Chart Of The Day: GM's Pickup Truck Market Share Soars In July

All 2013 calendar Colorado sales were left-over 2012 Colorados, while all Colorado sales in 2014 were more left-over 2012s and a few 2015 Colorados hitting showrooms. Except current Colorado/Canyon production is capped around 110K annual.

And think about the doom-and-gloom predicitons on TTAC for the Colorado, and the full size GM pickups...they suck...they will NEVER sell...blab blah blah...

@FreedMike Well, that goes back to Bertel, who declared that GM was channel stuffing building up GMT900 inventory, and it would take until 2015 to sell of these trucks no one wanted when the new Ram showed up, and how much better the current F-150 was. The Colorado/Canyon are too big, while at the same time too small, and over priced. The last inventory turn I saw on Colorado was less than 20 days - GM can't build them fast enough and is noted above capacity constrained. Spend some time on Auto Trader and you'll see most available inventory for Colorado/Canyon are equipped, not stripped. GM made mistakes on the GMT9xx rollout and it was slow, but clearly consumers have warmed up to the styling and packaging. What they got right was squeezing every drop of efficiency out of their drive trains - the power vs. displacement vs. MPG numbers of their V8 engines is pretty darn remarkable. The improvement in sales aren't an aberration. What is interesting is GM did so well in a month where Ford's inventory woes are gone and their sales numbers are back up to 'normal' levels. the marketshare take appears to be more from FCA and a thin sliver from Toyota (fullsizers)

@APaGttH Inventory woes aren't gone. Retail inventory woes are basically gone, but fleet inventory woes are still a big deal.

@bball40dtw Also, Ford didn't build up enough inventory before the change over. Although Bertel was yelling about it, GM need those units to bridge the gap.

APaGttH, I see a distinct difference in the situation that Ford finds itself with the new aluminium F-150 in comparison with GMs Colorado/Canyon. Judging by the rebates offered Ford is hitting a ceiling with the more popular upmarket pickups, hence the great incentives offered. GM hasn't reached this point with the Colorado/Canyon. As you mentioned Ford isn't in a poor inventory position with the aluminium F-150. This is evident by the incentives offered on particular F-150 models. I do think the F-150 numbers for July are a blip. How many were not sold and just sitting in car yards? Time will show us that Ford in July didn't sell the numbers that were provided, especially if there is a dip in the aluminium F-150 numbers in August.

"Lighter weight" is not necessarily beneficial in a truck. Put a heavy camper on top of a light truck, and it gets top heavy. Tow a big trailer behind it, and the truck gets pushed around more. Hit heavy crosswind in a tall, large surfaced vehicle, and you want inertia and weight to remain bigger contributors to trajectory than unpredictable aero forces. Even if you rarely tow/haul much, as long as your manhood, or occasional/potential need, requires a vehicle with big ratings, an overly light truck ensures the difference between empty and max loaded gets very large, percentage wise. For safety reasons, the suspension has to be tuned to handle the latter case. Leaving ride, and possibly handling, in the light common use case, more compromised than if the truck was a bit heavier to begin with. If you want a lighter truck; the safe, conservative way to go about it, is buying a smaller truck. With smaller ratings. Colorado instead of Silverado. Not a larger one, where there maker have cashed in all his lightness gains for even higher max ratings. Some times, improved technology can render "safe and conservative" unnecessarily old fashioned, but certainly not always.

@stuki "“Lighter weight” is not necessarily beneficial in a truck. Put a heavy camper on top of a light truck, and it gets top heavy." More top heavy than a the same truck with a heavy camper AND a heavy steel cab? CG is lower in this truck than the all steel version last year. "If you want a lighter truck; the safe, conservative way to go about it, is buying a smaller truck. With smaller ratings." The absurd payload ratings are on the up engined trucks. The 2.7 is rated for a wholly reasonable 6500 GVWR (4WD crew cab). That's 700 pounds less than the turbo V6 last year, 850 under the old V8.

tomLU86, I see it this way, Ford has only started improving numbers of the aluminium F-150 when decent incentives were put in place and priced competitively with the other main pickup manufacturers. From what I can see many believe the new aluminium F-150 is no better a vehicle than the "traditional" steel pickups and offers no real advantage, even FE. The promotion of more load and tow capability by Ford is quite meaningless except for a couple of percent of potential customers. As most who buy a full size 1/2 ton don't use the capabilities offered by most pickups anyway. The aluminium F-150 is only slightly better, if at all than its competition, and more radical. This will definitely have an impact on vehicles sold. You will see a slight increase in aluminium F-150 numbers as I would bet many sold in July were to the people waiting for the price to fall on the new aluminium pickups.

@Dan "More top heavy than a the same truck with a heavy camper AND a heavy steel cab? CG is lower in this truck than the all steel version last year." Assume a truck made of unobtanium, weighing all of 1 ounce, with the size and shape of a current half ton. No matter where the COG of the truck is, the COG of the tru/camper combo will be way up there. A bit of a contrived example, but even on planet real world, a half ton even with helper springs making it equally stiff as a heavier Diesel HD, will still feel more top heavy than the diesel, with the bigger campers on the back.