General Motors

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In 2026, General Motors moved its headquarters to this downtown Detroit building after leaving the Renaissance Center.

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General Motors is an American corporation that was the world’s largest motor-vehicle manufacturer for much of the 20th and early 21st centuries. It operates manufacturing and assembly plants and distribution centers throughout the United States, Canada, and many other countries. The company’s major products include automobiles and trucks, automotive components, and engines, and it is also engaged in financial services. GM’s headquarters are in Detroit.

Under the leadership of William C. Durant, the General Motors Company was founded in 1908 to consolidate several motorcar companies producing Buick, Oldsmobile, Cadillac, Oakland (later Pontiac), Ewing, Marquette, and other autos as well as Reliance and Rapid trucks. GM introduced the electric self-starter commercially in its 1912 Cadillac, and this invention soon made the hand crank obsolete. GM remained based in Detroit and was reincorporated and named General Motors Corporation in 1916. The Chevrolet auto company and Delco Products joined GM in 1918, and the Fisher Body Company and Frigidaire joined in 1919 (Frigidaire was sold in 1979).

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The 1941 Cadillac Series 62 featured the streamlined styling and prominent chrome trim characteristic of American luxury cars of the era.

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Durant was forced out of the company in 1920 and was succeeded by Alfred P. Sloan, Jr., who served as president (1923–37) and then as chairman of the board of directors (1937–56). Sloan reorganized GM from a sprawling, uncoordinated collection of business units into a single enterprise consisting of five main automotive divisions—Cadillac, Buick, Pontiac, Oldsmobile, and Chevrolet—the activities of which were coordinated by a central corporate office equipped with large advisory and financial staffs.

The various operating divisions retained a substantial degree of autonomy within a framework of overall policy; this decentralized concept of management became a model for large-scale industrial enterprises in the United States. Sloan also greatly strengthened GM’s sales organization, pioneered annual style changes in car models, and introduced innovations in consumer financing.

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The 1959 Cadillac Eldorado is famous for its extreme “rocket” tail fins that reached some 4 feet (1.2 meters) above the ground.

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By 1929 General Motors had surpassed the Ford Motor Company to become the leading American passenger-car manufacturer. It added overseas operations, including Vauxhall of England in 1925, Adam Opel of Germany in 1929, and Holden of Australia in 1931. The Yellow Truck & Coach Manufacturing Co. (now GMC Truck & Coach Division), organized in 1925, was among the new American divisions and subsidiaries established. In 1931 GM became the world’s largest manufacturer of motor vehicles. By 1941 it was making 44% of all the cars in the United States and had become one of the largest industrial corporations in the world.

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The Chevrolet Corvette, introduced in 1953, became one of the most recognizable American sports cars.

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General Motors grew along with the American economy in the 1950s and ’60s and continued to hold 40% to 45% of total U.S. automotive sales. It bought Electronic Data Systems Corporation, a large data-processing company, in 1984 and acquired the Hughes Aircraft Company, a maker of weapons systems and communications satellites, in 1986.

Along with other U.S. automobile manufacturers, the company faced increasingly severe competition from Japanese automakers in the 1970s and ’80s, and in 1984 GM began a new automotive division, Saturn, that used highly automated plants to produce subcompact cars to compete with Japanese imports. While GM’s modernization efforts showed some success, heavy losses in the early 1990s forced the company to close many plants and reduce its workforce by tens of thousands.

Like other American automakers, however, GM made a robust recovery by the middle of the decade and returned its focus to its automotive businesses. It sold Electronic Data Systems in 1996, and in 1997 it sold the defense units of its Hughes Electronics subsidiary to the Raytheon Company (later RTX Corp.), thus leaving the computer-services and defense-aerospace fields in order to concentrate on its automotive businesses.

Even as GM retrenched and shed some operations, it pursued a strategy of alliances and partial ownership stakes aimed at preserving global scale. In 2000, the company became the sole owner of Saab Automobile AB, and by the early 21st century it held equity interests in several automakers, including Fiat, Isuzu, Fuji Heavy Industries (Subaru), and Suzuki.

At the same time, GM continued to reduce its domestic footprint. In 2004, it discontinued Oldsmobile. Four years later GM was surpassed by Toyota Motor Corporation as the world’s largest automaker.

During this time GM also sought to decrease its financial service holdings through various deals concerning General Motors Acceptance Corporation (GMAC) and its related divisions. GMAC had been founded in 1919 to finance and insure the installment sales of GM products and had later expanded into other businesses. In 2006 GM sold a 51% stake in GMAC to Cerberus Capital Management, and GMAC was later renamed Ally Financial. In addition, GMAC’s mortgage and real estate units were subsequently sold.

In December 2008, President George W. Bush announced an emergency financial rescue plan to aid the Big Three automakers—GM, Chrysler, and Ford—to prevent the collapse of the country’s struggling auto industry. The plan made immediately available $13.4 billion in government loans from the Troubled Assets Relief Program (TARP), a $700 billion fund approved by Congress to aid the financial industry following the subprime mortgage crisis. The loans would allow the auto companies to continue operating through March 2009, by which time the plan required them to demonstrate financial viability or return the money within 30 days. An additional stipulation required the companies to undergo restructuring.

The money was initially made available to GM and Chrysler; Ford had sufficient funds to continue operations and didn’t apply for government relief. As GM’s financial troubles mounted, with debts totaling $173 billion, the company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in June 2009. It emerged from bankruptcy reorganization the following month.

In 2010, the company officially discontinued both Pontiac and Saturn and sold Saab. The downsizing left GM with four vehicle divisions: Buick, Cadillac, Chevrolet, and GMC. In November 2010, GM returned to the stock market with one of the largest initial public offerings in U.S. history, following its delisting in 2009. In 2011, GM regained its title as the largest automaker in the world.

(Read Lee Iacocca’s Britannica entry on Chrysler.)

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GM executive Mary Barra at the 2012 Detroit auto show.

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In 2014, GM became embroiled in a scandal over defective ignition switches that could cause engines to shut off while vehicles were moving, preventing airbags from deploying in a crash. The company had identified the problem as early as 2001 but failed to address it for more than a decade. GM recalled millions of vehicles, and a compensation program established for victims ultimately recognized 124 deaths and 275 injuries linked to the defect.

Mary Barra, who became GM’s first female CEO in January 2014, oversaw the company’s response, including an independent investigation, changes to its vehicle safety procedures, and compensation for victims and their families. Despite the scandal, GM posted strong earnings, with record sales from 2014 to 2016. Its European division continued to struggle, however, and in 2017 GM sold Opel and Vauxhall to the PSA Group, the French manufacturer of Peugeot and Citroën automobiles. The divestiture, valued at €2.2 billion ($2.3 billion) including the financing arm, effectively ended GM’s European operations.

Beginning in the late 2010s, GM placed greater emphasis on electric vehicles while scaling back production of traditional passenger cars. In 2018, the company undertook a major restructuring that resulted in thousands of layoffs and plans to idle or close five North American plants as it shifted resources toward trucks, sport-utility vehicles, and EVs.

In September 2019, nearly 50,000 workers represented by the United Auto Workers (UAW) went on strike against GM over wages, benefits, and plant closures. The 40-day strike ended in October after union members approved a four-year labor agreement that included wage increases and improved opportunities for temporary workers to become permanent employees. Although GM agreed to keep its Detroit-Hamtramck assembly plant open, the agreement didn’t reverse the closures of plants in Lordstown, Ohio; Warren, Michigan; and Baltimore.

In September 2023, the UAW launched a strike against GM, Ford Motor (F), and Stellantis (STLA), marking the first time the union had simultaneously targeted all three automakers. The six-week strike involved targeted walkouts at selected plants, with the union expanding the stoppages as negotiations continued. GM reached a tentative agreement with the union on October 30, and the resulting four-and-a-half-year contract provided wage increases of 25%, restored cost-of-living adjustments, and extended union protections to workers at GM’s Ultium Cells battery joint venture.

GM accelerated its electrification efforts in the early 2020s, spending more on electric-vehicle development and battery production. In 2021, the company set a goal of eliminating tailpipe emissions from new light-duty vehicles by 2035. It expanded its EV offerings under the Chevrolet and Cadillac marques, although the transition encountered setbacks. In 2021, GM recalled all Chevrolet Bolt EVs because of battery defects that posed a fire risk.

Federal policy also influenced GM’s electrification plans. The Inflation Reduction Act of 2022, signed into law by President Joe Biden, revised and extended federal tax credits of up to $7,500 for qualifying new electric vehicles and provided incentives for domestic battery manufacturing. After President Donald Trump returned to office in 2025, legislation enacted that July ended the EV purchase tax credits for vehicles acquired after September 30, 2025. His administration also moved to ease federal vehicle emissions requirements.

As EV sales growth slowed and federal policies changed, GM scaled back its electric-vehicle production plans and investments. The company recorded $7.9 billion in charges related to its EV restructuring in 2025 and another $3.6 billion during the first nine months of 2026. Despite its investments in electrification, GM continued to rely heavily on gasoline-powered trucks and sport-utility vehicles for profits.

In 2016, GM acquired a majority stake in Cruise, a company developing autonomous-vehicle technology. Cruise developed robotaxis that operated without human drivers, but its expansion suffered a major setback in October 2023, when one of its vehicles struck and dragged a pedestrian in San Francisco after she had been hit by another vehicle. The accident, which seriously injured the pedestrian, prompted regulatory investigations and the suspension of Cruise’s driverless operations. Subsequent investigations identified failures in the vehicle’s technology and Cruise’s handling of the incident.

In December 2024, GM said it would stop funding Cruise’s robotaxi development, citing the high costs of expanding the business and growing competition. The automaker had invested more than $10 billion in Cruise since 2016. GM acquired the remaining shares of Cruise in February 2025 and shifted its focus to autonomous-driving technology for personal vehicles, including its Super Cruise hands-free driver-assistance system. In 2026, GM said it planned to introduce a more advanced version of Super Cruise in 2028 that would allow drivers to take their eyes off the road under certain conditions.

In January 2026, GM moved its global headquarters to Hudson’s Detroit, a new development in the city’s downtown, from Detroit’s Renaissance Center, which had housed the company since the 1990s. The move returned GM to Woodward Avenue, where it had established its first headquarters in 1911.

In October 2026, GM said it would transfer its stock listing to Nasdaq from the New York Stock Exchange, effective November 17. The company first listed on the NYSE in 1911 and returned to the exchange in 2010 following its bankruptcy reorganization. The transfer would also make GM eligible for inclusion in the Nasdaq-100 index.