mobile-menu-icon
GM Authority

All-New 2020 Silverado HD Flying Off Dealer Lots

The all-new 2020 Silverado HD is cleaning up with regard to sales, representing an impressive 40-percent slice of Chevrolet Silverado HD truck sales for the month of October, 2019.

The stat comes to us courtesy of Silverado marketing manager Hugh Milne, who spoke to GM Authority Executive Editor, Alex Luft, earlier this week at the ongoing 2019 SEMA Show in Las Vegas.

The 40-percent sales figure is noteworthy for a number of reasons. For starters, the 2020 model year vehicle must compete with the highly incentivized 2019 model-year Silverado HD, and traditionally, customers flock to the high incentives of the older model over the all-new vehicle, leaving the latter far behind in terms of sales figures.

What’s more, some have heavily criticized the all-new 2020 Silverado HD for its front fascia design, lambasting the look for its new grille and headlamp design. Clearly though, the new look works for actual buyers.

“Our customers love these new models,” Milne said. “We can’t build the new ones fast enough. The response has been positive.”

“They show up, they disappear,” he added.

We asked about the days to turn (the average number of days a vehicle is in the dealer inventory before it is sold) for the new 2020 Silverado HD models, but Milne informed us that the stat was distorted due to the recent United Auto Workers (UAW) strike. Following a breakdown in contract negotiations between the UAW and General Motors in September, the UAW staged a nationwide company walkout that lasted 40 days, impacting production and vehicle delivery. The UAW and GM reached a deal late last month.

The Chevrolet Silverado HD and light-duty 1500 pickup have seen significant support at the SEMA Show in Las Vegas this year, with numerous concepts spread across the show floor, including the Silverado HD Z71 Sport Concept, Silverado HD Carhartt Edition and Silverado Redline Concept. The Silverado was also named the 2019 SEMA Truck of the Year.

According to recent sales figures, Chevrolet Silverado sales increased 16.62 percent in Q3 of 2019, up to 155,482 units. Silverado HD sales saw a 7.1-percent increase during the same time period, up to 34,212 units.

Subscribe to GM Authority for more Chevrolet Silverado news, Chevrolet news, and around-the-clock GM news coverage.

[nggallery id=957]

Jonathan is an automotive journalist based out of Southern California. He loves anything and everything on four wheels.

Subscribe to GM Authority

For around-the-clock GM news coverage

We'll send you one email per day with the latest GM news. It's totally free.

Comments

  1. While I don’t doubt this, I find it very hard to believe for a number of reasons.

    3 of my local dealerships (a total of around 200 HD Silverado’s) have had most of the trucks on the lot for a long time. 1 truck in particular has been there since the new model came out (it was the first one on their website and its still sitting on the lot today).

    The new model is perhaps the worst looking HD truck on sale today, especially when compared to the GMC and Ford models. I have quite a few people agree with me on that. Oddly, most of the “Chevy people” agree that it looks bad, and quite a few Ford and Ram people don’t mind it.

    The interior is very cheap feeling (some of you may have heard my comments on this before. Interior looks nice but IRL it seems cheap and un-functional). Many people b!tched about the trailer brake controller, yet I actually prefer it on the left side. And personally I’m not a fan of push button start.

    The truck lost quite a few reliability points from the Chevy fan base when they moved from an Allison trans to an “Allison branded” trans. GM makes great engines (especially the bigger V8’s), but they cant build a good trans to save their life.

    My guess as to the high sales would be the high towing #’s and discounts. I’ve seen as much as 12k off the new models already at one local dealership.

    Reply
    1. Kind of sounds like that you don’t like the new design so you’re doubting the entire article made up of numbers and facts and throwing that to the wind.

      Nothing wrong with having an opinion, just don’t confuse it with facts.

      Reply
    2. Sales at one dealer has nothing to do with the rest of the country. It hasn’t sold at that dealership because the dealer is too greedy. He is asking for a price that is too close to list price. Maybe that dealership is run by guys who don’t understand the internet. Buyers will drive from a home state to the one next door just to save $200 on price.

      Reply
    3. Extra looks, it’s hard to say because it’s so new. I think I will come to like it. The previous gen Silverado HD is the best looking HD they’re ever made, especially in the midnight trim.

      The interior, is a complete joke for the price. Work truck interior in a LTZ and High Country. After the Chevy faithful buy, sales will slow down a lot. No conquest buyers. They need the new interior asap and the gas engine needs a 10 speed or 4.10 option. Bad.

      Reply
  2. My personal observation is that there have been an ever increasing number of these showing up on the road.

    I did not see any for a good while now I see them nearly daily.

    The reason I noticed is I was skeptical of the styling till. They are very nice looking in person.

    Reply
    1. I work at a Chevy truck dealer. We sell more trucks than anyone else in our zone. This report is spot on – we can’t get them in fast enough. Many switching from Ford and Ram, too.

      Reply
  3. I think the core factor for this adverse Silverado narrative was Ram’s (seemingly odd) strategy of continuing to produce the older model and increase share by incentives/fleet sale. It is clear now why they did so: they were looking to merge.

    Of course, Ram has still been selling for decent profit, so good on them for the strategy. But that created a narrative of a poorly designed Silverado that is struggling to sell. At the same time, GM was capacity constrained and Ford did have a good 1st quarter where they claimed Ram is impacting Silverado only. The truth was that Silverado was production constrained. Now that the production has normalised, Ford had to admit during 3rd quarter call that it has to discount to maintain share.

    Reply
  4. The strike lasted longer than 31 days. It was settled in 31 days and the UAW remained on strike until the voting was completed which took another 9-10 days before they returned to work.

    Reply
    1. Thank you for the correction, I regret the error. The post is now updated with the correct information.

      Reply
  5. I agree, they are showing up everywhere.

    It is no surprise to me that they are selling over the older ones, the 2020 is WAY,WAY more truck !!

    I have one, a 2020, it is so, so, so much better than my 2017 !! and well worth the extra $$$$$$$.

    The only thing I miss is the old style tilt wheel.

    And the only thing I dislike is the look of the dash, center stack, screen area.

    I do have a GMC as I like the exterior look better, yet like I say, looks are subjective, but this is a GREAT GM TRUCK !!

    And our local dealer cant keep or get enough GM AT4s.

    Reply
  6. You can always tell when it’s some good Corporate BS…. How can you keep trucks on the lot when there was no one building them due to the strike. You couldn’t even get them to the lot much less sell them…

    Reply
    1. Sooo all those people buying one must also be spewing the corporate BS right?

      Hey genius, people had to buy them for it to make up 40% of sales volume, strike or no strike.

      Get a clue!

      Reply
      1. That’s right, sell vehicles that don’t exist…
        If GM can increase there sales by 40% then they should be striking all the time… Then they can claim 40 percent sales increase on vehicles that never existed…

        Reply
        1. You might want to re-read the article. Sales didn’t increase by 40 percent, but the new truck made up 40 percent of all HD sales.

          Re-read it, and then tell me you still think the same thing.

          / face palm /

          Reply
  7. I can say as a guy starting to look for a new HD truck next fall (fall of 2020). I personally think the new Chevy looks pretty good in pictures. I haven’t seen one in person at a dealer yet. But I never understood why everyone hated it.

    With that said… I do agree with one thing someone said. I’m pretty disappointed in the 10speed being Allison branded when Allison didn’t even have any input on it. Not because GM can’t “make a good transmission”. Consider the Powerglide, TH350, TH400, 4L65E, 4L80E, 6L80E… They’re actually pretty good at making solid transmissions. However… None of those examples have ANYTHING on an actual Allison Transmission. I’ve been a diesel mechanic for 15 years. And have rebuilt some GM transmissions and a few Allisons. I’m here to tell you there is NO COMPARISON in component size or quality between the two.

    I was hoping to get a new truck this year… But I really like the new GMC HD trucks but want to wait a year to see how the new 10 speed holds up.

    Reply
    1. *modern transmissions.

      I’ll admit that the old 4 and 6 speeds were great GM trans’s. Hell we’ve had many GM 4 and 6 speeds that did wonderful. However the 8 speed in our neighbors vette and the 8 speed in our XT5 are both junk.

      I don’t know much on the GM side of things, but my buddy who works at a Ford dealership as a tech said they are having quite a few of those new 10-speed’s come in as of late that were blown to sh!t. If the owner tows frequently, around 100k miles, 9th/ 8th gear is gone. Apparently they are also known slip every once in awhile down low if driven a lot in the city. I don’t own one, so I wouldn’t know, but I’d believe it.

      Reply
      1. Gm went from making some of the greatest transmissions in the industry to the 8 peed disaster because of what they have done on so many things lately. Going cheap and penny pinching. They have chosen to put profit above all else. The problem I see with that is if people quit buying your products because of poor quality there will be no more profit.

        Reply
      2. The issues on the 8 speed 8L90 are being resolved with a trans fluid change to a newer type of transmission fluid specified by GM, see: http://gmauthority.com/blog/2019/08/tsb-seems-to-fix-8-speed-automatic-gm-transmission-problems/ . Also, the 8 speed transaxle in the XT5 is not a GM transmission, it is a Japanese Aisin AWF8F45. (It has been discontinued for the XT5 for the 2020 model year, being replaced with GM’s own Hydramatic 9 speed transaxle.)

        Reply
  8. The bias towards these being an “ugly” truck was a bit overblown.
    The sales numbers will show how the public receives these trucks.

    My personal opinion is that the styling was different. Not ugly. And there’s a big difference between the two.
    A different design can grow on you. Ugly will always be ugly.

    I have seen several of these on the road now…and I really like the look.

    Reply
    1. I agree. I’m usually not a huge fan of Silverado styling when they’re initially released, but looking back they probably have the best looking trucks going back many years. These are definitely growing on me.

      Reply
  9. Very happy to hear this. I think the current interior is fine but not great for the HD Segment.
    I do feel that it could use a full leather wrapped option for the High Country though.

    Reply
  10. This is marketing spin. “The new truck is selling great compared the old truck we don’t even make anymore!”
    It’s not even clever spin.

    Reply
  11. I’ve been a mechanic over 49 years and worked on everything. From Harleys to commercial diesels and everything in between. You couldn’t pay me enough to accept a Chevrolet or GM product. Yesterday I replaced the rear brakes on another Chevy pickup with only 30k miles. I’ve seen others gone at 10k. Not only are Chevys pieces of crap, the corporate side sucks. The layer off 75% of their employees Yo send the work offshore. To hell with GM

    Reply
    1. I don’t want to say that you’re full of crap, but your story doesn’t sound at all credible. A vehicle with 10k or 30k miles is still under warranty and would be handled by the dealer, unless it was extremely old and still had low miles.
      As far as their reliability, they are in line with everything else, give or take.

      Reply
    2. Your story is fishy. Did the brakes wear completely at 10,000 miles on a brand new truck? That’s hard to believe, unless the truck spent those 10,000 miles living on a track or hauling max-level payloads. If not, then the owner probably did something strange to the truck to make those brakes wear that quickly. Also, if the truck had 10K miles and the brakes wore that quickly, the owner could theoretically invoke parts of the bumper to bumper warranty. Something ain’t right about your “story”.

      Lays off 75 percent of their employees? Where did you dig that statistic from, because it’s false. GM remains one of the largest employers in the USA… but yeah, whatever you said!

      Reply
  12. Cosmetics aside, the 2020 Chevrolet Silverado HD represents power and value as the Silverado 3500 HD comes with a Duramax diesel V-8 carries that makes 445 horsepower and 910 lb-ft with a $39,500 price for the Crew Cab as this is a lot of bang for the buck.

    Reply
  13. I would like to get one but the ones in Jackson MS an Greenwood MS be try to rob the Mississippi people an the in Greenwood mississippi cannon motors don’t have sales cause I tried to get one last month an they didn’t won’t to work with me at all. I like them very much

    Reply

Leave a comment

Cancel