Photo: Chevrolet
General Motors says they're "on plan," but the released statistics claim otherwise. Meanwhile, Toyota relentlessly chases them and quickly closes the distance.
At the end of 2023, General Motors comfortably held on to the sales crown as America's biggest automaker, with deliveries of around 2.6 million vehicles. It was followed from a distance by Japan's Toyota, with about 2.24 million units, and Ford Motor Company, with almost 2 million examples delivered in the United States.
Now, three months later, we're not sure yet how much FoMoCo has sold because it hadn't announced its March and Q1 results at the time of publication – but most likely, they'll hold tight to the third overall position. Meanwhile, the battle for America's vehicle sales throne is heating up because GM is sliding away from the positive performance of 2023.
More precisely, General Motors did increase retail sales by 6% year-over-year and delivered a total of 594,233 units in the US in the first quarter of 2024. However, overall, the situation is actually negative because the total is 1.5% less than in Q1 of 2023 because of "lower fleet deliveries." On the other hand, executives say that their brands "are all performing well," and Cadillac plus Buick even grew their retail sales by 9% and 10%, respectively. Now that the Camaro is out of production, Chevrolet's Corvette has also grown by 9%, of course.
Anyway, it remains to be seen if GM will recover its 23% drop in the GM Envolve commercial unit before Toyota passes them. The Japanese automaker, on the other hand, has nothing but good news from its quarterly update - Toyota Motor North America (TMNA) was up almost 22% in March, and overall, during the first quarter, reported deliveries of 565,098 vehicles, up 20.3 percent on a volume basis. Their electrified vehicles comprised 36.6 percent of the total sales volume, by the way, but mostly thanks to their numerous hybrids, not the bZ4X all-electric crossover SUV.
In general, the Japanese brands active in America fared extremely well during the first quarter of 2024. American Honda sales jumped to 333,824 units, the best first quarter since 2021, with a growth rate of 17.3%. However, Acura's luxury division continues declining (it was down 9.2% year-over-year). Curiously, the Nissan Group followed this trend, with deliveries from January to March up 7.2% to 252,735 examples, but Infiniti dropped almost 12% during the period. It seems that only Lexus is keeping up with the positive momentum – it jumped 15% during Q1.
The little ones weren't too shabby, either. Subaru of America announced year-to-date sales of 152,996 units, an increase of 6.7% compared to the first quarter of 2023, and counts on 20 consecutive months of increases already. Mazda North American Operations (MNAO) also reported a 6.7% increase during the first three months of the year – to 100,103 vehicles sold. Last but also least, Mitsubishi Motors only delivered 28,403 vehicles during Q1, which actually represents a 35.7% jump compared to the same period the previous year.
Now, three months later, we're not sure yet how much FoMoCo has sold because it hadn't announced its March and Q1 results at the time of publication – but most likely, they'll hold tight to the third overall position. Meanwhile, the battle for America's vehicle sales throne is heating up because GM is sliding away from the positive performance of 2023.
More precisely, General Motors did increase retail sales by 6% year-over-year and delivered a total of 594,233 units in the US in the first quarter of 2024. However, overall, the situation is actually negative because the total is 1.5% less than in Q1 of 2023 because of "lower fleet deliveries." On the other hand, executives say that their brands "are all performing well," and Cadillac plus Buick even grew their retail sales by 9% and 10%, respectively. Now that the Camaro is out of production, Chevrolet's Corvette has also grown by 9%, of course.
Anyway, it remains to be seen if GM will recover its 23% drop in the GM Envolve commercial unit before Toyota passes them. The Japanese automaker, on the other hand, has nothing but good news from its quarterly update - Toyota Motor North America (TMNA) was up almost 22% in March, and overall, during the first quarter, reported deliveries of 565,098 vehicles, up 20.3 percent on a volume basis. Their electrified vehicles comprised 36.6 percent of the total sales volume, by the way, but mostly thanks to their numerous hybrids, not the bZ4X all-electric crossover SUV.
In general, the Japanese brands active in America fared extremely well during the first quarter of 2024. American Honda sales jumped to 333,824 units, the best first quarter since 2021, with a growth rate of 17.3%. However, Acura's luxury division continues declining (it was down 9.2% year-over-year). Curiously, the Nissan Group followed this trend, with deliveries from January to March up 7.2% to 252,735 examples, but Infiniti dropped almost 12% during the period. It seems that only Lexus is keeping up with the positive momentum – it jumped 15% during Q1.
The little ones weren't too shabby, either. Subaru of America announced year-to-date sales of 152,996 units, an increase of 6.7% compared to the first quarter of 2023, and counts on 20 consecutive months of increases already. Mazda North American Operations (MNAO) also reported a 6.7% increase during the first three months of the year – to 100,103 vehicles sold. Last but also least, Mitsubishi Motors only delivered 28,403 vehicles during Q1, which actually represents a 35.7% jump compared to the same period the previous year.
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