The entrance sign at General Motors’ Romulus engine plant on Ecorse Road in Romulus, Michigan, in October 2010. Credit: Dwight Burdette / CC BY 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons (cropped) GM’s third-quarter sales fell 5.5% and its electric models collapsed, with the Equinox EV down 92.4% to 1,905 cars after America ended its $7,500 purchase credit. Europe kept its mandates, where electric cars took 29% of new registrations in August and drivers pay about twice the American petrol price. GM sold 5.5% fewer vehicles last quarter and its electric models collapsed.
The Equinox EV fell 92.4%, to 1,905 cars. America withdrew a $7,500 purchase credit, and Europe withdrew nothing. GM sold 670,974 vehicles in the quarter, as CNBC reported. The Blazer EV was down 84.4% and the Hummer EV 72.9%.
A year earlier, in the rush before the credit expired, GM set an electric sales record. The comparison is unflattering by construction. Last year’s quarter was inflated by buyers beating a deadline, and this year’s has no incentive at all. The wider market is not weak, and Cox Automotive has raised its American forecast by about 2%, to 16.1 million vehicles.
Toyota went the other way. Its sales rose 0.6% to 633,223, with electrified models including hybrids up 28.5% and above 57% of its total. GM’s lead is nearly gone. Its second-quarter sales fell four percent, and the gap to Toyota is under 136,000 vehicles so far this year, against roughly 335,000 for the whole of last year.
Honda rose 9.3% on a record hybrid quarter above 106,000 units. GM sells one hybrid, a Corvette. Europe has the same hybrid surge and none of the collapse. Electric cars took 29% of new registrations in August.
The difference is policy. Europe runs CO2 targets and a British mandate asking for 33% of sales this year, while America removed the subsidy and kept nothing in its place. Hybrids are outselling everything in Europe too. Here that is a problem for the 2035 rules rather than for electric sales.
Fuel is the other difference, and it is larger than it looks. CNBC cites high petrol at an American average of $4.41 a gallon, which is about EUR 1.03 a litre. The EU weighted average is EUR 2.092, roughly $8.95 a gallon. GM is meanwhile spending $1B on manganese-rich cells for a market that just shrank.
Its cheapest models did best. The Chevrolet Trailblazer rose 51%, the Buick Envista 18.4% and the Chevrolet Trax 16.3%, while Cadillac is down 25% for the year. Duncan Aldred, GM’s North America president, said the business is performing very well. The number that argues with him is 1,905.
