GM passenger car volume decreased 15% through the first two months of 2015 in the United States, tumbling by more than 18,000 units, or 21%, in February alone.
With vastly improved U.S. pickup truck volume, steadily growing full-size SUV sales, and growth from the brand’s crossovers, GM was easily able to overcome the car deficit to post a 10% overall sales improvement in America through the end of February.
This chart doesn’t showcase volume or year-over-year change, but it does show the decreased importance of GM car sales in America since the beginning of last year. For the record, rewinding ten years to the 2005 calendar year reveals GM’s car share to be just above 40%. In 2010, it was ever so slightly below 40%.
Timothy Cain is the founder of GoodCarBadCar.net, which obsesses over the free and frequent publication of U.S. and Canadian auto sales figures.
Nice graph, but more context would be helpful. Are passenger car sales falling as a percent of total sales in general? Or in other words, aren’t more consumers buying trucks and crossovers, partially explained by the fall in gas prices recently?
I would like to know if other companies are seeing similar falls in their passenger cars as a percent of total sales. Or, how is their total volume doing? Are passenger car sales decreasing as well, or is it more like all the growth is coming from crossovers and trucks?
The article continues to state that their overall sales are up. The headline is misleading, in that it indicates something negative is happening at GM. The reality is sales are good.
It would be interesting to see how this compares to the rest of the industry.
Exactly. It’s not our parents’ GM. The offerings are vastly improved from the old days.
…It would be interesting to see how this compares to the rest of the industry…
This.
“Or in other words, aren’t more consumers buying trucks and crossovers, partially explained by the fall in gas prices recently?”
He has written plenty of articles along these lines. Search through the website, and you’ll find them. (And I’m sure that there will be more to come, given the numbers.)
GM & Ford are once again in the “profit derived disproportionately from Truck/SUV” biz model, which they were last knee deep in back in the 1993 to 1998 boom (Explorers, pickups, Tahoes, Suburbans).
Let gasoline double in price again & we’ll discover both probably barely make per unit profits, or worse yet, lose money, on actual non-truck/non-SUV passenger car sales.
It’s not like GM and Ford still don’t have competitive smaller sedans, and GM is about to replace the Spark, Sonic and Cruze (as well as the Malibu); the Spark is actually up 32% YTD.
Even w/o the price of gas dropping, consumers were increasingly moving to CUVs.
And it’s not like the domestics are the only ones benefiting from the move to CUVs, SUVs and trucks.
Toyota and Nissan are benefiting from it as well at the expense of Honda – as the former 2 have a much more extensive CUV, SUV and truck lineup than Honda.
In addition to the weak yen, Toyota and Nissan have been able to be even more aggressive about pricing on their sedans as they have been able to subsidize the discounts with the margins they have been getting on sales of their CUVs, SUVs and trucks.
Honda doesn’t have this advantage and thus, has been losing out on sales of the Civic and Accord b/c they can’t discount as aggressively.
@DeadWeight – I had read that GM and Ford’s profit margin on small cars was in the neighbourhood of 2-3 percent which coincidentally is the same as the import tariff on cars.
The profit margin on pickups is in the 25-40% range.
Ten years ago Saturn and Pontiac were still around selling cars. the decline is not that shocking,
Cadillac still can’t figure out how to make anything anyone wants, other than an Escalade and Buick sells a lot of Utes, enclave and the encore I think it is.
But this is a graph over fifteen months. Not the past ten years.
GM Car Sales Down
Headline from… 1980s? 1990s? 2000?
YoY car sales growth in 2014 was about 3.5% for Chevrolet.
Cars might be declining as relative share of Chevy sales, but they aren’t declining in absolute terms. Also, industry car sales only grew 1.7% in 2014 so Chevy is actually doing better than the industry average. Best high-volume car sales performer is probably Nissan at 14% YoY car sales increase. Subaru is 16%, but Tim’s site lists the XV and Outback as classified as cars. I’m not sure of the official classification, but I think most of us would consider those vehicles to be CUVs.
Some of us would consider CUVs to be cars. Ungainly, overpriced cars.
Or, as anyone outside the anti-GM world of TTAC might say: People are replacing their cars with SUV’s and CUV’s. Shocking revelation!
“People are replacing their cars with SUV’s and CUV’s.”
Exactly. That’s what I did over the past 7 years. Replaced the Towncar with a Highlander, a Grand Cherokee and also a 2015 Sequoia, as the primary DDs. Still have all three, too!
But I replaced my 1988 Silverado and 2006 F150 with a 2011 Tundra — a truck for a truck.
Cars, sedans, are just soooooo last century.
Pretty much, if they were losing sedans and not selling more CUVs/SUVs it would be an issue. But, butts are finding seats and that all that matters in the car game, no matter how you sell them. It would probably be more interesting to see the 15 month decline with the introduction of new car lines.
A quick look shows the same basic issue, the Spark & Sonic are already aging at 3-4 years old, the new cruze is bowing in this summer/fall, a new Malibu JUST arrived & the new Imapala bowed in last year but in the large car market that is shrinking it can’t make much of a dent in relative sales to market size.
Basically GM’s sedans are aging less than gracefully and aren’t being pushed as hard as their stretched CUVs cousins that bring an extra 2-3K per transaction. In fact the view that this is 1998 all over again is a bit obnoxious since GM makes 2 BOF SUVs (4-5 if you count the GMC/Cadillac twins)while the remaining are all designed on standard unibody chassis. It’s a far better position to be in.
Basically however you want to feel about GM they’re facing a regression to the mean that was inevitable. Holding 50% of an auto market with 6 distinct name plates with fairly distinct running gear until the 1970s/80s is practically impossible in the new system. Toyota is dominant but even they’re going to face eventual regression as VW, Ford, GM, Honda, & the Koreans come nipping at their heels. Not to mention the eventual rise of atleast one or two Chinese makers.
And TTAC and posters like DeadWeight don’t take into account ATP – which for Ford and in particular, GM, have been rising.
GM’s ATP for Feb. was $38.6k – which was even higher than for VW which has a disproportionate % of its sales in the luxury market.
Compare that to Toyota which was at $30.5k; Honda is at $27.9k.
Imagine what GM’s ATP would be if Cadillac and Buick each had a full line of crossovers.
I was under the impression that ATP for ALL manufacturers had been rising.
My interpretation was the increase in demand that caused the increases in ATP.
Yes, but GM’s increase in ATP is exceeding that of the other major automakers (aside from Hyundai/Kia).
GM’s %-change from Feb. of 2014 was 5.3% while the industry avg. was 3.6%.
Honda, Toyota and Nissan all saw a % increase of around 2%.
Correction – mistook a 6 for an 8, so GM’s ATP is still lower than VW’s overall, but GM has been closing the gap.
In terms of sales of vehicles with a base price of $45k+, GM has 6 of the top 10 sellers.
Despite all the talk about Lexus’ success, it doesn’t have an entry in the top 10 with the GS at the 11th spot.
Like I stated before, imagine what GM would be doing if it had a full slate of Cadillac crossovers.
I see your point.
Cars, like minivans did before, are falling out of favor. Trucks and SUVs get far better mileage than they did years ago, and they drive better as well. People are switching to them in greater numbers. Overall sales are up. Where is the problem?
People who need to haul people AND cargo can no longer buy an honest station wagon. What else can they do besides switch to a CUV/SUV?
Without comparison how that is for other OEM, this seems like click-bait. I bet the chart looks the same for Toyonda, Ford etc.
I think it is clear the market moves toward CUV/SUV/truck these days (especially with low gas prices… but that trend started when gas was $3 or more). And since GM sells more CUV/trucks now (more profitable I assume) this should be good news for GM.
Obviously the catch is, if the trend revert (high gas prices etc.), GM will be stuck with their non-competitive cars. Like 1974, 1979, and 2004-2014.
Disagree on Toyota – Honda maybe. The CR-V is the top seller but the rest of the line up is mostly cars. Ridgeline is on haitus, Pilot sells but not in monsters is numbers, Crosstour is dead, Odyssey is in the minivan class, the cute ute was just announced.
For a company that doesn’t generally slap piles of cash on the hood and has a somewhat limited line up, Honda does amazing from a U.S. marketshare point.
I would say the ratio of cars to SUV/truck/van/ CUV tilted away from cars. Look at Acura and keep the upcoming HRV in mind. Sure more car heavy than GM, But still changing.
Maybe their car sales are more flat..but in a growing market even flat is decline.
Both the Accord and Civic are down for the year.
I really don’t see the issue with the sale of a different segment of car.
CUVs, SUVs, pickups are all car in most cases. They are not really trucks. Just mainly daily drivers.
Trends change.
If pickup sales are taking away from a different segment of car, then maybe it’s time to relax some of the draconian protection offered to that segment of “car”.
Has GM finally figured out that selling rebadged Opel and Daewoos don’t work.
When the obama administration forced GM to cancel both pontaic and saturn it forever doomed GM to under 20% marketshare. I believe now GM’s marketshare is hovering around 16.5 to 17%. Both Ford and Toyota are in striking distance.
Remember, when wagoner had that company pep rally to motivate GM employees to work towards a 30% marketshare. I think pins with the tag line “30%” were distributed to empolyees. In last twenty years it looks as if GM has lost 15% of the market.
If there is another GM deathwatch it should include GM losing the domestic market to either Ford or Toyota. Without the 300,000 additional vehicles both Saturn and Pontaic would have provided GM is extremely vulnerable to carmakers that have sudden sales streaks. All it would take is sudden surge in F-150, Fusion, and Mustang sales for Ford to regain the U.S. sales crown that it lost some 90 years ago.
I was at those dealer meetings and in fact still have that pin they gave out that just has GM 29 to indicate that the line in the sand for market share was 29 percent . I get A CHUCKLE when I look at it and think of all the stupid decisions I witnessed GM brass make in all the years of my career. I think right now they have a better market share than they deserve based on current product . The cars have and are a disaster and the trucks and suv’s are still a generation behind the competition in engineering and quality IMHO The launch of the new full size truck as a brand new vehicle is ludicrous . It is a re skin at best and is still the same GMT 900 truck platform underneath . Watch their market share head much lower as we enter the comeng recession
Vetteman, what you say about the GM truck platform is true. It’s a re-skin.
But more and more people are beginning to see the merits of a V8 engine under the re-skinned hood, which GM has, instead of being pummeled by Ford’s new philosophy of squirrel-engines with heavy breathers on them.
Getting a V8 in a Ford F-150 is not as easy as it used to be. And real truck people, yes even female pickup truck owners, often prefer a V8 under the hood of their truck.
And right now, the RAM 1500 5.7L is the sweetest powertrain combination on the road, for the money. While the Tundra is the better truck with the better engine, what Toyota demands for it is just unreal!
Akear, It is likely that Ms Mary Barra has already considered the ramifications of the market-share loss of the last twenty years, but the current woes, recalls and bad press are not helpful.
There will never be another GM deathwatch. The good tax-paying people of the US bailed out GM once, they will do it again, in perpetuity, should it ever be required again, no matter who is in the White House or which political party controls the Hill. The UAW-saving precedence was set.
From that point in time on, if something is UAW, it will never be too big to fail or too dead to resuscitate.
Trust me we will bail out GM again. I did not like the bailout, but the alternative would be even worse. My main grip was in the way the bailout was handled. As I mentioned before cancelling Pontaic and Saturn has made GM a vulnerable company. Remember, after cancelling Oldsmobile GM went bankrupt just 9 years later. GM thought they were big enough to say goodbye to 140,000 Oldsmobile customers. Maybe for this reason toyota is not cancelling Scion. Toyota probably saw what a disaster cancelling divisions was for GM and decided to keep Scion.
I was one of those devoted Oldsmobile customers. Owned a 1972 Custom Cruiser and a 76/77 Toronado, each bought new. I liked Olds much better than anything else GM, in my younger years. Solid engines.
But I do hope that we, the people, will not have to bail out GM again. I mean, it really doesn’t affect me — my income is so low I don’t even have to file a Return each year.
But the idea of the US government obligating its tax payers to selectively bail out a failed union company, smacks of Communism to me. One for all, all for one, even if it is only the union that stands to gain from the selective bailouts, handouts and nationalization.
The govt, bailed out GM (and Chrysler) b/c they had no other options as the credit markets were frozen due to the malfeasance of the financial sector – which also crashed the auto market which caused GM and Chrysler to head into bankruptcy in the 1st place.
Ford was fortuitous in that they were able to max out their credit line before the credit freeze, but they still got help from the govt. in terms of (basically) zero interest loans and C4C.
Also, GM may have had enough cash on hand to survive the crash in the auto market if they hadn’t used up so much of their cash reserves in stock buy-backs.
I, for one, can never reconcile the bailouts of GM and Chrysler. But it happened, We, the people, lost a lot of money just to keep the UAW working.
That said, the US gov’t should have dumped GM like they did Chrysler. Given it away to China, India, whatever, along with a couple of billion in bribe money, like the $1.3B to Fiat.
Rather than solely blame the financial sector for all of America’s financial and economic woes of that time, I would much rather lay the blame at the doorstep of the US government because of its accent on NINJA loans, and CRA, all in the interest of getting everyone invested in their American dream, and homeownership.
But, I would much rather bet on the financial sector making a comeback than I would GM. The US financial sector made back, and paid back, all the money it lost, while GM is still picking its @ss.
The financial sector basically laid on the US economy the largest “legal” PONZI scheme in the history of the world.
The thing that the US govt. (well Congress) was guilty of was loosening all the regs which allowed the financial sector to do what it did.
And again, GM and Chrysler wouldn’t have been in the shape they were in if (1) the auto market hadn’t tanked along with the RE market and they wouldn’t have had to go to the govt. as a last resort for funding if (2) the credit markets hadn’t frozen.
Both things can be blamed on the shenanigans of the financial/banking sector.
And the cost of saving GM and Chrysler in the big picture was much more favorable and saved $$ at the end.
Not only prevented the Great Recession from turning into a Depression, but the cost of the auto bailout would have been lost anyway in just the 1st 2 yrs of GM and Chrysler going under (unemployment benefits, loss of tax revenue, etc.).
And 3rd, if GM hadn’t gone thru a series of stock buy-backs, they might have had enough cash reserves on hand to ride out the storm (esp. since their China operation was making $$).
The financial sector basically got even more of a sweetheart deal – which is why they have been able to pay back the govt. – but they haven’t come close to paying back the cost to the US economy (much of that went into the pockets of the top management and into the pockets of hedge fund managers).
GM has already made a comeback – making a few billion in profit a year (well, would have last year, but for the cost of the recalls).
Since bankruptcy, GM has been able to build a pretty hefty war-chest (even with the recall costs and now the cost of the $5 Billion share buy-back).
GM actually builds stuff and adds to the economy.
Wall St. these days primarily engages in financial engineering – which basically sucks out $$ from everyone from the small investor to the institutional investor.
To them – their clients are all “suckers.”
bd2, everything the US government does is a ponzi scheme – just look at social security, for one. Medicare for another. The ROI with just those two examples is less than what you paid in or could have invested elsewhere.
And any entity whose mission is to make money for their owners, shareholders or stockholders, like Wall Street and the financial organizations, is going to push their money-making schemes to the extreme limits of the envelope. I would too, if I could.
The reality of the New America is redistribution of the nation’s wealth, bailouts, handouts and nationalization, absorbsion of retirement debts and obligations of unions by PGBA, all at taxpayers’ expense.
You know, spreading America’s wealth around, from the ones who work for it, to the ones who freeload.
Hey, this is what America voted for. This is what America wanted. I’m OK with that as long as they don’t ask me to contribute to it, or help pay for it.
I worked for mine. I got mine the old fashioned way. I earned it.
That could be a reason why less than 67% of America’s eligible work force has decided to participate in actually working for a living.
It’s easier as a member of the other >33% to freeload and benefit from someone’s else’s blood, sweat and tears.
I wish I could. But I can’t. In the first place, I’m too White. In the second place, I must be smarter than the average bear because I have managed to stay unemployed ever since my retirement from the US Air Force at age 38, and still manage to scrape together more money than all of my earned benefits put together.
And I’m not the Lone Ranger. Learned my work-arounds from those who went before me.
Bill Lovejoy “29” pins. I still have mine. when Bill handed it to me I told him they were going to lose 5 points if the marketing didn’t change.
What was the exact time the pins were issued. I remember reading about in the early 2000s.
So basically your argument is that they were going to find nearly 10 percent of the entire market in 2 makes that were under-performing unto being moribund?
The reality is the market has collapsed into a dichotomous system, I would argue trichotomy but that’s presuming that top-third S-Class/A8/7-series had real volume in it. The world is now Toyota/Lexus and isn’t going to change anytime soon. So unless GM planned on doing a serious corporate redesign along the lines of the Korean twins where Pontiac offered almost completely reskinned and redesigned cars with different goals and dynamics it didn’t serve a purpose. Never mind that Buick can do the same thing in the modern system by pushing towards moderate-upscale marketplace and adding some performance models to Chevy & Buick models where applicable. Saturn was salvageable only if you were going to transfer the Sonic/Spark duo to that division and offer a series of small CUVs to match but then you’re again fighting for the same dollars as Chevy.
The only way saving those brands made sense was putting them out there as semi-autonomous units that shared the basic platforms and had the freedom to spend money on styling changes which wasn’t available in 2008/9/10. They really should have been spun out in 2000 or 2002. But the reality is closer to a regression to the mean. If we’re looking at strictly employment levels per unit production GM soars ahead of Toyota & VW (and ends up around the same as Ford). Never mind that both Toyota & VW have greater exterior conglomerate interests than GM which makes some of Toyota’s powerhouse appearance a mirage when you take away parts of their vertical integration.
If Saturn and Pontaic were still around GM’s marketshare today would probably be 22%. Not a great number, but it would put both Toyota and Ford out of striking distance. Saturn and Pontaic together would be good for an extra 4% of marketshare. I believe both these lukewarm car brands together would be at least as large as Mazda USA!
In hindsight cancelling Saturn and Pontiac was a tactical mistake. I think GM’s declining marketshare backs up this claim. It is a question of simple mathematics.
This is a shame because GM is producing some decent cars. If I had a CTS-v and Corvette in my driveway I would be quite happy.
Market share at the cost of per unite value isn’t really a great plan. As I stated with only 218K employees for their market share GM is doing fine, if anything Toyota is the under-performer here. But if market share is how you stroke your peen, then be it. I would rather have a profitable company than one that can gloat of holding market share by a few threads.
No – marketshare does not = profits, much less maximizing margins.
What are you talking about?
Putting aside that GM’s ATP is way higher than Toyota’s, models like the Spark, Sonic, Encore, etc. have been success for GM.
Last year, Buick sold 48.9k of the Encore and sales are up YTD this year.
Also sold 43.7k of the Verano which is WAY better than what Acura did with the ILX at 17.8k in sales.
The Spark did 39.1k for Chevy and sales are way up this year.
And the Sonic did 93.5k – compare that with 13.3k for the Toyota Yaris (and over half of that is to rental fleets).
Chevy absolutely crushes Toyota in the subcompact segment (who would have ever thought that 5 yrs ago, much less 10-15 yrs ago?).
In addition, the Cruze has been one of the most successful nameplates for GM worldwide and the next gen Cruze looks to be a good bit better.
Sure, Regal sales aren’t great, but the Regal has the same problem that the TSX had for Acura – not being a midsize (by American standards) and selling at a premium; as the TSX was hurt by the addition of the ILX, the Regal has been hurt by the Verano.
Seems like GM-bashing w/o actually looking at the facts.
You make some valid points, but the fact remains GM’s marketshare is 17%.
I didn’t bash GM cars themselves, but stated the company’s cars sales have never been lower.
This was the whole premise of the editorial.
GM will almost certainly survive, but it will be a much smaller company. I believe the deathwatch is not about extinction, but greatly reduced expectations. It just seems like death because the decline is so dramatic. For example, In just 15 years GM has lost market share equivalent in size to FCA’s entire North American operations!
Uhh..were you drunk during the bankruptcy in 2009 when GM reduced their capacity? Just asking because it seems you missed that step in how things are today.
Yes reduced capacity lead to reduced market share. That is what I have been saying all along..
You have it backwards. Capacity was reduced because of the decline in market share. If GM hadn’t lost the market share, then it would have maintained the capacity.
I spent 35 years in a GM store and they had to reduce capacity as
they could not find enough buyers for all the product that liberal
UAW contracts forced them to build. They have been whoreing out vehicles to Enterprise and other rental and government agencies at near or below cost for decades in an attempt to unload excess production after they had forced all the excess unwanted inventory off on dealers thru blackmail and extortion tactics. Even now they are still the rental car kings since their cars are still to this day not world class in features or quality much less resale value . If you want to evaluate a vehicle just look at its value after three years as a percent of its MSRP . GM cars have been horrible in holding their value . I have friends who used to buy or lease Cadillacs but can lease a Lexus, BMW or Mercedes for a better deal than A Cad . GM’s present market share is by design to try and tighten up roduction to match real retail demand to allow them to achieve a higher transaction price which in Factory speak is to reduce cash on the hood and other bribes to get you to buy their POS . Last year GM relented on trying to stand firm on Highly inflated truck prices when the 2014 Silverado pretty much stalled out early in the launch of the 2014 new reskinned truck. Ram even beat Chevrolet Silverado I believe in April 2014 . That is unheard of GM is still the Titanic of the automobile business . The bankruptcy was the impact with the Iceberg and now the orchestra is playing bravely as the seawater is starting to make its way thru the ship. I have learned that the reason that they have cut back starting in 2016 their 5 year , 100
thousand mile power train warranty to 5 years 60k is to curtail a growing disaster in warranty expense .