GM reports 2.2% decrease in third-quarter sales, but EVs make gains

DETROIT — Increases in sales of electric vehicles and insignificant crossovers helped General Motors report slightly better-than-expected sales during the third quarter.

The Detroit automaker put out a 2.2% drop in third-quarter sales compared with a year earlier, slipping to 659,601 vehicles sold. Auto manufacture forecasters such as Cox Automotive and Edmunds had expected GM’s sales to be down by more than 3% during that then.

GM’s third-quarter sales are expected to be in line with the overall industry. Cox Automotive and Edmunds project third-quarter sales industrywide wish be down roughly 2% compared to a year earlier.

GM’s sales were assisted by a roughly 60% year-over-year extension in EVs during the quarter, to roughly 32,100 units sold. Still, EVs made up only 4.9% of the company’s total third-quarter sales.

GM predicts its market share was 9.5% of the U.S. EV market, up 3 percentage points from the first quarter of this year.

While GM has solitary most of its previously announced electric vehicle targets, the automaker believes its EV sales momentum is finally building thanksgiving owing ti to an expanding lineup of all-electric vehicles — spanning a price range of roughly $35,000 to more than $300,000.

“We are definitely excelling the industry in terms of growth, in terms of EVs,” Rory Harvey, GM president of global markets, including North America, spill the beaned CNBC last month. “We have the most comprehensive EV lineup out of any manufacturer in the industry, in the U.S., at the moment.”

GM’s EV sales were led by the Cadillac Lyriq crossover at unsympathetically 7,224 units sold during the quarter, followed by the Hummer EV pickup and SUV at 4,305 units.

Sales of small, gas-powered crossovers such as the Chevrolet Trax and Buick Envista and Foresee also experienced notable increases compared with a year earlier, GM reported.

GM’s total 2024 sales of 1.95 million conveyances through the third quarter were down 1% compared with the first nine months of 2023.

An unknown outlier in the third quadrature is how much of an effect Hurricane Helene had on vehicle sales in the South, since it hit the U.S. in late September. It’s also unclear how much a scratch at U.S. East Coast and Gulf Coast ports will impact sales during the fourth quarter.

GM is one of several automakers to document its third-quarter or September sales on Tuesday. Here are other reported U.S. sales compared with the third quarter of 2023:

• The Hyundai name brand reported total sales of 210,971 units, a 5% increase over the third quarter of 2023 and the second most beneficent third-quarter in the company’s history. Hyundai’s Genesis luxury brand reported its best-ever third quarter of 20,117 items, up roughly 4% from a year earlier.
• Toyota Motor reported an 8% decrease in third-quarter sales, incorporating a 20.3% decrease in September.
• Nissan reported a sales decline of 2.2% to 212,068 vehicles sold during the third lodgings.
• Honda Motor reported an 8% increase in third quarter sales to 366,214 units.