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GM Sold Twice As Many EVs As Ford Did In Q1 2023

Over the course of Q1 2023, GM sold more electric vehicles than crosstown rival Ford, supplanting the Blue Oval as the second-most popular EV manufacturer, coming behind Tesla.

New sales data from the first quarter of calendar year 2023 reflects an impressive sales performance from General Motors. In fact, The General sold almost twice as many EVs as Ford, with a vast number of sales volume contributed by the Chevy Bolt EV and Chevy Bolt EUV.

GM Ford
Cadillac Lyriq 968 -
Chevy Bolt EV/EUV 19700 -
Ford E-Transit - 1168
Ford F-150 Lightning - 4291
Ford Mustang Mach-E - 5407
GMC Hummer EV Pickup 2 -
GMC Hummer EV SUV 0 -
Total 20670 10866

This massive margin comes as GM struggles with GMC Hummer EV and Cadillac Lyriq deliveries. However, it’s worth noting that Ford has been dealing with a few issues itself, including the closure and subsequent expansion of the plant in Mexico responsible for production of the Mustang Mach-E, as well as a battery recall on the F-150 Lightning.

Cadillac Lyriq.

Cadillac Lyriq

In regard to the Chevy Bolt EV and Bolt EUV sales figures, GM Authority reported back in October 2022 that General Motors plans to sell as many as 70,000 Bolts over the course of the 2023 calendar year, which would be a notable step up from nearly 40,000 units sold during the 2022 calendar year. This sales boom will coincide with further production increases for other GM EV models, including the Cadillac Lyriq, while a whole suite of new GM EV models will be launched later this year, including the Chevy Silverado EV, Chevy Blazer EV, and Chevy Equinox EV.

Chevy Bolt EUV and Bolt EV.

Chevy Bolt EUV and Bolt EV

As a reminder, there were virtually no sales of the Chevy Bolt EV and Bolt EUV in late 2021 due to multiple recalls and stop-sale orders, which were issued as a result of multiple vehicle fires tied to a defect in the models’ battery pack. GM ended up recalling all units of the Chevy Bolt EV and Bolt EUV in order to address the issue by replacing the potentially defective battery packs with new components.

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Comments

  1. GM sold more EVs, just like Tesla, than Ford but Ford is the only one of the three to sell electric trucks and vans which is more important for business clients. Both GM and Tesla lost those two markets. But GM has the better opportunity to catch up by next year when the Silverado and Equinox EVs are sold.

    Reply
    1. Go Slow to Go Fast: GM engineered/is engineering new electric platforms from the ground up. Ford – at least these early models, including the Lightning F100 are electric-adapted models of existing platforms. GM’s will be better than Ford – at least better than these early Ford models.

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      1. Not to mention GM’s Brightdrop endeavor. Really appealing to business clients – BIG business clients.

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    2. I don’t know anyone interested in an EV Silverado.

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      1. I am.

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    3. Let’s begin with the Mary Barra’s well reported promise to investors that GM can “absolutely” catch Tesla in U.S. sales of electric vehicles (EVs) by 2025 due to an influx of new products such as the GMC Hummer pickup and Cadillac Lyriq as well as an upcoming Chevrolet crossover, part of the automaker’s plan to release at least 30 EVs by 2025.”

      Now let’s examine the present results for Q1 2023. Numbers for GM were a bit over 20,000 electric vehicles during the quarter, solidifying its place as the country’s second-highest EV manufacturer behind industry leader Tesla, who delivered 422, 875 vehicles in the same quarter. Let me repeat – more than 20 times more. Outside of the Chevy Bolt EV, GM’s other two models, the Cadillac Lyriq and GMC Hummer EV , as well as one in the commercial van segment had sales of 968, and 500 BrightDrop Zevo 600s, respectively. And trailing both was Ford, with sales of 10,866 electric vehicles from three EVs on the market: the F-150 Lightning pickup truck, the Mustang Mach-E crossover SUV, and the E-Transit cargo van.

      My question to you is this: Do you think that with paltry production numbers from the legacy OEMs , you can correctly claim that either one of Tesla or GM have “lost the market?” The market is being made as we speak. It’s pretty premature to claim that anyone has “lost it.” While Tesla’s Cybertruck has yet to enter the market, when it does, and it will, what odds do you give that their initial production run during ramp up, let alone when ramped to full production capacity, that Tesla cannot “win back” the markets you claim it has lost? And as for GM, with the supposed 30 new models they promised to introduce, but have yet to, what odds do you give GM that they will be able to produce road worthy models in comparable numbers to Tesla?

      Further, you claim that “Ford is the only one of the three to sell electric trucks and vans which is more important for business clients, and that both “GM and Tesla lost those two markets.” Which business clients are you referring to? And when you say ” lost those two markets”, what do you mean by that? Given the current massive delta in gross production between Tesla and 2nd place GM, whose EV output is dwarfed more than 20 times the market leader, I have a very hard time accepting your premise that GM and Tesla have “lost” those markets. While both have rumored products in their portfolio to compete in those two segments, with the Silverado and Cybertruck respectively, I would place more faith in Tesla’s ability to execute and deliver actual production numbers of vehicles than GM. Yes, Cybertruck has yet to enter the market, but when it does, it will likely be at both volumes and a price point that will place GM in a very difficult position going forward. Do you genuinely believe as we speak that GM is making any money from EVs? Not at those volumes. The point that I am making is that we are in the very early innings of the transition from ICE to EVs. Claiming that GM and Tesla “lost” those two markets is both premature and highly suspect at best.

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    4. “GM sold more EVs just like Tesla?” Huh? The two companies couldn’t be more dissimilar. Big delta between 20K and 423K quarter on quarter comparison. And the claim that GM and Tesla lost the truck market is a foolish assertion to make at this stage. It’s early innings yet…these are new paradigms and markets being created as we speak. Unwise to call winners and losers yet.

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  2. 2 Hummers???

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  3. Fleet sales

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    1. Yes. Which Brightdrop is doing very well in. A success for GM there.

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  4. Ford will always low ball the mrsp for all there vehicles ! This way most municipalities that are regulated by the bidding process seal the deal ! so most corporations public or private really have no say so !

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  5. It’s good to see GM is fully committed to transforming their entire company around a product producing 20K QUARTERLY sales spread across SIX models… I don’t want to hear anything about how “GM is still ironing out issues” with EV production, the Bolt has been in production since the 2017 model year for crying out loud… Even worse, the Hummer was supposedly launched over a year ago, and supposedly a halo product, yet they can’t even build them… I’m all for offering EVs, but GM is shooting themselves in the foot with arbitrary commitments to abandon over 100 years of ICE development; destroying what ever market share remains in the process. I’ve yet to see an Automaker sell profitable EVs in any sort of relevant volume outside of Tesla. Every Tesla driver I didn’t even consider GM, or any other domestic EV automaker, before making their purchase…

    Reply
    1. Yup, been saying it for a year now that GM is putting too many eggs in the wrong basket and neglecting their bread and butter at the same time.

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    2. You make an excellent point Buick City. 20,000 vehicles for GM; 422,875, Tesla for 1Q2023. The numbers don’t lie. That’s a multiple of more than 20. Twenty! Tesla is using their pricing power, cost structure advantages, manufacturing innovation and speed as a weapon to make competitors like GM bleed cash and cull the weakest players out of the market. The frightening thing for GM is that Tesla is in a position to cut prices even further, and can more than likely do so and keep their margins healthy. When you are making 4 to 9 times more profit per vehicle than any of the legacy OEMs, and still have room to reduce them further, I see a world of hurt ahead. Look at what is happening in Norway, Germany, China, France and the UK? Which company is rapidly becoming the best selling car, irrespective of it being ICE or EV? Hint – it starts with a T. And BYD isn’t far behind. They are killing it with the Model Y. Where is GM? When your profit pools exist in a foreign markets like China and you are losing share rapidly, that’s a problem. When sales of all ICE vehicles in China are to be banned as of July 2023, that’s a problem. GM’s true share in the largest car market, outside of a joint venture where they earn a handful of dollars at most as profit is at present a rounding error. The mother of all write-downs is coming.

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      1. Tesla cuts prices much more and they will have negative margins. GM can afford negative margins on EVs if they must, supported by ICE. Tesla can’t. Any price war will hurt Tesla more than GM.

        What manufacturing advantage does Tesla have? If you look at number of employees vs vehicles produced, Tesla actually ranks very low in vehicles per employee, and they only make 3.5 models with limited options. They should be leading in manufacturing efficiency, but they are not.

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  6. You espouse the Kodak philosophy. What is Kodak, you ask? Kodak was this gigantic company that turned their back on the new digital photography to rely on their 100 year old proven bread and butter chemical photography technology. In under 10 years they went from Financial strength to bankruptcy fodder with no means of stopping the slide. GM is on the right track to transition strongly into the next phase of transportation. Keep in mind that although there was 2000 years of proven horse technology, the gas engine successfully displaced it in a mere 20 years.

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    1. I agree GM should be working on it, but to publicly say they are switching 100% to EV’s within a short period of time, knowing that most customers are against it and there’s very little infrastructure to support it is just dumb.

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  7. Not to say the big OEM’s can’t/don’t make mistakes, but it just floors me how some navel-lint-picking, lazyboy-sitting, remote-control-losing guy named Carl can cite no data, nor research and say “thats just dumb” to one of the world’s largest, longest surviving companies/enterprises, who employees some of the best marketing people, data analysts, engineers and visionaries available to them globally. CIte your references, Carl!

    Reply
    1. You definitely missed out on MARKETING. GM hasn’t shown any marketing leadership in this century!

      Reply

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