Pickup trucks outsold passenger cars by more than 17,000 units last month, marking the first time ever that trucks have outsold cars in monthly sales in the United States.
The numbers, which come from market research firm Autodata Corp. and were cited by The Detroit News in a report published Tuesday, are staggering when sales results from previous years are taken into account. The newspaper notes that in 2015, cars outsold pickup trucks by more than half a million units in a single month. The rising popularity of large pickup trucks also sits in direct contrast to some automakers’ focus on greener plug-in hybrid and electric vehicles and growing environmental sentiments in North America and abroad.
One analyst cited by The Detroit News, Joseph Spak, noted that the strong pickup truck sales were driven in part by steep incentives offered on the vehicles during the coronavirus pandemic. Some automakers, including General Motors, are offering zero-percent financing for up to 84 months on certain models in a bid to drive sales during the lockdown. Additionally, the majority of pickup truck sales were concentrated in middle America rather than coastal states, where smaller passenger cars may be more popular due to their relative practicality in urban environments.
There’s no denying the rising popularity of pickup trucks, however. The Detroit Big Three have begun to rely on pickup trucks to drive much of their profit margins and have essentially turned their backs on passenger car segments where the margins are typically not as strong. Bigger vehicles such as crossovers and SUVs have also risen in popularity in recent years alongside full-size and mid-size pickup trucks.
Some GM dealers have expressed concern over the automaker’s shrinking Chevrolet Silverado and GMC Sierra inventory in recent weeks. While GM dealerships remain open for online sales and other limited operations, the automaker’s plants are still offline, causing demand to outstrip supply at a rapid rate. GM is in a particularly difficult situation compared to Fiat Chrysler and Ford, as it was already running short on pickup supply in the months leading up to the pandemic due to the 2019 UAW strike, which forced it to shut down its U.S. plants for 40-days.
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Source: The Detroit News
Comments
Interesting article. Forgive what might be a stupid question but is this comparison just between sedans/coupes vs pickups? The term “pickup” is pretty specific but does “passenger cars” include SUVs and CUVs (or would that grouping be “passenger vehicles”)?
Pickups doesn’t include crossovers/SUVs even though I mentioned them, Ford Guy. Not an out of place question at all.
Thanks Sam.
For clarification, does “passenger cars” include CUVs/SUVs?
This is why cars like the Buick Verano are no longer built or sold in the United States because there’s simply no appetite or market for such vehicles as everyone wants a Crossover or Truck.
Not so fast…
The economy is in a Covid ‘Great Depression’ so, unless old Trax can become an extreme discount offering or new Trax can be Federalized, we will see passenger cars pop up again.
GM could easily offer the already beautifully designed Onix on an already Federalized platform for a Sonic-like price if GEM cannot meet US specifications or expectations. Same for the Buick Excelle on GEM.
The average American will have reduced buying power meaning that cars might just be back. Otherwise the used market will be even more desirable and deflated than it already is.
Think this is what’s happening, GM will have “CV special” cars and CUVs on the road as many people can’t hook $60k trucks anymore, FCA believe it or not was ahead of this, they’ll launch smaller rwd cars and trucks along with their money makers, just the “merger” slowed things down a bit.
I said before some major companies knew we were heading into major worldwide financial damage hence the car models that was cut for the past 3 years. I Don’t know if Ford was prepared for it, IMO it looks like they wasn’t or didn’t listen because going truck heavy in a depression isn’t a brilliant thing to do, though they still make the Focus and Fiesta.
They do not make the Focus or Fiesta anymore, thank goodness.
They’re all new in Europe and China. The biggest and perhaps only flaw was the cheapo DCTs.
Yes, GM #1 Again
• Because when you’re driving a steel truck on the highway you don’t have to slow down for Priuses.
• Because when you’re president is an a-hole, and your family members are a-holes. You need a vehicle that can haul large amounts of Toilet paper.
• Because little foreign $#!tboxes can’t claim their better than a Chevy Cruze when their is no Chevy Cruze.
• Because Star Trek is wrong. Space is not the final Frontier. The Final Frontier rolled off the assembly last month.
• Because it doesn’t matter how careful you were when you removed the logo, or how good the replacement logo looks in its place. We still know it’s a KIA.
• Because all the laxatives in the country aren’t going to solve FCA’s back up of RAMs.
• Because when this crisis is over. Buick will still be the closest thing to an Asian Luxury brand you can get.
cont.
•. Love, it’s that Subaru sticky goo your hipster friend always forgets to clean up.
There should be a wider variety of trucks in size like SUVs and CUVs . Imagine how many trucks would be sold. If there were mini, mid and full-size trucks there would be even fewer cars.
I saw a guy with a full size truck with the triple fold down gate so he could climb up to the nosebleed height bed to put his 12 lb bicycle in it. We don’t have a small car problem we have a big ego problem. Watch truck sales tank at the next economy or fuel price related event and we will have to bail out GM and Ford… Many of the trucks marketed today are absolutely ridiculous.
Ed
It’s going to take at least 3 years for the world to recover from the Covid 19 recession. By that time Ford, GM, Tesla, the Europeans and a half dozen Chinese companies you never heard of, will be turning out EVs by the millions.
The Japanese auto industry, will be as dead as the Japanese electronics industry.