General Motors U.S. Sales Down 5.2 Percent To 256,429 Units In August 2016

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• So sales down 5% and ATP up 7% yoy. Looks fine...

• Cadillac did well (ish) this month. Considering that many other luxury brands are down that is not bad at all.
  XT5 volume will increase in the coming months as production levels ramp up fully.
  Pleasantly surprised that ATS had a positive month.

• Not too shabby. I gotta hand it to GM's bold strategy to reduce fleet sales! I'm legitimately surprised by their ATP's!

• I am not surprised but just glad the painful transition is starting to retreat.

  Coming off fleet sales is like coming off heroin. The problem with car companies is if they do not have cost under control and try to remove fleet sales they vanish fast. GM finally got most of their cost issues under control and now they can address the fleet sales. While the lower volumes may appear a problem in the long run the higher profits per vehicle will help them when the market slows as they are predicting.

  Plus July is an odd month with odd inventories and people waiting for the next model year.

• What I find troubling is GM's sales of their full size pickups are down . The good thing is the small pickups are selling very well . But are they stealing sales from their big brothers . GM makes a decent profit on the big trucks that help the bottom line .
  Also GM is predicting a strong second half of the year not a " slow market " . Actually GM is positioning themselves for what could be a slow GDP in the coming year , which may force them to sell more fleet vehicles than they would like .
  The sales numbers show that SUV's are where the money is to be made and the mid to full size cars will suffer .

  • What I mean is the entire market not just GM is expected to drop in volume for the next couple years. Or at least that is what the market is bracing for. Every MFG is bracing for this

    GM will do ok as they have gotten most cost under control and are making more profit per unit sold.

  • Although the Silverado / F150 are slowly falling in sales many of the full size SUVs are doing much better.

  • I don't think the Colorado/Canyon is stealing from the full size trucks very often - I believe it was on this website earlier this year where it said most GM mid size trucks are brand conquests (Nissan or Toyota) from other small trucks or first time truck buyers (buyers who probably would never want a full size).

    Those trucks are a huge success story.

    • Back in May/June GM has stated that top trade-ins include the Ford F-150, Toyota Tacoma and the phased-out Dodge Dakota.

• GMC -14%? Wonder what they'll do about that?

  • That's mostly the rather tired Terrain which will be getting a refresh next year and the new Acadia which hasn't reached full production yet. Next couple of months will have the Acadia swing around big time.

    • Mmm - just doing the math:

      Biggest seller by far is the Sierra. -17%.

      Acadia: year on year, when SUVs/CUVs sell themselves, -25%.

      Terrain: -35%.

      I guess the highlights would be Yukon & XL, and Canyon- good margins: those are selling.
      But not enough volume to make up for the drop off in the Sierra and the others.

      It's like every model line is asking for patience. But they're all down year-over-year. It's great that ATP is up, but without the transparency to know exactly what that means, they're all in the red. And patience is in short supply, I'd imagine.

      • Yeah, GMC is a bit of a concern. I am watching the Acadia carefully and if it doesn't jump up in the next 2-3 months, there is a problem. I checked a couple dealers' near me inventory, and there are plenty of vehicles (25+ at each), but there were no SLE-1s. By far the most are the pushing-$45,000 Limited.

        I'm not sure if the suburban moms, who are the Acadia's bread & butter will want to drop $45k for a smaller vehicle. Keeping the same name was not smart, in my opinion, but I understand why they did it; hopefully it's not causing problems.

        I like the idea of making the GMC "big" CUV smaller, and then leaving the true 7-seat CUV market (at least for a few years) to the updated Traverse and Enclave. But during the transition, if mom wants a bigger vehicle, GM doesn't have a new & improved Enclave or Traverse, yet, to send her to. I hope there aren't delays on getting those new vehicles out next year.

        • Just wondering....why didn't they do an Acadia and Acadia XL like the do with the Yukon? I know they're selling the 2016 model as a Limited along side the 2017 but seems like it might have helped to keep sales up. Want a large SUV? Acadia XL. Something a little smaller, Acadia.

        • Rob, the 45k Limited Acadia is not the new model - its "old" inventory. Many dealers only have a couple of the new model Acadias on the lot at this time and they are selling fast. A well-equipped new Acadia runs a bit less than 40k. The Denali is the trim that hits 45k.

          I'm with you on getting the GMC full size CUV out sooner than later!

        • Ah, I remember that now. Thanks for the clarification.

          They still don't have any SLE-1s for the new CUV out of the 15-20 non-Limited 2017 Acadias at the dealers I checked, but you're right that the top is $40k (non-Denali) and $45k (Denali). Hopefully that won't be too much.

• Not a bad showing for Chevrolet & Cadillac.. Bring on an AWD Malibu/Impala and the Tahoe High Country..

  • AWD isn't going to happen on either of the cars, even though like you I would buy either of those vehicles in Awd.

    Rather than a Tahoe High Country, I would prefer Chevy work on getting rid of the Tahoe Ancient line. Let's incorporate IRS, all the V8s available and a 8 or 10 speed automatic. And yes let's look for some ways to take some weight out! Would rather see substance than fluff!

• August 2016 had one less weekend than August 2015. Noone mentions it, but that's what drove the industry decline to some degree. People buy cars on Saturdays you know? The other factor is price increases. GM had 7% increased ATPs yoy, so no wonder volume suffered a bit.Combine volume and price and you see that revenue for the month is up, and EBIT will have been around $1.2bn, a new record, again.

  • Yeah, good point. A missing Saturday doesn't help, heading into Labor Day.

• Has anyone here looked at the numbers Everyone was down but Chrysler and Subaru. They all saw 4-5% and Ford was down 8%.

  This is change over time and there were not the kind of deals we normally see this time of year too. I have often bought in August for the large discounts and this year they were few.

  • I see Chevrolet began offering 0% financing for 72 months.

    Maybe it's a September thing now, instead of August.

    So, we'll see how this shakes out. Should move some cars and trucks, anyway.

• It was mentioned that coming off Fleet sales was like coming off of heroin and I think the same could be said for the big rebates we used to see . All of the companies have been trying to wean us off of them lately .
  Gone are the days of 0% financing and $3500 off of sticker in early summer .
  I seen the story on the news on sales numbers for automakers and Ford suprised me , they sell a truck every 45 seconds and with Chrysler having the industries lowest quality ratings on what is a hot seller the Grand Cherokee they were in the positive . Seems strange to me .