CEO of GM’s Cruise Leaves; Shares Fall 2.8%

Shares of global automobile manufacturer General Motors Company (GM) fell 2.8% during the extended trading session on December 16, after the company announced that the CEO of its autonomous driving unit Cruise has left the company.

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Cruise is GM’s ambitious autonomous vehicle (AV) platform, which the company is strategically building to capture the fast-growing AV market beyond rideshare and delivery. Cruise’s AV technology plays an important role in GM’s vision of zero crashes, zero emissions, zero congestion.

Leadership Changes

GM announced certain leadership changes after the CEO of Cruise, Dan Ammann left the company. President and Chief Technical Officer of Cruise, Kyle Vogt will serve as the interim CEO until a suitable successor is found.

Additionally, GM announced that the former Chairman and CEO of Northrop Grumman and a GM board member, Wesley Bush will join the Cruise Board.

Consensus View

Yesterday, Wells Fargo analyst Colin Langan lifted the price target on the stock to $74 (26.7% upside potential) from $67, while maintaining a Buy rating.

Overall, the stock commands a Strong Buy consensus rating based on 11 Buys and 2 Holds. The average General Motors price target of $74.15 implies 27% upside potential to current levels. Shares have gained 38.9% over the past year.

Website Traffic

TipRanks’ Website Traffic tool, which uses data from SEMrush Holdings (SEMR), the world’s biggest website usage monitoring service, offers insight into GM’s performance.

In November, General Motors website traffic recorded a 13.81% year-over-year decline in monthly visits. Similarly, year-to-date website traffic growth decreased by 7.74% compared to the same period last year.