's evolving EV strategy, investments in traditional engines, regulatory challenges, and the broader competitive landscape.

Key Points:

• Balancing EV Commitment with Traditional Engine Investments
  Barra addresses GM’s decision to continue producing V8 engines alongside its EV initiatives. She emphasizes that GM remains committed to an all-EV future, highlighting ongoing advancements in battery technology and charging infrastructure as critical factors (07:31). The investment in the V8 engine plant underscores GM’s strategy to provide consumers with performance and efficiency while transitioning to electric propulsion (07:58).

• Infrastructure Development for EV Adoption
  Barra outlines GM’s efforts to enhance the EV charging infrastructure through collaborations with companies like Flying J and Tesla, and leveraging dealer networks for optimal charger placement. She asserts that improving infrastructure is pivotal for consumer adoption and achieving a comprehensive EV market (08:38).

• Navigating Regulatory Environments
  Addressing GM’s lobbying against California’s stringent emissions regulations, Barra explains that the company’s stance is driven by the need for a unified national standard to streamline technological development and market strategies. She highlights consumer readiness and the importance of infrastructure as key to progressing toward an all-EV future (09:16).

• Price Competitiveness and Market Dynamics
  With the recent repeal of EV tax credits in the House, Barra discusses GM’s efforts to achieve price parity between gas-powered vehicles and EVs. She notes that GM is improving EV profitability and currently offers vehicles that are cost-competitive when considering total ownership costs (10:20).

• Competition from Chinese Automakers
  Barra acknowledges the rapid advancements of Chinese automakers in the EV sector, attributing their success to substantial subsidies and production capacity. She emphasizes the need for GM to enhance its competitiveness through strategic investments and innovation, despite the lack of inherent technological advantages (11:09).

• Integration of AI in Manufacturing
  Highlighting GM’s collaboration with Nvidia, Barra discusses the implementation of AI-driven digital twins to optimize manufacturing processes, reduce costs, and accelerate product development. These initiatives reflect GM’s commitment to leveraging AI for operational excellence and innovation (11:37).

Notable Quotes:

“We still believe in an all EV future... we have work to do to continue to get battery technology to give us greater density so we have farther range.”
— Mary Barra, 07:31

“Consumers are incredibly rational and they need to make sure that vehicle is going to take care of their whole life.”
— Mary Barra, 08:03

“There’s not like a technological advantage per se, but when you have a business being subsidized heavily, it's going to be harder to compete price-wise.”
— Mary Barra, 11:37

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Conclusion

The episode of WSJ Tech News Briefing provides a comprehensive look into how AI is democratizing app development through Vibe Coding, empowering individuals without traditional coding skills to create personalized applications. Concurrently, it offers an insightful analysis of General Motors’ strategic navigation of the electric vehicle landscape, balancing investments in traditional engines with a robust EV commitment, addressing regulatory challenges, and leveraging AI to enhance manufacturing processes. These discussions underscore the dynamic interplay between technological innovation and industry strategy in shaping the future of both software development and the automotive sector.

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Timestamps

• Vibe Coding Segment:

  • Introduction to Vibe Coding: 02:01
  • Examples of Personal Applications: 03:22 & 04:27
  • Impact on Software Engineers: 04:43

• GM Interview Segment:

  • Commitment to EVs and V8 Engines: 07:31 & 07:58
  • Charging Infrastructure Efforts: 08:38
  • Regulatory Environment and Standards: 09:16
  • Price Parity and Market Competitiveness: 10:20
  • Competition from China: 11:09
  • AI Integration in Manufacturing: 11:37

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Transcript

[Sarah Tucker]

Tech leaders and boards are teaming up to transform businesses. On the latest episode of techfluential Nationwide board members Sarah Tucker and Jim Fowler Nationwide EVP and CTO take us behind the scenes to show how it can be done. Techfluential, a podcast from Deloitte and custom content from WSJ.

[Julie Chang]

Hey T& B listeners. Before we get started, heads up, we're gonna be asking you one more question at the top of each show this week. Our goal here at Tech News Briefing is to keep you updated with the latest headlines and trends on all things tech. Now we wanna know more what you like about the show and what more you'd like to hear from us. Our question today is what other tech podcasts do you listen to? Assuming we aren't the only one that is. If you're listening on Spotify, look for our poll under the episode description or you can send us an email to tnbsj.com now onto the show. Welcome to Tech News briefing. It's Tuesday, June 3rd. I'm Julie Chang for the Wall Street Journal. Even non software engine engineers can now make apps thanks to generative artificial intelligence tools. We'll tell you how to code with just Vibes. Plus, the CEO of General Motors says the company is all in on the future of electric vehicles, despite lobbying Congress to repeal California's emissions rules. We'll hear her interview from the WSJ's Future of Everything eventually. But first, if you've ever wanted to make an app but didn't have the technical chops to do so, you may not need them anymore. Thanks to AI tools like ChatGPT and Anthropics, Claude or lesser known ones like Cursor, just about anybody can code up an app. And that's exactly what some folks have been doing. Through a process that's been dubbed Vibe Coding. My colleague Victoria Craig spoke with San Francisco based writer and technologist Jasmine sun about it.

[Victoria Craig]

For people who have never heard this before, what is Vibe Coding?

[Jasmine Sun]

Vibe coding is a term coined by Andrej Karpathy, an AI researcher who led AI at Tesla and was on the founding team at OpenAI. And vibe coding is basically an approach where you're coding in plain English. So normally if you're not a coder, you don't know the coding languages, all of the fancy syntax, it almost feels like a foreign language. But with Vibe coding because of AI, you can just give an AI instructions of what to build in English. For example, create a website to display all of my favorite music albums in a gallery format and AI will just do all the hard work and make the website for you.

[Victoria Craig]

And you've got some really interesting examples of how people have really harnessed this technology to do all kinds of tasks like entertain babies, even. Just walk us through some of those examples that you have in your story.

[Jasmine Sun]

I got the idea to report this piece because I made my own website for the first time. I'm not a coder. And I was like, oh my God, this actually was pretty easy. I did it in like an afternoon. So a lot of the examples of the personal apps and the games that people are making were actually parents building stuff for their kids. For example, one of the folks I interviewed, Michael Keating, an E Bike founder in San Francisco, his son loves to play 20 questions with him. Plays with him nonstop, asking, answering, until like, everyone in the family is worn out and sick of it.

[Julie Chang]

And.

[Jasmine Sun]

And so he was like, you know what? Let me build an AI that will play 20 questions with him. And he used the app Replit, which is like a $25 a month subscription, doesn't require any coding skills to build AI20 questions for his son. And it can play the asker, it can play the guesser, and his son just plays with that now. Or Irena and Priya, two moms who are friends and live in New York, created Baby Time, which is a version of FaceTime that, that shows pictures instead of names, and all the pictures are of their family members. Irina Son, for example, can just tap a picture of a family member and I'll instantly initiate a FaceTime call to them. One thing that Irina told me that really stuck with me is she was saying that a lot of the apps that you download from the app Store, they're full of pop up ads or in app purchases or all this distracting stuff. And like her toddler's three, she really doesn't want him to be accidentally clicking on something or just hit in a digital space that's not designed for kids. And so for her vibe, coding is an opportunity to create a digital environment that she knows is safe and introduces the opportunities that she wants for her child.

[Victoria Craig]

It basically levels the playing field. So all of us can become our own software engineers. But what happens to the people who have actually gone to school and studied all of this to become professional software engineers and coders? Are their jobs at risk because of platforms like this?

[Jasmine Sun]

It's a big question, and it's one that a lot of economists and folks are trying to study. Like, what is the impact of AI on the junior software engineer labor market? What I will say is that from the software engineers who I spoke with. Several of them told me that they view Vibe coding and software engineering as two different fields. So when you are trying to build an app that millions of people can use stably securely, that's resistant to hacks and cyber attacks, that requires a lot more careful testing and infrastructure. Whereas Vibe coding, at least at the current level, is much more suited to these like personal use cases where you're not worried that someone's going to hack into your 20questions account, for example. And so at the moment, professional software engineers are still making high level decisions about security, about scaling how to make something resilient to really big use cases. But at least for small toy apps, Vibe coding is a great solution.

[Julie Chang]

That was the WSJ's Victoria Craig speaking with Jasmine Sun, a technologist and writer at Jasmy News based in San Francisco. Coming up, GM was gonna convert a gas engine plant to make EV motors and then scrap the plan. But CEO Mary Barra says she still sees a path to all EVs. We'll hear from her after the break.

[Sarah Tucker]

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[Julie Chang]

General Motors is a top automaker in the US it's also one of the biggest sellers of EVs. But recently it's walked back its investments in the space and pushed to nullify California's mandate banning gas powered cars by 2035. GM CEO Mary Barra sat down last week with the Wall Street Journal's Editor in Chief Emma Tucker at this year's Future of everything. They discuss GM's evolving EV strategy as well as broader challenges the industry is facing. Here are highlights from their conversation.

[Emma Tucker]

Mary, you are CEO of one of America's most iconic famous automakers. I want to turn to some news because we had a news announcement from you that GM is going to keep making V8 engines at a plant in New York which you had planned plan to convert to EV motors. Should we take this as a sign that the future, at least in the US is actually gas powered and not electric?

[Mary Barra]

Well, we still believe in an all EV future. I think EVs are fundamentally better. We have work to do to continue to get battery technology to give us greater density so we have farther range. We need to have a robust charging infrastructure. But having a next gen V8 engine was always part of our plan because this next engine will give the customer consumer more performance as well as more fuel efficiency. It's almost $900 million, the largest investment we've ever made in an engine plant.

[Emma Tucker]

So do you still see that all electric future and when do you think the US might eventually get there?

[Mary Barra]

I think depending on what happens with the regulatory environment. And also I think what's actually more important is getting a robust charging infrastructure as I mentioned, because I do believe the consumer is very rational. When you think about buying a new vehicle, a car, a truck or a cross over, for most people it's the most important or the second most important and expensive purchase that they make. So consumers are incredibly rational and they need to make sure that vehicle is going to take care of their whole life. So I see a path to all levy. It will depend on how much we get the infrastructure ready. But I do believe we'll get there because I think the vehicles are better.

[Emma Tucker]

What is GM's role in helping to create that infrastructure? I mean, you've made a lot of profits since 2023. Why hasn't any of that been plowed into building the kind of charging infrastructure that everyone says is necessary for EVs to really get off the ground?

[Mary Barra]

Well, it actually has. We're working with pilot Flying J to get chargers on the interstates. We worked with Tesla and we now have access to their charging infrastructure. And we've worked with our dealers because our dealers know the local community and know where best to place the charging infrastructure. So we've been investing quite a bit. But I think we've got to get a little further and I believe we will. I think every quarter the infrastructure gets a little better.

[Emma Tucker]

So I think everyone would agree that you're operating against a backdrop of a very challenging backdrop. But nevertheless there is a perception out there that GM has been flip flopping on EVs and in particular on emissions regulations. So we reported that GM pushed for Congress to repeal California's emissions rules. And these are rules that you did once support. How can you be committed to the EV transition while also opposing the most stringent rules, pushing the industry in that direction?

[Mary Barra]

Well, what we're committed to is the customer and the customer was telling us they weren't ready. I mean, the regulatory environment from a California perspective and the states that followed it was requiring that EV penetration be at 37% for new car sales. Last month it was around 7. And about 35% of the vehicles sold are in the states that were following that. So the regulatory environment was getting in front of the customer. And I've always said we needed one national standard because that's going to allow the car companies to develop technology more efficiently and more effectively.

[Emma Tucker]

On top of that, the House has also voted to end tax credits for EVs which did make them more affordable. When do you now think customers can expect price parity between gas and EVs?

[Mary Barra]

We are working to improve our EV profitability every single day. And we have vehicles out there right now that are affordable. So right now in the marketplace today, a consumer can get a vehicle that's at parity or very close when you take the cost of the ownership experience, price of gas, etc. Consumers can do that.

[Emma Tucker]

Today, automakers in China are churning out tech rich EVs at incredibly low cost and they're developing new models at breakneck speed. So it looks as though the future of your industry appears to have shifted to China. How did they manage to pull ahead so quickly on EVs?

[Mary Barra]

I think it's well understood that the auto industry in China is heavily subsidized and they have excess capacity that they're then shipping to other countries around the world and again being subsidized. So I think when we look at that, we need to make sure that we can compete. I mean, we've looked at the vehicles, torn them down, and we understand there's not like a technological advantage per se, but when you have a business being subsidized heavily, it's going to be harder to compete price wise.

[Emma Tucker]

So obviously this is a future of everything conference here. So I have to ask you, how are you harnessing the power of AI to change your manufacturing processes?

[Mary Barra]

Absolutely we are. We just a couple weeks ago, maybe it was a month ago now, we made an announcement with Nvidia and there's several different projects we have going on in the manufacturing space as well as the product development space. But one specific is using digital twins. So your factory's running before there's any piece of machinery on the plant floor that allows it to start up much more efficiently. Takes cost and time out of the entire process. Like I said, we've got projects going where we're giving the tools to engineers so they can do more with the product, optimize it further. And then we have many projects in every single function in the company leveraging AI. And then finally, very excited that we just announced that Sterling Anderson is joining us who has a huge background from not only autonomy, but AI. So I'm excited to see how we work together. And take the company forward even faster.

[Julie Chang]

That was WSJ Editor in Chief Emma tucker speaking with GM CEO Mary Barra at the WSJ's Future of Everything last week. You can find the full talk on WSJ.com, we've got a link to it in our show notes. And that's it for Tech News Briefing. Today's show was produced by me, Julie Chang with Deputy Editor Chris Zinsley. We'll be back this afternoon with TNB Tech Minute. Thanks for listening. Isn't home where we all want to be? Reba here for realtor.com, the Pro's number one most trusted app, finding a home is like dating. You're searching for the one with over 500,000 new listings every month. You can find the one today, download the realtor.com app cause you're nearly home. Make it real with realtor.com Pro's number.

[Jasmine Sun]

One most trusted app is on August 2024. Proprietary survey over 500,000 new listings every month based on average new for sale and rental listings February 2024 through January 2025.