General Motors said on Tuesday that its profit in the final three months of 2023 was depressed by the cost of a 40-day strike at some of its U.S. plants and an accounting charge related to electric vehicles.
The automaker, which has been banking on a rapid rise in sales of battery-powered models, earned $2.1 billion in the fourth quarter, it said, up from $2.0 billion a year earlier. G.M.’s revenue jumped about 10 percent, to $171.8 billion.
“The pace of E.V. growth has slowed, which has created some uncertainty,” the company’s chief financial officer, Paul Jacobson, said in a conference call.
The strike, by the United Automobile Workers union, cost the company $1.1 billion. G.M. also spent $800 million on a settlement with LG Energy Solution, a battery supplier, that was related to a mass recall of the electric Chevrolet Bolt.
And the company took a charge of $1.7 billion primarily to account for battery cells that were produced at such a high cost that they led G.M. to lose money on electric vehicles that were equipped with them. Mr. Jacobson said the cost of cells was declining, and G.M.’s electric cars and trucks would become profitable in the second half of this year.
Several carmakers, including Tesla and Ford Motor, have reduced prices in response to weaker-than-expected demand for battery-powered cars. G.M. has also struggled to produce such vehicles in large numbers because of manufacturing problems with a new battery technology the company calls Ultium.
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