General Motors said that it will spend more than the $35 billion it had planned to spend through 2025 to speed up the launch of new electric cars and that investments in technology will be more important than making more money next year.

GM said it expects to make $13 billion to $15 billion in operating profit in 2022, which is in line with the record $14.3 billion profit it made in 2021. Even though vehicle production is expected to rise as semiconductor supplies improve and pricing power stays strong, GM expects to make more money.

"What we are doing here is putting some of the extra money that we will make from more cars into acceleration and not just trying to make as much profit as possible in the short term," GM Chief Financial Officer Paul Jacobson said in an interview.

General Motors plans to spend $9 billion to $10 billion on capital projects for this year and the next few years. Jacobson said that. There is not a dividend being paid by GM at this time.

Mary Barra, the CEO of General Motors, said the company is "moving quickly" from the $35 billion in investments it made in the '20s and '30s to the assets it will make in the '40s and '50s.

General Motors will decide where to build a fourth electric car battery plant by June. It will also create a third electric truck assembly line. Mary Barra said that the company has 110,000 reservations for the electric version of its Silverado pickup truck, which is a lot of people.

Mary Barra did not provide a new figure for the money spent on electric vehicles through 2025. This year, General Motors said in its quarterly report that it plans to spend $1.5 billion more to speed up software development and accelerate the growth of its electric cars.

GMC's share price has dropped from its recent highs because Ford Motor Co. has invested more money in its own electric vehicle projects, especially the Ford F-150 Lightning electric pickup truck. However, GM has taken a more cautious approach until now, planning more EV launches and capacity for the end of this decade.

As more people want to buy electric cars, General Motors has a better long-term plan and is ready to move faster to meet the demand. This is what Mary Barra and other GMC executives are saying now.

Barra said that making electric cars more affordable is essential to the company's plans. For example, a Chevy Equinox electric car costs $30,000. GM is also working on a cheaper electric car that costs less than $30,000. It is not working on a $25,000 electric car that Tesla CEO Elon Musk promised to make, though. Last quarter, GM did not make any electric cars because of a recall on batteries for the Chevy Bolt electric cars.

As of this year and next, Mary Barra said that GM plans to sell 400,000 electric cars in North America. By 2025, there will be 20 electric vehicle models in North America and 30 across the world. Morgan Stanley analyst Adam Jonas asked Mary Barra if that meant that GM would have a lot of low-volume electric cars. Mary Barra said that it did not mean that. Some of the models may sell more than 100,000 units a year.

GMC's profit forecast for 2022 also takes into account rising costs. It said it would spend $2.5 billion more this year on logistics and commodities, and it would make less money from its financing business, which makes loans. Jacobson said that GM would make more low-margin cars in 2022 as well.

GMC will also spend more money and hire 500 more people at its robotaxi unit, which announced earlier this week that it would receive another $1.35 billion in investment from Softbank Group Corp (9984.T) in preparation for commercial ride services, which GM says it will.

For 2021, GMC made an operating profit of $14.3 billion and made a profit of $10 billion, which is how much money they made. According to the company, its net income could be between $9.4 billion and $10.8 billion in 2022 if there are "no major new economic or supply chain challenges."

During the fourth quarter, General Motors made $1.67 billion in net income and generated $2.8 billion in operating income. Net income margin for the quarter was 5.2 percent, down from 7.9 percent for the whole year. This compares to a net margin of 7.9 percent for the entire year.

Few vehicles were sold, and General Motors lost market share in 2021. However, the automaker's profit margins rose because it sold more profitable pickup trucks and SUVs. As soon as the business day was over, General Motors' shares fell slightly. They then rose to about $54, above the closing price of $53.95.