Global Courant
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GM
DETROIT – General engines’ US car sales rose 18.8% in the second quarter compared to lackluster results a year ago, when the automaker struggled with supply chain issues.
The Detroit automaker reported sales Wednesday of 691,978 new vehicles from April to June. That compares to 582,401 vehicles in the second quarter of 2022. It’s also a sequential increase compared to GM’s first quarter sales of just over 600,000 new cars and trucks.
GM’s second quarter sales, along with those of other automakers such as Honda Motor, Nissan Motor and Stellantis, indicate demand for new vehicles remains strong as car and truck inventories improve from historically low levels during the pandemic of the coronavirus and supply chain issues.
Auto industry forecasters predict that new vehicle sales in the US will be up 16% to 18% in the second quarter compared to a year earlier.
Cox Automotive recently raised its full-year new vehicle sales forecast to 15 million for the wider industry, a gain of nearly 8% from 2022 when sales ended at 13.9 million due to low inventory levels and high prices.
GM said retail sales were up 15% in the first half of the year, while fleet operations were up 30%.
GM maintained its status as the nation’s largest automaker through the first six months of the year, with sales up 18.3% to nearly 1.3 million vehicles. The Detroit automaker recaptured that decades-long title last year after that Toyota engine took the top spot in 2021. That year marked the first time since 1931 that GM was not the best-selling auto company in the US
Toyota Wednesday reported sales of over 1 million vehicles in the US through June.
EV sales
GM’s EV sales were 36,300 during the first half of this year, including 15,652 in the second quarter. EVs accounted for just 2.8% of the company’s total sales in the first half of the year.
The company previously said it planned to produce 50,000 electric cars in the first half of the year, followed by 100,000 in the second half of the year.
A GM spokesperson reaffirmed those targets on Wednesday, but did not immediately comment on whether the company met them. Sales path production due to logistics and inventory on dealer lots. Further production details are expected to be discussed when the automaker reports second-quarter results on July 25, the spokesman said.
GM has been criticized for not ramping up production of its EVs fast enough Tesla continues to dominate the US market.
The vast majority of GM’s EV sales during the first six months of the year — about 93% — were sales of the outgoing Chevrolet Bolt models, which will be discontinued later this year. GM has been slow to ramp up production of its new EVs, such as the GMC Hummer and Cadillac Lyriq. The new EVs and their batteries are collectively known as Ultium vehicles.
GM CEO Mary Barra reiterated last week that the company’s production of newer EVs is limited due to domestic production of its batteries taking longer than expected.
“When people ask me if I could press a button and do something over, I would have done EVs faster, but I’m where I am and we’re going as fast as we can,” she said on June 26 at the Aspen Ideas Festival.
GM has several major EV launches in the second half of this year, including new versions of the Chevrolet Silverado, Blazer and Equinox. It is also launching a new electric van and a $300,000+ custom Cadillac EV called the Celestiq.
