Crediting a marked sales increase last month to improved availability and incentives across its make and model spectrum, GM reported a 49-percent increase compared to Feb. 2010, including a 70-percent peak, the highest year-over-year gain in GM’s history.
Specific breakdown of the limited-availability Volt’s contribution was but 281 units, down from 321 in January compared to the Nissan Leaf, which sold just 87 units in January, and 67 in February.
While Volt sales are comparatively better than its nearest competitor, yet not significant compared to GM’s internally combusted models, the brand-new model has no year-over-year stats to drag down the average. Its inclusion in GM’s “newest vehicles” category therefore had no effect on GM’s newest models which posted the company’s top gains in February.
Overall – including all sales to fleets, rental companies, and consumer retail sales – “newest” vehicle sales increased 66 percent for the month compared to a year prior, with consumer retail sales as a category cresting as high as 119 percent.
Following this gain by its newest models, GM cited significant sales increases also for passenger cars, crossovers, pickups and SUVs.
Passenger cars sales overall rose 40 percent, with improvement to consumer retail sales at 76 percent.
A particular boost came to passenger car sales by new models including Chevy’s Cruze of which were sold 18,556 units, a robust 212-percent increase over last year’s Cobalt. The new Cadillac CTS also led with a 159-percent year-over-year increase.
Crossover sales overall were up 57 percent, with leaders being the Chevy Equinox of which were sold 98-percent more than last year.
Full-size pickup trucks also carried a heavy load, accounting for a 65-percent increase overall, with retail sales rising 83 percent.
High dealer inventories and strong sales strategies are largely credited with the rapidly returning profitability for the recently bailed-out American automaker.
GM said U.S. inventories, at about 517,000, were about 7,000 more than January, 2011, and 101,000 higher than February, 2010.
As a brand, Chevrolet led the way in increasing GM’s sales with 142,919 vehicles delivered, a 43-percent increase overall for all sales, which factored in a 69-percent retail customer sales increase.
Higher overall percentages, with less volume were also reported by GM’s other three brands, consisting of a 73-percent increase for Buick which sold 15,807 units, a 59-percent improvement for GMC, comprised of 32,534 units sold, and a 70-percent upsurge for Cadillac, which sold 15,768 units.
As explanation for the disparity between “overall” and “retail” sales, GM’s fleet sales for its four U.S. brands remained near nominal at 43,900 units, or a 2-percent increase for the month compared to a year prior, and sales to rental fleets were down 5 percent.
So where does the Volt fare in all of this?
Monthly sales figures in the several hundreds are due to the Volt’s limited availability, and, possibly to an extent because of price gouging by certain dealers not abiding by GM’s requests not to. At this juncture, low sales are not reported to be strictly due to lack of demand.
While the company is not yet raking in the profits through Volt sales, plans for availability through more U.S. dealers – which should help counteract gouging – as well as plans this week in Geneva to introduce the production version of its European sister, the Opel Ampera, has led GM to only express optimism for the Volt in the long term.Source: GM-Volt.com
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