What is General Motors Selling?

The October 2008 production and sales break-downs for GM are in their investor section. This contains information on what brands are selling what volume and what cars/trucks are selling the best from GM's inventory. Of the GM brands active in the US, and there are a few, Chevrolet was the best seller by a long shot:

So what does GM sell the most of?

The Silverado and Sierra are the same truck just with a different badge. Of the Australian connection the Pontiac G8 (Holden Commodore) sold 1,082 units in October 2008 which isn't that much, but then, Saab sold a grand total of 1,659 in the same month. Of the Corvette marque there were 1,170 sold in October.

It looks like, that even with higher oil prices, the SUV and full size pickup is still the most popular of GM's offerings. I suspect those that are attacking the manufacturers in the US for not making fuel efficient cars that people want to buy are projecting what they think GM should be producing rather than the reality of what US consumers actually buy.

It is easy to forget that Toyota and Nissan both offer full size pickup trucks in the American market. They are locally built as well. The Ford F150 outsells the Toyota Camry. The Ford pickup is the best selling vehicle in America.
Lee Malatesta: Of the 152,101 vehicles Toyota USA sold in October, 30,556 were Camrys and 27,386 were Corollas.

Compare this to 132,838 in US sales for Ford, of which 43,324 were F-Series pick ups. I don't how much of that 43k figure is represented by the F250 and F350 lines, but its clear that the F150 isn't outselling the Camry by all that much.

Not to mention that Ford and GM are offering almost 10k in cash to new truck buyers. I think what you're seeing right now is mostly fleet replacement by business owners.
ranomatic: I've driven both the Malibu and Impala. Other than being slightly small, the Malibu is superior to the Impala in just about every way. So why is the Impala outselling it at a 2 to 1 rate?
cam: I have no idea. Police cars? Fleets? According to the wiki:

The Impala was selected as the 2006 and 2007 Fleet Car of the Year by Automotive Fleet and Business Fleet magazines and won the 2006 CAA Pyramid Award for Environmental Initiatives for the launch of its new Ethanol Powered E-85 model.

This made me laugh though:

Those who drive Chevrolet Impalas have also complained that the flow of traffic seems slower when in the car than when driving something different (other than a Ford Crown Victoria), most likely the result of surrounding drivers mistaking Impalas for plain-clothes police cruisers - the vehicle is extremely popular for law enforcement.

Same issue white Holden Commodores have in Australia.

cam
ranomatic: A co-worker and I drove a dark gray Impala from Houston to Dallas. We had a portable GPS unit mounted to the center dash. The whole thing looked very police issue. Even though the speed limit is at most 70MPH, free-flow traffic normally moves faster, maybe 75-80MPH.

You could tell how often drivers look in their rear view mirror. The answer is not very. We could cruise for 10 minutes minutes at a time at free-flow speeds. Then, someone would look back. When that happened, their first reaction would always to tap their brakes. Next, they would coast slowly down to the 65MPH speed range (below the legal limit, although probably showing the 70MPH on their speedometer - we used GPS to measure speeds; it became a game for us). At this point, we would become a rolling roadblock moving at 65MPH. Several minutes later, the other driver would pull into one of the slower lanes and we would pull past them. There would be no eye contact. We would pass and pull into the slower lanes as well, cruising at free-flow speeds again.

Lather, rinse, repeat.
General Motors announced itself out of bankruptcy today. The new owners of GM are:

    U.S. Department of the Treasury: 60.8 percent
    UAW Retiree Medical Benefits Trust: 17.5 percent
    Canada and Ontario governments: 11.7 percent
    The old GM: 10 percent

There are some statements toward GM being cleaner and greener, such as, "GM also has moved aggressively to develop a full range of energy-saving technologies, including advanced internal combustion engines, biofuels, fuel cells, and hybrids." but as they note in their statement, people are buying their muscle cars and trucks in larger numbers. From ritholtz:

G.M. sold 9,300 Camaros during the month of June -- more than either its entire Buick or Cadillac divisions could muster on their own.

Americans continue to buy SUVs and large cars. GM won't be able to ignore that.
Permalink, Camaro Selling More than Cadillac or Buick

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