Chevy Outsold By Ford By Nearly 59K Units During Q1 2023

As one of the longest-running rivalries in the automotive industry, Chevrolet vs. Ford has been an ongoing battle for the ages. The American auto brands go head-to-head in many segments, both at home and around the globe, including the ever-growing all-electric vehicle market. One of the easiest ways to determine which of these two legendary marques is ahead in their rivalry is by looking at the raw sales figures, and that’s what we’ll do here today for the first quarter of 2023, comparing Chevy sales to Ford sales.

During Q1 2023, total Chevy sales in the U.S. market grew 16 percent to 398,141 units. Meanwhile, Ford brand sales grew 11 percent to 456,972 units, outselling the Bow Tie brand by nearly 59K deliveries.

Sales Results - Q1 2023 - USA - Chevrolet

As has been the case for years now, the Chevy Silverado was again the best-selling model for the Bow Tie brand by a wide margin, netting 126,992 units to account for nearly a third of overall sales. Comparatively, the most popular Ford model was the Silverado’s primary rival, the F-Series, with 170,377 deliveries during the quarter. Similar to the Silverado, the F-Series accounted for over a third of overall Ford sales. The two full-size truck lines continue to represent the respective marques’ bread-and-butter from sales volume and financial standpoints.

Sales Results - Q1 2023 - USA - Ford

Meanwhile, the Chevy vehicle to experience the largest sales growth was the all-electric Bolt EV along with its slightly larger sibling, the Bolt EUV ,for reasons listed in the EVs section below. Besides those two models, the Trailblazer led with a very healthy 225 percent leap, followed by the Malibu with a 46 percent bump, and the Traverse with a 35 percent growth. Over 40 percent of Chevy models were in the red during the quarter.

For Ford, the Expedition took the top honors in sales growth with a 99 percent jump in sales, followed by the Transit with an 86 percent increase, and the E-Series with a 50 percent bump. Like Chevy, over 40 percent of Ford models posted a decline in sales.

Sales Results - Q1 2023 - USA - GMC

Since GMC models are often cross-shopped against Chevy models, with GMC even taking some sales away from Chevy as the two serve overlapping segments, then including those two GM marques here makes sense (though Chevy and Ford fans may debate that). Doing so puts GM ahead of Ford, with Chevy and GMC sales combining for 528,749 deliveries to Ford’s 456,972. Meanwhile, GM’s Cadillac luxury marque competes with Ford Motor Company’s Lincoln. Those sales are addressed in a separate sales analysis. GM’s Buick premium marque sits somewhere in-between.

Cars

Chevy vastly outsold Ford by nearly 39K deliveries in the passenger car segment during Q1 2023, primarily because the Bow Tie brand offers more models in this space. Chevy car sales in the U.S. grew 28 percent to 53,272 units, mostly due to the Malibu. Corvette sales were down not due to demand but because GM can’t make enough of “America’s sports car” due to ongoing parts shortages and constrains.

Meanwhile, Ford car sales rose five percent to 14,741 units, representing about a quarter of Chevy sales. In fact, the Malibu alone moved over twice as many units as Ford’s two remaining cars, the Mustang and the GT supercar. But the Mustang outsold its rival, the Camaro, by a margin of two-to-one.

Sales Numbers - Chevy Cars - Q1 2023 - USA

Specifically, the Bow Tie brand currently offers the Camaro, Corvette, and Malibu, while the Sonic and Impala, and Spark have been discontinued. Spark sales here show remaining inventory being sold off as the city car was dropped following the 2022 model year. Ford only offers the Mustang and GT super car, having dropped core models like the Fiesta, Focus, Fusion, and Taurus.

Sales Numbers - Ford Cars - Q1 2023 - USA

Besides the understandable drop in Spark sales, the two marques’ high performance sports cars also saw a sales decline. All other models saw gains.

Crossovers

Regarding the substantial crossover market, Chevy again outsold Ford in Q1 2023 by over 17K deliveries. Chevy crossover sales grew by 36 percent to 153,814 units, while Ford crossovers slipped 11 percent to 136,419 units.

Sales Numbers - Chevy Crossovers - Q1 2023 - USA

Besides the comeback sales of the Bolt EV and Bolt EUV, the Trailblazer showed the greatest growth, but the Equinox was the sales leader with 52,902 units, accounting for over a third of all Bow Tie brand’s crossover deliveries. It was followed by the Traverse at 31,533 units and Trailblazer with 27,951 deliveries.

Sales Numbers - Ford Crossovers - Q1 2023 - USA

Meanwhile, the Explorer led The Blue Oval’s list with the highest sales growth at 36 percent to 58,061 deliveries. The Bronco Sport followed with 29,871 units and the Escape with 21,149 deliveries. Sales of Ford’s only EV model currently offered in this space, the Mustang Mach-E, were down 20 percent.

Sales Numbers - Chevy & GMC Crossovers - Q1 2023 - USA

When we add GMC crossovers to the mix, GM outsells Ford by over 50K units.

SUVs

Ford edged out Chevy for the body-on-frame SUV sales crown thanks to the continuing success of its newest model, the Bronco, to outsell the Bow Tie brand during Q1 2023 by nearly 11K units.

Sales Numbers - Chevy SUV Sales - Q1 2023 - USA

The Tahoe and Suburban combined for 41,189 deliveries, up 13 percent.

Sales Numbers - Ford SUV Sales - Q1 2023 - USA

Bronco and Expedition sales combined for 51,789 deliveries, up a healthy 56 percent.

Sales Numbers - GM SUV Sales - Q1 2023 - USA

However, throwing in Chevy’s corporate cousins into the mix that are cross-shopped by most of the same buyers, GMC SUV sales combined with those of the Bow Tie brand give GM the edge with 60,912 deliveries, over 9K more than Ford.

Trucks

The biggest battle between Chevy and Ford in the full-size Chevy Silverado versus Ford F-Series arena, with that rivalry most likely representing the biggest and longest standing one in U.S. automotive history beyond Camaro vs. Mustang. This space not only tracks full-size light duty and full-size heavy duty pickups, but midsize ones, too, along with medium duty commercial trucks.

In Q1 2023, Chevy lagged behind Ford in terms of cumulative truck sales volume, moving 141,271 units, down two percent, compared to Ford’s 207,400 deliveries, up 15 percent, selling over 66K more units.

Sales Numbers - Chevy Truck Sales - Q1 2023 - USA

The F-Series recorded 170,377 sales versus the Silverado’s 126,992 units. Additionally, Ford Ranger sales totaled 11,500 units to the Chevy Colorado‘s 13,256 deliveries, though the Ford Maverick compact pickup, for which Chevy currently doesn’t offer a rival in the U.S. market, outsold them both with 21,478 deliveries.

Sales Numbers - Ford Truck Sales - Q1 2023 - USA

Finally, Ford recorded 4,045 deliveries of its Heavy Trucks (F-650 and F-750), while Chevy’s Low Cab Forward range moved 1,023 units.

Sales Numbers - GM Truck Sales - Q1 2023 - USA

As before, when we include the cross-shopped GMC trucks, which takes sales from Chevy while Ford doesn’t experience that scenario, then combined GM truck sales give it the edge over Ford, with 213,487 cumulative deliveries, or over 6K units more. Furthermore, the full-size truck competition alone also puts The General at the top in Q1 2023.

Vans

With just one offering, Chevy moved less than a fifth as many vans as Ford during Q1 2023. The Chevy Express is an old vehicle tracing its roots to the 1990s and it, along with its GMC Savana corporate twin, remains the oldest model in its segment by a wide margin. In fact, the two vans are the oldest GM vehicles currently in production. While the Express and Savana were thought to be discontinued after the 2025 model year, GM now plans to redesign the Chevy Express for the 2027 model year, keeping the ICE powertrain.

Sales Numbers - Chevy Van Sales - Q1 2023 - USA

Regardless, Chevy Express sales totaled just 8,595 units, down three percent, while Ford moved a combined 46,623 vans, a healthy 47 percent growth.

Sales Numbers - Ford Van Sales - Q1 2023 - USA

Against the Chevy Express, Ford sells the E-Series, Transit, and Transit Connect, along with the only EV model between the two, the Ford E-Transit. As a refresher, the Transit Connect is a compact city van (available in passenger and cargo forms), the Transit and E-Transit are the large van range (available in passenger, cargo, and cutaway models), while the E-Series (Econoline) is offered solely as a cutaway (formerly offered as passenger and cargo van models).

Sales Numbers - GM Van Sales - Q1 2023 - USA

Including sales of the GMC Savana for reasons listed in the above sections gives GM 13,391 combined deliveries, still less than a third of Ford deliveries.

EVs

Focusing solely on electric vehicles, Chevy outsold Ford during Q1 2023, as sales of the Chevy Bolt family continued to rebound, moving 19,700 units combined, and way up from extremely low volume a year ago as a result of the battery recall, associated stop-sale, and production stoppage stemming from some vehicles catching on fire.

Sales Numbers - Chevy EV Sales - Q1 2023 - USA

Ford EV sales, meanwhile, totaled 10,866 units, led by the Mustang Mach-E and Ford F-150 Lighting. The E-Transit was the least-popular Ford EV during the quarter.

FoMoCo EV Sales - Q1 2023

Model	Q1 2023 / Q1 2022	Q1 2023	Q1 2022
Total	+41%	10,866	7,706
Mustang Mach-E	-19.7%	5,407	6,734
F-150 Lightning	+1589.4%	4,291	254
E-Transit	+62.7%	1168	718

Overall, Ford outsold Chevy by 58,831 units during the first quarter of 2023. However, GM (Chevrolet, Cadillac, Buick and GMC) sold more vehicles altogether than the FoMoCo (the Ford brand plus Lincoln) during the same timeframe. Specifically, GM posted 603,208 deliveries to FoMoCo’s 475,906 units.

The GM Authority Take

Ford outselling Chevy during Q1 2023 has been the case for the past several years. However, adding in cross-shopped GMC models changes the story in GM’s favor, and The General overall moves more units than cross-town rival FoMoCo.

Both brands have been on a tear with new, refreshed, and next-generation models for both their ICE and EV offerings. Speaking of all-electric models, the automotive landscape will drastically change, and likely along with the sales picture, as both manufacturers eventually transition to an EV-only portfolio. That’s years in the making, but in the meantime all-new EV models will shake things up from the get-go and GM Authority will be here to report on all those new sales.

About The Numbers

• All percent change figures compared to Chevy sales for Q2 2021 and Ford sales for Q1 2022 and Chevy vs Ford sales for Q1 2022, unless noted otherwise
• In the United States, there were 75 selling days for Q1 2023 and 75 selling days for Q1 2022
• GM Q1 2023 sales reports:
  • GM Q1 2023 sales U.S.A.
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