通用汽车 (GM) 2026年第三季度业绩电话会：上调现金流指引，获批200亿美元股票回购lg...

核心要点

• 通用汽车（General Motors）公布2026年第三季度营收为500亿美元，同比增长3%。调整后息税前利润（EBIT）增长22%至41亿美元，而调整后每股稀释收益（EPS）增长超30%至3.70美元。
• 北美业务调整后EBIT攀升43%至36亿美元。该地区利润率提高2.5个百分点至8.7%，重回通用汽车8%-10%的目标区间。
• 受盈利增加和关税时点因素支撑，调整后汽车业务自由现金流达到59亿美元，增加17亿美元。通用汽车将2026日历年现金流指引上调至115亿-125亿美元。
• 通用汽车宣布了一项新的200亿美元多年期股票回购授权。今年迄今的股票回购总额达63亿美元，其中包括10月份完成的10亿美元回购。
• 管理层预计，如果需求保持强劲、关税环境总体稳定，且近期的大宗商品、物流和内存成本压力有所缓解，2027年的营收、利润率和调整后EBIT将实现增长。
• 下一代雪佛兰Silverado和GMC Sierra、质保费用降低、电动汽车亏损收窄，以及安吉星（OnStar）、Super Cruise和通用汽车防务部门（GM Defense）的增长，是通用汽车2027年增长计划的核心。

关键财务数据

2026年前九个月，通用汽车实现调整后EBIT 123亿美元，调整后汽车业务自由现金流122亿美元，调整后每股稀释收益为10.97美元，同比增长超35%。

业务与运营表现

通用汽车在本季度于美国交付了超过67万辆汽车。内燃机（ICE）车型销量达64.5万辆，尽管有停产车型，但仍同比略有增长。轻型全尺寸皮卡销量增长9%，使通用汽车有望在2026年连续第七年领跑该细分市场。

北美业务业绩改善反映出全尺寸皮卡的产品组合更加高端、质保费用下降以及产能调整后电动汽车亏损收窄。这些有利因素被大宗商品通胀、物流和DRAM成本，以及将生产转移至美国所带来的更高制造费用部分抵消。

下一代轻型皮卡已在锡劳装配厂（Silao Assembly）启动生产。首批交付预计将于2026年第四季度末开始，其他工厂的投产计划将持续至2027年第二季度。管理层预计，由于换代停产，2027年皮卡产量将与2026年基本持平，随后新增产能将在2028年释放。

通用汽车计划将Super Cruise作为高配版Silverado和Sierra轻型皮卡的标配，并在大多数其他配置版本中提供选装。管理层预计，2027年全尺寸皮卡的Super Cruise渗透率将提高四至五倍，总装机量将增长近50%。

软件和服务递延营收同比增长40%。通用汽车预计，2026日历年来自安吉星数字服务和Super Cruise的已确认营收将超过30亿美元，到年底递延营收将接近75亿美元。管理层预计2027年已确认营收将再次实现两位数增长。

随着通用汽车根据需求调整产量，加上2025年第三季度消费者购买补贴到期的基数效应，电动汽车销量有所下降。公司仍按计划朝着将全年电动汽车亏损减少10亿至15亿美元的目标迈进。管理层预计2027年盈利能力将进一步改善，随着下一代电池电芯、电池包及LMR技术的推出，2028和2029年将迎来更大的跨越式突破。

通用汽车防务部门（GM Defense）获得了多项多年期合同。在步兵班用车辆（ISV）项目、战术车辆原型、装甲Suburban合同以及与洛克希德·马丁合作的推动下，管理层预计年营收增长将超过30%，且利润率达到两位数。

管理层业绩指引

通用汽车收窄或上调了2026日历年的多项业绩指引区间：

通用汽车预计，全年美国汽车行业SAAR（季节性调整后年化销量）将在1650万辆左右。由于新一代全尺寸皮卡上市投产，第四季度北美内燃机车型销量预计将低于往常水平，其中包括皮卡销量同比减少约3.5万辆的负面影响。

管理层仍预计全年北美市场定价将带来0.5%的正向收益。第四季度皮卡销量的减少预计将在很大程度上被定价优势（包括新车型带来的收益）所抵消。

全年质保费用的改善预计将接近10亿至15亿美元区间的上限。关税总额预计处于25亿至35亿美元区间的下限，而有效税率预计为20%-21%。

展望2027年，管理层的目标仍是实现营收、利润率和调整后EBIT的增长。该展望的前提是客户需求保持韧性、市场和关税环境总体平稳，以及近期大宗商品压力有所缓解。通用汽车将新皮卡、额外的SUV和跨界车产能、数字服务、防务业务、质保成本节省、电动汽车业务改善、固定成本削减以及制造回流效率提升视为核心驱动因素。

风险与关注要点

本季度大宗商品和物流领域的通货膨胀有所加剧。通用汽车表示，铜价创历史新高，热轧卷板钢材价格创四年新高。预计通货膨胀合计将增加2026日历年约4亿美元的额外成本，主要集中在第四季度。

通用汽车目前预计，大宗商品通胀、物流和DRAM成本将造成全年约20亿美元的负面影响。如果将近期大宗商品的上涨按年化计算，管理层估计2027年调整后EBIT将面临额外10亿至15亿美元的负面影响，2027年总负面影响约为20亿美元。管理层指出，价格需要从近期高位有所回落，才能支撑对盈利增长的信心。

该公司在2026年还将投入约10亿至15亿美元，用于将生产转移至美国、强化供应链及扩展软件能力。在2027年美国本土新增产能投放之前，这些成本预计将在第四季度进一步增加。

其他需要关注的领域包括多工厂皮卡投产的执行情况、中东局势动荡、国际竞争、关税以及消费者需求的持续性。通用汽车表示，尚未观察到通用汽车金融（GM Financial）逾期或违约情况出现明显恶化。

分析师问答环节要点

管理层表示，投入成本上升主要发生在过去8到10周内，寻找对冲措施的时间有限。通用汽车正在推动固定成本节省，并在设计、制造及公司职能部门更广泛地应用人工智能（AI），但并未对预期收益进行量化。

现金流方面，通用汽车表示，2027年GAAP现金流生成将受益于电动汽车供应商结算支付费用的大幅减少。自2025年上半年末以来产生的与电动汽车相关的现金支出总额达到74亿美元，其中已支付46亿美元。预计约10亿美元将在2026年第四季度支付，其余部分将在2027年支付。

管理层提醒称，2027年调整后汽车业务自由现金流可能不会与盈利成正比例增长，原因是资本支出可能会趋向100亿至120亿美元区间的上限，且2026年受益于非经常性关税退款。通用汽车估计，2026年与《国际紧急经济权力法案》（IEEPA）相关的现金收益约为6亿至8亿美元。

通用汽车证实，混动车型将覆盖多个核心细分市场。管理层表示，相关项目已经加入，预计无需额外的资本支出或工程投资。

公司未提供新的200亿美元回购授权的具体时间表。公司重申，股票回购将遵循其资本配置框架，并取决于满足业务投资和维持投资级资产负债表之后的可用现金。

业绩电话会议完整文字实录

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完整财报电话会议逐字稿

管理层陈述

Operator

Good morning, and welcome to the General Motors Company Third Quarter 2026 Earnings Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] As a reminder, this conference call is being recorded Tuesday, October 20, 2026. I would now like to turn the conference over to Ashish Kohli, GM's Vice President of Investor Relations.

Ashish Kohli

Thanks, Amanda, and good morning, everyone. We appreciate you joining us as we review GM's financial results for the third quarter of 2026. Our conference call materials were issued this morning and are available on GM's Investor Relations website. We are also broadcasting this call via webcast.

Joining us today are Mary Barra, GM's Chair and CEO, along with Paul Jacobson, GM's Executive Vice President and CFO. Susan Sheffield, President and CEO of GM Financial will also be joining us for the Q&A portion. On today's call, management will make forward-looking statements about our expectations. These statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause our actual results to differ materially. These risks and uncertainties include the factors identified in our filings with the SEC. Please review the safe harbor statement on the first page of our presentation, as the content of our call will be governed by this language. And with that, I'm delighted to turn the call over to Mary.

Mary Barra

Thanks, Ashish, and good morning, everyone. I want to begin by recognizing our employees, dealers and suppliers. It takes commitment, focus and resilience to deliver solid results quarter after quarter and year after year in this industry. The agility, teamwork and commitment have been exceptional, and I'm very appreciative. This year, through the third quarter, we have delivered $12.3 billion in EBIT-adjusted, $12.2 billion in adjusted automotive free cash flow and $10.97 in EPS diluted adjusted, which is up more than 35% year-over-year.

During the third quarter, our margins in North America were 8.7%, up 2.5 points year-over-year. The compelling products, technology and services we're delivering for customers around the world makes us confident in the consistent long-term growth of our earnings and cash generation as well as our ability to return capital to shareholders. Our track record of improved cash flow generation began 5 years ago, and we have responded by increasing our investment in the business and continually strengthen our balance sheet. Then in 2023, we began using surplus cash to repurchase shares given our low valuation. Since that time, we have reduced our fully diluted shares by 37%. The new $20 billion multiyear authorization we announced today further demonstrates our Board's commitment.

As this quarter's results and our revised guidance show, our business is performing well even with a major launch underway and the inflationary pressures we're experiencing in areas like logistics, commodities and memories. That's because we've spent years making the business more resilient by strengthening our vehicle portfolio, developing new high-margin revenue streams and operating with strong discipline around production, pricing and incentives.

Looking ahead, there are clear external headwinds, and in some cases, they are intensifying. While the path forward is more challenging, we continue to believe that 2027 will be another strong year and better than 2026, assuming customer demand remains strong, and commodity, logistics and other recent cost pressures moderate. On the plus side, we expect incremental benefits from warranty expense improvements, lower EV losses, growth in software and services revenue and the launches of our next-generation Chevrolet Silverado and GMC Sierra light-duty pickups. The performance of today's Silverado and Sierra has been consistently strong because of their design, capability, technology and innovative features. We have now achieved 19 consecutive quarters of sales leadership in the U.S. and grown our market share by 10 full points since the current generation went on sale in 2018. And now in their final year of production, we're seeing robust sales, share and financial results. This speaks directly to the value we offer customers.

Our new trucks build on this foundation. Their interior and exterior designs are high watermarks for refinement and precision. Our TRIM Series strategy allows us to meet customers at different price points while creating a clearer path to the higher value configurations. For example, High Country, Chevrolet's premium sub-brand, has become more premium, modern and athletic with materials, features and technology closer to a luxury SUV experience. Sierra Denali remains the core premium capable truck, and the Denali Ultimate is moving further into Halo territory. We've also made Powertrain Choice a critical part of the value ladder and a mix lever. We will offer the Turbo Max 4-cylinder with best-in-class standard torque, our segment exclusive Duramax inline 6 turbo diesel, an all-new 5.7-liter and 6.6-liter V8. Each engine is tuned to distinct performance and lifestyle needs, and we will focus on the things truck customers desire most, usable torque, smooth and predictable power delivery, fuel economy under real-world use, trailering confidence, durability under load and refinement.

To ensure quality and durability, we have put our new V8s through more than 100,000 hours of dynamometer testing, and we have completed more than 1.6 million miles of real-world on road validation before the truck reaches customers. Production has begun at [indiscernible] and customers should see the first trucks arrive in dealerships later in the year. [indiscernible] will follow in Q1, and we will launch the trucks at Orion in Q2. We expect to build roughly the same number of trucks in '27 as in '26 and then in '28, we will have incremental capacity to support segment and market share growth.

Trucks will also be a big driver of incremental Super Cruise adoption and digital revenue as we make the technology standard on high-end Silverado and Sierra LD trims and offer on most others. We expect full-size truck Super Cruise penetration to grow 4 to 5x next year, reflecting strong customer demand and our ability to scale the technology across critical customer segments.

The base is already strong and growing rapidly. Year-over-year, deferred revenue from software and services is up 40%. For the full year, we're on pace to approach $7.5 billion in deferred revenue, driven by 1 million new OnStar subscriptions and a 1 million strong Super Cruise equipped car parts. The quality of the Super Cruise driving experience and frequent customer engagement with the technology underscores why it is so successful with customers. Our Super Cruise equipped vehicles travel well over accumulative million miles hands-free each day Nearly 70% of our customers use it at least once a month, and I'm confident we can grow our Super Cruise installed base by close to 50% next year.

I'll close by recognizing the tremendous progress GM Defense has made since our last call, including several new multiyear contract awards that will help us drive annual top line growth of more than 30% with double-digit margins.

During the quarter, the Pentagon announced increased production volumes for the ISV including a contract for the ISV utility variant. These are part of a more than $1 billion potential ISV award based on the U.S. Army's procurement objectives, subject to congressional appropriation. The Army has contracted with us to deliver Silverado HD-derived tactical vehicle prototypes for its ISV heavy competition. We have signed contracts with 4 customers since June for our factory armored suburban Shield VIP transport, our Epic mobile energy system is now certified and ready for sale to customers and we delivered our first component set to Lockheed Martin for the Patriot PAC-3 less than a month after we sign a formal contract. As Lockheed said at the time, our ability to deliver components that can traditionally take months to years to produce underscores the effectiveness of defense and commercial partnerships and our own capabilities.

These are all very positive developments for our country, our partners, taxpayers and our business. Thank you, and I'll now turn the call over to Paul.

Paul Jacobson

Thank you, Mary, and good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us. I want to begin by recognizing the entire GM team. Their hard work and consistent execution are showing up in both our operating performance and consistently in our financial results. Revenue for the quarter was a record $50 billion, up 3% year-over-year. EBITadjusted was $4.1 billion, up 22% year-over-year, and EPS diluted adjusted was up more than 30% year-over-year to $3.70. The industry backdrop remains healthy with a total industry SAAR in the upper 16 million unit range in the third quarter with resilient demand across trucks, SUVs and fleet.

Our U.S. sales totaled more than 670,000 vehicles in the quarter. ICE sales of 645,000 were up slightly year-over-year despite the impact of discontinued models. And our light-duty full-size pickups continue to perform exceptionally well in the final year of their product cycle with sales up 9% year-over-year. This leaves us on track to lead the industry in full-size pickup sales in 2026 for the seventh consecutive year. And with deliveries of our all-new light-duty trucks expected to begin in the late fourth quarter, we plan to carry this momentum into 2027.

In terms of the changeover, we have already completed 4 down weeks at Silao Assembly ahead of starting production of the new truck last week. To ensure a high-quality launch, production will start at measured pace and ramp up over the coming months and quarters to more normalized levels. At Fort Wayne, we are planning 4 down weeks beginning in mid-December, with production scheduled to restart in January.

In preparation for the downtime, the sell-down of the existing truck is on track with inventories at planned levels and incentives as a percentage of MSRP that are several hundred basis points lower than prior truck changeovers. This is part of the broader discipline with which GM has been operating over the past 5 years. With that in mind, we expect to finish the year with overall inventory in our 50- to 60-day target range.

On the cash side, continued strong cash generation supports both our growth-focused investments and ongoing share repurchases, which combine nicely to drive continued EPS growth. In the third quarter, we repurchased $2.5 billion worth of shares. That reduced our diluted share count by approximately 27 million shares to around 866 million or 9% below the third quarter 2025 level. So far in October, we have already repurchased another $1 billion. That brings our year-to-date buybacks to $6.3 billion and completes the prior board authorization.

This morning, we announced a new $20 billion multiyear share repurchase authorization, representing more than 25% of our current market capitalization. The size and duration of this authorization are a meaningful statement of the Board's confidence that our cash generation is sufficient to continue investing in the future of the company and returning capital to shareholders.

Now let's turn to more details on our third quarter performance. Total company revenue of $50 billion was up $1.4 billion year-over-year. ICE volumes were up 8% year-over-year, while EV volumes declined as we lapped the expiration of the consumer purchase incentive in the third quarter of 2025 and aligned EV production with demand. EBIT-adjusted was $4.1 billion, up $700 million year-over-year. The improvement was driven by core business performance, including a higher mix of full-size pickups and lower warranty expense, partially offset by higher commodity and onshoring costs.

Adjusted automotive free cash flow was $5.9 billion, up $1.7 billion year-over-year. The improvement was driven by higher earnings and tariff timing.

Regarding EV charges, as I mentioned last quarter, we moved quickly with our suppliers and partners and have substantially completed the material cash charges we expect to incur as we align our EV capacity and manufacturing footprint with changes in regulatory policy. We incurred an additional $0.2 billion of cash charges in the third quarter, bringing total cash charges incurred since the end of the first half of 2025 to $7.4 billion. To date, $4.6 billion of this has been paid, of which $4.2 billion was paid in 2026 to date. We expect to pay another roughly $1 billion in the fourth quarter and the remainder in calendar year 2027. As a result, free cash flow available to be returned to shareholders next year should benefit from a significant year-over-year step-down in supplier EV settlement payments.

Now let's move to our regional results for the third quarter. North America continued its strong performance, delivering EBIT-adjusted of $3.6 billion, up $1.1 billion or 43% year-over-year. Margin was 8.7%, an improvement of 2.5 points from a year ago when tariffs were first put into place. Having worked through much of that pressure, we are solidly back within our 8% to 10% margin target, a clear marker of the progress the team has made. The improvement was broad-based, but included a higher mix of full-size pickups, lower EV losses from rightsizing our capacity and continued warranty expense reductions. These gains were partially offset by commodity inflation, including logistics and higher DRAM costs along with higher manufacturing costs related to onshoring production to the U.S.

OnStar Digital and Super Cruise delivered recognized revenue of over $800 million in the third quarter, up 15% year-over-year. We are on track for more than $3 billion in realized revenue for calendar year 2026 and expect to approach $7.5 billion in deferred revenue by year-end.

Looking forward to 2027, we anticipate another year of double-digit growth in realized revenue.

GM International EBIT-adjusted, excluding China equity income was breakeven in the third quarter down $200 million year-over-year, driven by a negative $100 million mark-to-market adjustment for an investment in momentum along with higher manufacturing and logistics costs, partially offset by higher volume in South America and foreign exchange.

China equity income was $32 million, recording its eighth consecutive quarter of profitability, a trend we expect to continue in the fourth quarter. New energy vehicles accounted for more than 60% of GM China's third quarter sales, and the team remains focused on execution, cost efficiencies and mix optimization to deliver ongoing profitability.

GM Financial delivered EBIT-adjusted of $700 million and paid $250 million in dividends to GM in the quarter. Consumer credit performance remained resilient and consistent with our expectations. The business remains on track with its full year EBIT-adjusted guidance range of $2.5 billion to $3 billion and to pay full year dividends to GM at a level similar to last year, reinforcing its strategic value within the enterprise.

Let's turn now to our calendar year 2026 guidance. Following another strong quarter, we're updating our full year outlook as follows. We now expect EBIT-adjusted of $14.5 billion to $15.5 billion compared with our previous range of $14 billion to $16 billion. EPS diluted adjusted narrowed to a range of $12.75 to $13.75 from $12 to $14, reflecting the benefit of our share buybacks to date. Capital expenditures at the lower half of the $10 billion to $12 billion range and adjusted automotive free cash flow in the $11.5 billion to $12.5 billion range up from $9.5 billion to $11.5 billion. This improvement is being driven by operational excellence, lower-than-projected capital expenditures and tariff timing.

Now let me update you on a few key assumptions underlying our updated guidance. Let's start with the industry backdrop. The U.S. market remains resilient. We expect total SAAR to be in the mid-16 million unit range for the full year, which implies approximately 16 million for the rest of the year, consistent with what we are seeing in October. In North America, we expect fourth quarter ICE volumes to be lower than usual, primarily due to the launch of our new full-size trucks. We anticipate a year-over-year volume headwind of approximately 35,000 full-size pickups.

Headwinds from lower truck volumes in the fourth quarter are expected to be largely offset by tailwinds from price in North America, including benefits from the new truck launch. Year-to-date, North American pricing is up $400 million. We continue to expect a full year pricing tailwind of 0.5% in North America, with the remainder of the benefit expected to be realized in the fourth quarter.

Turning to EVs. We remain on track to reduce losses by $1 billion to $1.5 billion for the full year, driven by rightsizing our EV capacity and significantly lower volumes. We expect modest additional loss reduction in the fourth quarter as we lap the expiration of the consumer purchase incentive last year.

On warranty, following our $600 million third quarter performance, our year-to-date improvement is approximately $1.1 billion on a year-over-year basis. For the full year, we now expect warrant to be closer to the high end of our $1 billion to $1.5 billion in full year improvement.

Emissions related regulatory savings are around $500 million year-to-date and we expect a minimal benefit in the fourth quarter as we lap savings from last year.

With respect to tariffs, we have incurred approximately $1.8 billion of tariff costs year-to-date net of IEEPA reversal benefits, and we now expect gross tariff costs to come in at the low end of our $2.5 billion to $3.5 billion range for the full year.

And finally, on the tax line, we continue to expect a 20% to 21% effective tax rate for the full year. This includes a higher tax rate in the fourth quarter, which is expected to be in the 25% to 27% range, driven by a mix of onetime discrete items affecting timing.

Now let's turn to the headwinds. As the conflict in the Middle East has continued, commodity and logistics costs have intensified since our second quarter earnings update. Copper prices are at record levels, while HRC steel prices are at 4-year highs. Spot prices for HRC steel and copper are each up 10% to 15% since July and approximately 50% versus last year's average. Collectively, inflation is adding approximately $400 million in incremental costs for the calendar year, with the majority of that impacting the fourth quarter. As a result, we now expect a headwind from commodity inflation, logistics and DRAM costs to be around $2 billion for the full year.

In the third quarter, we incurred approximately $700 million primarily related to commodity costs year-over-year, bringing the calendar year-to-date headwind to approximately $1.3 billion. Separately, we are investing approximately $1 billion to $1.5 billion this year to onshore production to the U.S., strengthen our supply chain and expand our software capabilities. We expect these costs to continue to ramp in the fourth quarter ahead of additional U.S. capacity additions in 2027.

Finally, turning to our international operations. We expect continued ongoing softness in GM International, reflecting headwinds from the dynamic environment in the Middle East.

Let's turn next to 2027. Assuming market conditions and the tariff environment remained broadly similar to 2026, and recent commodity pressures moderate, we continue to believe we can grow revenue, margins and EBIT-adjusted next year. It's too early to try to predict where commodity prices will land in 2027. However, if we were to simply annualize the recent incremental commodity inflation since July, it would translate into an additional $1 billion to $1.5 billion of EBIT-adjusted headwind for 2027, which would result in a total headwind for 2027 of roughly $2 billion.

Our growth plan is supported by our product cycle and the ongoing operational discipline that investors have come to expect from General Motors. The opportunity is centered on 4 key GM-specific drivers; first, launching our new truck flawlessly and capturing a rich mix in its first year; second, unlocking additional capacity in full-size SUVs and high-volume crossovers; third, growing our adjacencies in OnStar, Super Cruise and Defense; and fourth, managing costs across warranty, EVs, fixed costs and onshoring.

The bottom line is that we have demonstrated time and again our ability to roll up our sleeves and execute. We have set a high bar for ourselves and the team is working to deliver another year of growth for our shareholders. We have a great product portfolio that is only going to get better in 2027 and beyond.

Thank you. And now we'll move to the Q&A portion of the call.

Operator

[Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from Mark Delaney with Goldman Sachs.

分析师问答

Mark Delaney

I understand the change in the cost environment that GM is seeing heading into 2027. I'm hoping you can talk a little bit more on some of the tools you may have at the disposal in order to try and manage that? And to what extent potentially utilize net pricing to help offset what's a higher cost environment, especially given your expectation for a measured ramp of the full-size pickup trucks?

Mary Barra

Mark, well, when you look at the increases, as Paul mentioned, we saw it happened in just the last couple of months. And so we really haven't had time at the team to go work to find the offsets. We do have significant tailwinds next year when we look at continued warranty improvement we're seeing it this year we believe will continue it into next year. And as we've said, although volume will remain roughly flat from a new truck perspective, we do think there is some price and mix opportunity there.

We also see growth opportunities in OnStar and Super Cruise. We see continued improvements in EV profitability. And then we are going to continue to work at fixed costs. There's a lot of opportunity, we believe, especially as we continue to implement and leverage AI to improve the business and make it more efficient. So like this team always does, we just -- because this has happened so recently, we're going to go to work, and we'll have more to say when we give full year '27 guidance at the end of the fourth quarter, but we obviously have work to do and we plan to do it.

Mark Delaney

That makes sense. And my follow-up is just a clarification on what GM is currently assuming. So you said the assumption that '27 is a better year than '26, does assume that cost pressures tied to commodities, logistics and memory moderate. When you talk about moderation, do you mean that the spot prices just need to level off from current levels? Or would you actually need to see spot prices decline?

Paul Jacobson

Mark, it's a little bit too early to call commodity prices in '27. So what we're really trying to do here as we as we said in July, where we highlighted the tailwinds, and we said assuming the environment remains consistent, we have seen a significant amount of inflation as I called out in the prepared remarks, really just in the last, call it, 8 to 10 weeks. And should we see prices at this level, it makes that more challenging heading into next year. So we're really looking for a little bit of moderation from the most recent increase that we've seen. But as Mary said, we're continuing to work through our budget process.

So we won't give any definitive guidance on the year and where it's going to come out. But obviously, it's gotten a little bit more challenging with its additional inflation that we've seen since that disclosure. So I don't think anything has changed. The tailwinds are the tailwinds. We have a lot of mix benefits coming in over the first year of the truck, but we'll continue to watch it and hopefully become what we're known for. But the goal remains to grow next year as it does every year.

Operator

Our next question comes from Itay Michaeli with TD Cowen.

Itay Michaeli

Maybe first question, just on the higher free cash flow guidance for the year. maybe talk a little bit more about what kind of the drivers there? I think you mentioned maybe kind of lower end of the CapEx outlook as well? And how much of the strength that you're seeing this year may be sustainable into next year?

Paul Jacobson

Yes. Thanks for the question. A couple of things. One, we are coming in probably at the lower end of our capital or are certainly seeing a little bit of a reduction in capital spend everything comes online in that $10 billion to $12 billion. So that unlocks the free cash flow. Also, if you recall, earlier this year when we talked about the IEEPA refunds, we brought the EBIT guidance up, but we didn't bring the cash flow guide up because we were uncertain. We've seen some success in getting IEEPA refunds both in terms of our own as well as the second order from our supply base that's contributed to some of that benefit.

As we look forward into to 2027, I mean, should we have a year where we can grow earnings, we would expect that free cash flow would be pretty consistent if not a little bit higher. But remember, our GAAP cash flow, so our actual sort of cash available for investment should be significantly higher as we lap the bulk of the cash restructuring work that we did on the EV side. So we're looking for a bullish year on cash generation overall in 2027 irrespective of what we've seen with commodity inflation recently.

Itay Michaeli

That's very helpful. As a quick follow-up, as we lap the EV restructuring and as you have a number of updates coming in 2028, curious if you could kind of share how we should think about kind of GM's breakeven EV volume, let's say, in the 2029 time frame and kind of later thoughts on the path to EP profitability would be helpful?

Paul Jacobson

Yes. I think it's a little bit too soon to tell. As we've said, we've had a good year of EV profitability improvement, primarily from lower volumes as we've adjusted and also the fixed costs coming out of the system as we restructure. So that's a big benefit in '26. We've said that '27 will be a year of probably lower benefit, but still maybe improvement versus '26 and then '28 and '29, as we get into LMR and the next-generation battery cells and packs, we should see another step function improvement in profitability.

We're going to continue to watch volumes. We think we with these oil prices and the fuel prices that EV penetration may continue to go up, and we want to make sure we're ready for that. We're the #2 producer of EVs in the U.S., and we've got a strong portfolio and one in which we're committed to improving the profitability of it.

Operator

Our next question comes from Dan Levy with Barclays.

Dan Levy

So one of the points in your commentary on 2027 is it talks about customer demand remaining strong. And I know this has been a constant debate in the industry. I think people have been amazed by how resilient the auto industry has been. But we're getting the latest round of questions of help to the quality of the consumer, rising rates. So can you just talk about, given the latest backdrop, what your view is on the ability of the market to absorb with continued very high TRIM products and potentially incremental volume on your trucks as you expand capacity? Maybe just help disaggregate what we're seeing from the consumer as a whole versus the average consumer of your products?

Paul Jacobson

Yes. Dan, I'll give it a shot, and Mary can help if I miss anything here. I think as we've said now for a number of years, when you look at a lot of the consumer sentiment surveys, they really become disaggregated from consumer behavior on the ground. And that's evident in our average transaction price. It's evident in our trim mix. It's even evident in what we see in GMF, where no noticeable shifts in delinquencies, defaults, et cetera. So I think the consumer has held up remarkably well. That being said, we know from that sentiment, and historically, we should continue to watch it.

So it's not necessarily pessimism. It's really more an abundance of caution of making sure that we're setting expectations against that backdrop that we're basing that forward projection on consumer stability. And we think that's going to continue to be the case because we haven't seen anything that indicates any weakness right now.

Dan Levy

Okay. Great. Second question is about the dynamic in China. And obviously, we've seen the sharp rise in exports from China. Maybe you can just talk about the extent to which you are participating in this sharp rise of exports? Is there any benefit to you on the cost side? And then I know you're talking about GMI ex China moderating. How much of that is sort of the pressure of competition from Chinese OEMs in some of these other regions? What's your ability to offset that?

Mary Barra

Well, I think when we look at some of the markets where China is working specifically from a South America perspective, we're still holding share and we are there or of our product portfolio. We are exporting from China. Once the market has allowed the Chinese competition to come in, we're well positioned to participate with that with Chevrolet products that are true to the Chevrolet brand. have that price point. So we're holding our own in South America actually remains strong based on the portfolio. And in South America, Chevrolet is considered a premium brand. So I think that's an opportunity for us in some other markets as well.

Again, from a China perspective, we -- I would say, in country, we're really not seeing that much benefit. I mean, from our China business, we are very proud of the fact that we got to the restructuring early in China, and our business is profitable even in the depressed economy that they're seeing from an overall industry perspective. So there may be a little bit of benefit because of the opportunity from an export perspective. But bottom line, we're seeing that market tougher because of the challenges, but we are participating in the export market and maintaining share due to the strength of our product portfolio.

Operator

Our next question comes from Joe Spak with UBS.

Joseph Spak

I just want to go back to 1 of your answers, I think, earlier to maybe to Itay's question. I think you said when you were talking about '27, I know it's early and there's still a lot to be determined. So I think you said that if there's a year where you grow earnings, you'd expect free cash flow to be consistent, if not higher. And I guess I'm just a little bit curious. I know distributable free cash should be higher because of EV payments. But is there something else we're not considering with -- in sort of the free cash flow factors? Like if it's -- if earnings would grow like why wouldn't the free cash flow also be higher?

Paul Jacobson

Yes. Joe. So yes, sorry, if my answer was confusing. There's a couple of reasons why. Number one, if we go into 2027 with the same CapEx guided range of $10 billion to $12 billion, but we come in at the high end versus the low end, obviously, that's going to be a case where EBIT growth and free cash flow would become a little bit disconnected based on timing. Second, we do have the added benefit this year of the IEEPA tariff refunds that have come in that's not expected to repeat. So on a like-for-like basis, on tariff flows, there's some upside that we got in '26 that wouldn't repeat in 2027. And generally, you see some small working capital nuances from year-to-year. But other than that, it should be fairly linear as cash flow from earnings and the connection between cash flow and earnings is pretty constant.

Joseph Spak

Okay. Second question is just, Mary, I think in the past, you've said you would study hybrids and plug-ins. And I think earlier this month, Mike Anderson said, you'll listen to customers and they're part of the plan. I know you don't give sort of product announcements away on these calls for competitive reasons. But can you let us know if some of that investment and spending is already occurring? Does that require additional investment? I mean, I know you have a lot of these technologies internationally. So maybe you could just tell us how you're sort of thinking about leveraging that and bringing it to scale in the U.S.?

Mary Barra

Sure. From a hybrid perspective, we will have hybrids in our portfolio in multiple segments, the key segments that we participate. If you look at right now, a lot of where the hybrid activity is, is in combat power midsized car and mini bands, which are our 3 segments were not right now. So you have to look -- and that's why I think our sales are continuing to be so strong. In many cases, we're building everything we can. I mean, the Equinox [indiscernible] SUV, it's fully passed out even without a hybrid. So I think we're still taking advantage, as Paul said earlier, we're well positioned from an EV perspective as this continues, but we will have hybrids. They've already been added. It's not going to be additional CapEx and engineering, and we'll talk more about them as we get closer to the launch.

Operator

Our next question comes from James Picariello with B&B BNP Pariba.

James Picariello

Just on the Q1 pickup volumes, the expectation is for the volumes to trend flat next year. Do you the expected downtime impact slated for the first quarter at the similar unit reduction for the fourth quarter? And then can you share any dimensioning of what the targeted incremental full-size SUV capacity might look like for 2027?

Mary Barra

Well, as we said, if you look at the full-size truck, we have 3 assembly plants. We also have 3 engine plants that we're launching. And we're focused on a flawless launch. It's on track right now. As we've said, we'll have the first trucks rolling out of the first plant yet this year at the very end of the year. And then we do have some downtime. We haven't specified it to the exact number of units that we do have some downtime coming as we get the other 2 plants going. And so that's why we're saying really the volumes is boing to be flat from 6 truck volumes to '27 because we're in the middle of that launch of these 6 plans. So as we get into '28, that's where there's an opportunity for plus side. We won't have any of the changeover downtime, and we'll also have the benefit of the Orion plant. So '28 is an opportunity for growing market share in the truck, not only in the U.S. but globally.

James Picariello

Got it. And then as a follow-up for GMI excluding China, what's the embedded expectation for the fourth quarter regarding the Middle East challenges? Should we anticipate another quarter of EBIT loss? And I know it's early, but how should we be thinking about this business for next year with respect to the puts and takes?

Paul Jacobson

Yes, James. So what I would say with respect to the Middle East, it's largely a wash at the enterprise level because we're selling a lot of vehicles there that with the right notice and with the right preparation, we can actually redirect many of those vehicles into the U.S., which we have and the team has done a really good job of managing that. So we're not losing volume at the enterprise level. So as long as that persists in the Middle East for that tension, I would expect that you'll see a little bit more of a lean to North America than you will, international, particularly in the Middle East. And then I think we're continuing to to work with the team to try to mitigate as much of the international competition and deliver value in the pockets where we can and where we're really competitive. And I think the team is doing a good job everywhere else in the world being able to do that.

Keep in mind that our international results were also impacted this quarter by about $100 million negative mark-to-market adjustment on momentum. So if you actually look at the underlying business that has performed marginally better than what the results indicated.

Mary Barra

And James, just to be clear, that we're building the trucks in the first plant right now, they'll be in showrooms by the end of the year.

Operator

Our next question comes from Andrew Percoco with Morgan Stanley.

Andrew Percoco

Great. I do want to come back to the 2027 bridge. And obviously, mix and pricing are clearly working in your favor with the new truck. But is there a way to also think about corporate or fixed cost savings as we get into 2027? I think this is an area where you guys have obviously been very focused. And I'm just curious to the extent we could get more clarity in terms of what that could look like into next year?

I think, Paul, you've talked about AI integration within the organization. And just curious if some of those investments could start bearing some fruit on the cost side?

Mary Barra

Andrew, absolutely. And like I said, with the increase that we saw just in the last 8 to 10 weeks, we're even doubling down. But there's active work going on across the company to really not only make sure everybody is using AI efficiently to be able to make their job more efficient and make our design processes more efficient, our manufacturing more efficient with really every single function is leveraging AI. It's highly harness that savings from a fixed cost perspective. I'm not going to quantify it right now. We can do that when we get to the end of fourth quarter and when we announce -- officially announced guidance for 2027, but trust that there will be significant work in the fixed cost arena as we move forward. It's happening today.

Andrew Percoco

Okay. That's super helpful color. And I guess just on the buyback announcement, curious if there's anything you can provide in terms of how we should be thinking about the cadence there. Obviously, you guys have talked about the lack of supplier payments you have to make next year. Is that a reasonable way to think about potentially the step-up in buyback cadence in 2027 relative to 2026?

Paul Jacobson

Andrew, it's Paul. First of all, you maybe lose the back because I thought for sure you were going to ask about digital revenues, but I'll take the question. On the buyback side, we don't give any forward commentary on what we're going to do on buybacks for obvious reasons. But as we've talked about we expect the actual cash flow, the GAAP cash flow to be significantly bigger year-over-year. And I think hopefully, you look at and the market sees what we did this year because I know there was a lot of skepticism on our ability to return capital back to shareholders given the EV restructuring, and we completed that authorization ahead of all expectations. So the Board has demonstrated a commitment to continuing to drive shareholder value this way. We continue to believe that with a double-digit free cash flow yield we're compounding the EPS growth of the company. And that's no shortage of commitment of what you've seen for the last several years and expect that to continue going forward as valuation remains depressed.

Operator

Our next question comes from Emmanuel Rosner with Wolfe Research.

Emmanuel Rosner

I appreciate all the color on the commodities and some of the assumptions. So I think you said around current prices, if in the same state at current level, would probably be a $2 billion additional headwind to 2027. In order for your expectation to grow EBIT in 2017 to be realized, are you assuming this $2 billion? Or are you -- should it be less than that? And then I understand it's early to identify the offsets that are in your control to sort of offset some of these increased commodities. But in the past, you've built a very, very strong track record around, call it, a downturn playbook, right? The discretionary spending cuts, things that are in your control, restructuring, et cetera. Can you maybe just remind us historically what are those things that you could have as levers? And to what extent this could be applicable in the current environment?

Paul Jacobson

Yes. So Emmanuel, thanks for that. Thanks for the question. On the commodity, as we clearly stated, we would need prices to come off of these levels a little bit to have the confidence to be able to grow at this point. But we're in the middle of the budgeting process, and we'll continue to work through that. So nothing specific on the headwinds or tailwinds because we don't want to get ahead of expectations and where the market is as we continue to develop that. As we've talked publicly, we approve our budget with the Board in December, and we give guidance in January, and that's going to continue to be the case for 2027.

If you look at past years, I think we've proven adept at getting costs out. These things take time. Some of them could pivot quickly, but other larger initiatives like, for example, several years ago, we did a $2 billion fixed cost reduction program that was very successful over that time period, too. So we're continuing to go to work. We're working at those -- looking at those plans. And as we've said repeatedly, we're committed to grow earnings every year and that's what we're going to be working towards the best we can.

Emmanuel Rosner

Okay. That's helpful. And then 1 quick follow-up on the improvement in this year's free cash flow guidance. I appreciate the buckets that make this up. Any way to quantify for us the piece around the IEEPA refund that's now in the -- assuming in the full year free cash flow?

Paul Jacobson

So we announced there's a $500 million credit that we took to earnings. We've gotten probably about 60% of that back to date. And then I would say, roughly a similar amount from the supply base that we expect to get before the end of the year as well. So call it, $600 million to $800 million this year, but that will continue to come in as we go through the remainder of this year.

Operator

Our next question comes from Michael Ward with Citi Group.

Michael Ward

Just to follow up on the $20 billion share repurchase, is that -- it looks like that's what you spent the last 3 years, $20 billion in share repurchase. Is that number more of a timing or just an opportunistic to give you the flexibility to be more optimistic, I mean, at current trading levels and those sorts of things?

Mary Barra

Mike, we're going to follow the -- follow our capital allocation framework of bringing this reinvesting the business to generate a 20% return on invested capital, maintaining an investment-grade balance sheet. And as we've done now for several years, return the rest to our owners, our shareholders. And so I think this is what we're really trying to signal as we believe the company is undervalued. And so we think this is the best way to provide value for our shareholders because of it. And we're not -- as Paul already indicated, we're not going to put a specific time line on it. We'll be opportunistic as we've been over the last several years. But I think a signal you should take from the size of it is that it reflects our Board's commitment to return cash to shareholders when we believe the shares are undervalued.

Michael Ward

Okay. And then on the financing front, you've stepped back leasing over the last few years. Is that a lever you're looking to pull? Or is it subsidized interest rates? What are some of the things that you can pull on GMF as far as trying to make vehicles a little more affordable if that's something that's needed in the marketplace? Will you push back leasing more? Or what is your -- what are your long-term goals with GM Financial and what they can do?

Paul Jacobson

Susan is on the line, too. I can start and turn it over to her. But we've obviously seen over the last few years a lot of EV leasing, and there was a lot of investment made there to help socialize that, help drive demand and also structurally superior with the consumer tax credits in a lot of cases. So I think the organization is pivoting. We're still very much committed to GMF. And when you look at loyalty, when you look at availability for financing options for the customer, it's a great way to serve that. And as we continue to look for ways to grow GMF with GM Insurance, and there's really interesting times that we can do with the GM Rewards program, it's obviously a big lever in terms of helping to create value for consumers in different ways than just producing vehicles. Susan, happy to let you add.

Susan Sheffield

Yes. I mean, I think you address it. We're here to support GM and moving vehicles and it's about discipline on incentive spend. Yes, I really don't have anything else to add. Thanks.

Michael Ward

Okay. Is it a concerted effort to scale back leasing? Or is that something the lever you can pull as you go forward?

Paul Jacobson

I would say, Mike, it's a balance between -- it certainly is a lever and I would like to see us probably do more leasing, but it's also a lever against the incentive environment that we're in and how do we use our incentive dollars. I think our go-to-market strategy has evolved over the last several years, and it's clearly been a competitive advantage for us. And we've got to use those dollars where we can. And sometimes, that changes from time to time as consumer needs change, and we'll be responsive to where the customer is.

Operator

Our next question comes from Alex Perry with Bank of America.

Alexander Perry

I just wanted to follow up with -- on price. So I guess, how should we think about the pricing -- potential pricing benefit next year compared to the last major redesign of the full-size trucks? I think in 2019, you saw a very strong price realization. What are the puts and takes of sort of using that as a case study for thinking about some of the pricing benefits next year?

Paul Jacobson

Yes. Alex, thanks for the call. We've been cautious to make sure that we're not using historical heuristic models on pricing for this generation of trucks. And the main difference is the current generation, the model year '26s, are performing better than any trucks, really any vehicle program has in its last year of production. So the historical step function improvements that you've seen aren't going to be there as pronounced. That being said, we should benefit from a mix benefit as we tend to produce a bit of a rich mix out of the gate as we're scaling up and that should ultimately average out over time. But just caution you against using some of the 2018-2019 data because the current pricing environment is very different than what it was back then.

Alexander Perry

Really helpful. And then my follow-up question was just on input costs. I guess as we think about the impact of higher fuel prices, I guess what specific impact is higher diesel having on the supply chain with some of the fuel surcharges we've been hearing about? And I guess also on end customer demand for some of your heavy-duty platforms?

Mary Barra

Yes. I would say it's early with the spike that's just happened in diesel, and we'll see what happens to it. But throughout the year, our diesels are so efficient that even with higher prices before this last fight, they were more fuel efficient. So cost of ownership was lower than buying a hybrid truck. So I think we've seen demand. We're watching it closely. I think a lot is going to happen of how long people perceive that the prices are going to be there. I think I'm excited about the new engines that we have coming because that are they going to improve performance across the board. They also are going to drive efficiency. So again, it's too soon to tell if the diesel prices remain at this high level, but up until a month or 2 ago, we weren't really seeing an impact and we were still seeing strong demand.

Paul Jacobson

And Alex, on the logistics front, it comes in pretty quickly, as you've seen, maybe a 2- to 4-week lag. But we see it hit pretty quickly. And that's been a a sizable component of the $400 million of pressure that we called out in the prepared remarks.

Operator

Our next question comes from Tom Narayan with RBC Capital Markets.

Gautam Narayan

The first one is on the competitive pressures into 2027. And the potential impacts on volume and pricing. You have a Detroit 3 peer with elevated deal inventories, especially at its pickup truck, and we're seeing incentives pick up there. We saw Japanese OEMs to be taking up share, especially with hybrids. I know you just said that's not really where you play, but you also have European OEMs getting squeezed out in Europe and China because of competition from Chinese OEMs and they're talking about coming into the U.S. aggressively at their investor events. I mean, is this all just kind of par for the course or something you're concerned about?

Mary Barra

Well, if you think about when we saw the semiconductor shortage a few years back, we saw and everyone was limited of how many vehicles they could build because of the allocations of semiconductors. We saw everybody pushing that limited supply to the United States because of the profitability of this market. So I don't think it's anything new. I think we're well positioned because of the overall strength of our portfolio and the fact that we've got a new truck coming out that takes up performance across all aspects to the next level. Right now, most of the products we build, we were capacity constrained. We're building as many as we can from a truck, SUV, I mentioned earlier, the Equinox, we can't build enough of them. We'll be relieving that as we launch the opportunity to build that in the United States. But I think that kind of competition is going to be here to stay.

Specifically from a truck perspective, we've seen one of our competitors tend to have higher incentives for quite some time now. It goes up and down, but it's been years. And we're still -- we grew share with this truck, and we think we have a huge opportunity to, as we launch, get past the launch, continue to grow share base on the strength of our product. And when we do that, it also gives us the opportunity to continue to grow the OnStar and Super Cruise revenue.

So again, I think you're accurate in what you're seeing. I think we're well positioned because of the strength of our portfolio, and we've seen it before and have the proof points that we continue to do well.

Gautam Narayan

Got it. That's a good segue on the Super Cruise to my next question. You guys are confident on Level 3 for 2028. There's a couple of German OEMs who tried Level 3 and kind of didn't go as well. I think they had some limited consumer demand. Part of that was just their ODDs were limited. I suspect you guys are different. And so just curious to hear kind of why -- how you're able to just get a better service than maybe what they have had on their Level 3? And what makes you more confident in achieving the consumer demand there?

Mary Barra

Well, I think when we get to in '28 when we launched the Escalade IQ, it will be the first, and we'll talk more about that tomorrow in the GM Ford event that we have. Our highway autonomous driving will be for highways and it won't have limited ODD, and will also carry with it the same focus we have on safety that I think everyone and customers have seen and trust and therefore, use from a Super Cruise perspective. So I think they will see a very capable product that was just in the vehicle within the last month. And from a couple of months ago, when I was in, it was dramatic, how confident the vehicle is on highway speeds et cetera. So I feel very good about the product that we're going to be launching. We'll have more to talk about it tomorrow. And I think it will -- customers will use it and want to pay for it because it will definitely improve their lives and the amount that they're going to be able to use it.

Operator

Thank you. And at this time, I'd like to turn the call back to Mary Barra for her closing comments.

Paul Jacobson

Great. Well, thank you, and thanks, everybody, for your questions. As we discussed today, GM is performing very well. That hasn't changed. While inflation continues to be uncertain, we are working hard to continue our momentum and generate significant cash returns for our shareholders. We are making the core business stronger with strategic investments in new products, new technologies and through improved quality and operating efficiency. And we have raised our full year guidance twice this year while offsetting higher commodities, logistics and other costs outside of our control.

As we move forward over the next several years, our product portfolio will only get stronger as we complete the launches of the Silverado and Sierra light-duty pickups and then follow them with our next-generation heavy-duty pickups and our next-generation full-size SUV, all new Cadillacs, sedans and crossovers and more. So I think you can see we've got a lot coming. At the same time, we'll be expanding our capabilities in autonomous technology for highway, starting with the Cadillac Escalated IQ in '28, as I just discussed, developing cutting-edge battery technology like LMR that will help improve our EV profitability and building even stronger relationships with customers through our digital experience. We think this is a proven strategy for creating even greater shareholder value as we move forward and we look forward to delivering. So thank you for joining us today, and I hope everyone has a great day.

Operator

That concludes the conference call for today. Thank you for joining.

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