During the first quarter of 2023, GM U.S. sales figures rose more than 17 percent to 603,208 units. Likely a large contributor to this rise in sales number, recent comments from GM’s chief financial officer reflect that customer demand has also been unexpectedly high.
According to a report from Reuters, new vehicle demand from retail and commercial U.S. consumers is outpacing industry-wide expectations. This positive trend comes as a recent U.S. Commerce Department report demonstrates that U.S. retail sales rose in May 2023.
“If the consumer remains at this strength, we could significantly outperform what we said [about full-year performance]”, GM CFO Paul Jacobson was quoted as saying.
These recent comments come as a stark contrast to sentiment from earlier this year. In the beginning of the 2023 calendar year, many economist and executives expected and braced for a U.S. recession. In fact, Tesla cut prices on its electric vehicles in response to economic forecasts.
Since then, vehicle prices in the U.S. have stabilized, and the production of new vehicles has recovered close to pre-pandemic levels as supply bottlenecks continue to ease.
In spite of a less strenuous economic future, General Motors is still committed to reducing costs as it continues to develop all-electric vehicles, which have lower profit margins as compared to traditional ICE-powered vehicles. To this end, the Detroit-based automaker has already cut thousands of jobs from its payroll.
Furthermore, Jacobson noted that General Motors has no plans to stray from its effort to cut $2 billion out of its annual operating costs. With rising electric vehicle costs, Jacobson stated that cost reduction should not be “a program … and we go back to the way it was. We have to cultivate continuing improvement on the cost side.”
Subscribe to GM Authority as we bring you the latest GM-related demand news, GM business news, and ongoing GM news coverage.
Comments
Repos are through the roof. Student loans kick in come September. People can’t afford their housing with cost of living increases.
… And that’s before any layoffs happen.
It’s going to be a bloodbath.
That’s Great! Now if I can just get the truck I ordered months ago!
I feel the same way been waiting over five months for my HD 2024 truck and still setting in Canada.
Rushing to get new ICE vehicles while they can?
great!!! Back to old times. America and GM goes hand and hand like marriage, baseball, hot dog, apple pie and Chevrolet, and now GMC
Please tell me (us) what the real problem is to find out why it is taking so long to see any progress in building/receiving the new 2023 Canyon AT4X Canyons…..Hail storms in Missouri, deliberate poor comunications between manufacturer and dealer, lack of supplies, too many van orders, shipping units to foreign countries first, al of the above, none of the above…………..
Truck has been ordered for months. Dont know anymore now than the day I placed the order.
I wish I could tell ya. What I can tell ya being that I work there is we work 24hrs a day 5 days a week sometimes 6 we build 200 to 250 trucks a shift so 700 a day. There going somewhere
It’s great that demand is up in the U.S. for vehicles. What I don’t understand is why is GM having such a hard time producing enough vehicles to meet demand. Is it supply chain issues like chip shortages? Are they deliberately not producing enough to drive up prices? It has to be frustrating to their customers to wait so long and have no idea when they will receive their ordered vehicle.
What about GM Buick Envisions..not putting in correct seats….