GM Changes Lanes

Under CEO Mary Barra, General Motors is racing to adjust to a radically different— and rapidly approaching—future of shared, electric, autonomous vehicles. Can the automaker transform its culture fast enough to win in the new world?

- Rick Tetzeli

ABOUT A HUNDRED YEARS AGO, the United States reached “peak horse”. In 1920 some 25 million horses roamed the plains, boulevards, cul-de-sacs, rodeos, stockyards, ports, farms, and dingy alleys of America—toting freight, plowing fields, fighting wars, carrying passengers on buggy rides, and making a complete mess. According to American Heritage magazine, in 1900 health officials in Rochester, New York, estimated that the city’s 15,000 horses produced enough manure to make a 175-foot-high, one-acre-round pile every year. By 1930 the American horse population had dropped to 19 million. And by 1960 the country had just 3 million horses. The horse had been fully displaced as the dominant mode of transportation by a new technology that was both more powerful and less prone to produce manure—the horseless carriage, a.k.a., the car.

A century later, the question facing automakers like General Motors (No. 10 on this year’s Fortune 500) and Ford (No. 11) is whether their horseless carriages are about to go the way of the horse. We may well have reached, or even passed, “peak car”. A record 17.5 million passenger vehicles were sold in the U.S. in 2016, but that number dipped to 17.2 million in 2017, and it could fall under 17 million this year. Fewer teens and twenty somethings get their driver’s licenses: While 92% of 20-to24-year-olds were registered in 1983, just 77% were in 2014.

Alternatives to ownership are taking off. In 2017, Uber provided 4 billion rides worldwide. The new generation of passengers has embraced ride-sharing—in cities where Lyft has launched its Line service, 40% of its rides are shared by two or more passengers. And gauged by myriad announcements and breathless media coverage, a world of shared electric, autonomous cars—a technology with all the promise of those first “horseless vehicles”—is just around the corner.