General Motors CEO Mary Barra: More Change To Come In The Next 5-10 Years Than In The Last 50 Years

• Shares of General Motors Company GM have gained more than 16 percent over the past year, but are nearly flat from November 2010.
• Looking forward to the future, General Motors' CEO Mary Barra suggested that "tough decisions" will be made to affirm the company's presence over the long term.
• Barra added that the company will see more change over the next five to 10 years compared to the past 50 years.

Shares of General Motors remain stuck in neutral since the company's IPO in November 2010, which valued the firm at about $63 billion – short of the nearly $55 billion valuation shares were trading at on Tuesday.

Speaking to The Wall Street Journal, General Motors' CEO Mary Barra acknowledged that "time is not our friend" and there is a "huge sense of urgency" as the auto industry is undergoing a vast transformation. She added that when an industry transforms there are winners and losers, and she not only wants to win but wants to "win and define."

Disruption

One of the largest transformative shifts in the auto industry is the traditional ownership model as 94 percent of the day a car sits idle. Meanwhile, apps like Uber are resonating well with the younger demographics which further makes the case against car ownership more compelling.

To tackle this issue, Barra pointed out that General Motors has a car-sharing pilot program called 'Let's Drive NYC' and also has a separate car-sharing pilot with Google.

Related Link: Why General Motors Is Ahead Of The Pack, But Still Faces 'Too Many Risks'

"People are still going to need to get from point A to point B, whether they are going to do it in a traditional ownership model, or with sharing," Barra said.

Traditional automakers now face the threat of competition from non-traditional firms like Apple Inc. AAPL and Alphabet Inc GOOG that could leverage their massive technology background to revolutionize the entire auto industry. However, the executive noted that traditional automakers still hold a key advantage:

"The whole senior leadership knows there is this incredibly important core business that we've worked hard to make efficient, and we'll continue to do [that] and win," she said. "But there are also new models of transportation that we've got to quickly seize because there are assets that the traditional auto makers have that [Google or Apple] don't have, and there are specific assets at General Motors—like our embedded connectivity—that I am confident will drive the future."

Looking forward to the future, Barra suggested that the company will continue staying relevant and it is ready to continue adapting, as she said: "We're going to see more change in the next five to 10 years than we've seen in the last 50."