GM Sales Plummet Apace, Down 41 Percent In November
Street Insider reports that General Motors delivered 154,877 vehicles in November, down 41 percent compared with a year ago. That makes for some of the worst sales numbers in the US, leaving GM PR with nothing to get traction on despite aggressive Red Toe Tag Sale incentives which will continue through January 5. “In November we saw the continuation of the dramatic decline in volume for the industry. Every manufacturer is posting awful numbers and we are no exception,” says GM’s Mark LaNeve in what may be one of the biggest understatements we’ve heard in weeks. GM’s car sales were down 41 percent compared to last November, while trucks were down 44 percent. The only GM vehicle with positive sales growth compared to last November is the much-touted Malibu, which is up 31 percent. Ok, that’s not strictly true. The GMC C/T Series is up 64 percent, at 82 units compared to 50 last November. Needless to say these exceptions won’t save GM from the bleeding across every other model and brand. And, as our Ken Elias points out, the 862,000 models currently sitting on GM lots is “way out of whack relative to trailing sales.” Not good.
Chevy and Saturn were the best-performing brands, losing only 20.9 and 20 percent respectively. Still, with Cobalt down 53.6 percent, Impala down 43 percent, and Aura down 48 percent, these brands aren’t just losing blood, they’re leaking bone marrow. Caddy watched its cars drop by at least 38 percent (low-volume XLR) and as much as 67 percent (STS), while its trucks and utes were down by 26 to 37 percent. Buick’s best performer was the LaCrosse which shed only 19.9 percent, but the high-volume Lucerne was down 34.1 percent and the once-hot Enclave plummeted by 40.3 percent. Pontiac might have some of the worst news of the month, as the brand’s sales were down 53.4 percent since last year. The Vibe (down 14.2 percent) is the only Pontiac vehicle that isn’t at least flirting with the 50 percent drop mark. Meanwhile, Hummer sales are unsurprisingly down 63.9 percent while Saab is down 57.5 percent. Taken together, these numbers do not paint a pretty picture.
More by Edward Niedermeyer
Comments
Join the conversation
50merc I apologize for mislabeling what was still a for Detroit give away. These forty to sixty thousand dollar SUV's are not evil per se. They just wouldn't have naturally sold if the accelerated depreciation wouldn't have taken thousands off of the sales price in the year sold. That other non automotive items were included in the tax breaks makes no difference to my argument. GM and Ford were able to book up to $20K profit per unit on vehicles (6000 lb+ SUV.s) that would not have otherwise been sold. Thus, they got an artificial injection of profits that allowed them to shirk their responsibility of making cars for the future for another couple of years. If my remarks are wrong, then why doesn't anyone want to buy a $60K Cadillac SUV today? and Finally, why are their warmed over obsolete cars complete in many cases with push rod engines and 4 speed trannys still out there as 2009 models?
Those seem to be some amazing blinders Detroit wears. Still comfortable after four decades. Friends ask me what I think of bailout and I just don't know what to say. On one hand we want to keep people working and earning a paycheck but insights like those offered here on TTAC show that these companies are so fundamentally damaged - that is the leadership in that industry is so damaged that I don't really think helping them with loans is going to encourage the changes they need to make to stay in business another 50 years. So we damage our gov't to loan these folks a bunch of money and then they may still go broke and never pay back the loan. As crazy as some of the e-mails I have seen demanding the gov't give the money to the little people of America - giving it to Detroit seems about as crazy.