Automotive: Honda and Toyota prove GM was dead wrong on EVs

While GM CEO Mary Barra has led General Motors down the primrose path of an all-Electric Vehicle (EV) Lineup by 2035, the heads of Toyota and Honda refused to follow her lead.

–by Mark Cipolloni–

Customers for the most part do not want all-electric vehicles, and prefer either hybrids or full Internal Combustion Engine (ICE) powered cars.

Did Mary Barra take the time to ask GMs customers what they preferred? No, she thought she knew better and was more than happy to feed from the government trough of free ‘green’ money.

As a result of her poor leadership, GMs EV sales have been tepid at best and now GM has had to reverse course in the 9th inning and say they are going to add hybrids to their lineups.

However, they are way behind Honda and Toyota who have hybrids already in showrooms and they are selling like hotcakes.

Toyota Sales Boom led by Hybrids

In February, Toyota and Lexus dealerships captured 29% of the car industry’s *total* new-vehicle gross margin.

Basically, if the industry made a total of $1 on all new cars sold in February—Toyota earned 29 cents of that.

Here’s the wild part: It hit these numbers while accounting for only *9%* of all franchised dealerships.

Let’s call a spade a spade:

Toyota’s formula is working, and with growing demand for hybrids, I would expect the automaker to have a pretty big 2024.

Honda Sales Boom led by Hybrids and ICE Powered Vehicles

American Honda sales were up 11.8% in March to 130,504 units and best 1st quarter since 2021 (333,824 units)

The Honda brand reached 118,536 in March up 14.9%, the brand’s best month since 2021

Honda saw over 20% growth in Q1 on total sales of 303,451

Honda SUVs posted strong March: HR-V, CR-V, Passport and Pilot each with their best month of 2024

CR-V topped 36,500 units in March (+17.9%), with nearly half coming from CR-V hybrid sales

Pilot topped 12,600 units in March (+21.0%), the model’s best month since July 2021

Civic and Accord combined for over 41,000 units in March (+20.7%)

Acura posted March sales of 11,968 units; best month of 2024 for the brand and each model in the lineup

Integra tops 2,500 units; leads premium gateway segment with 3X the sales of nearest competitor

Acura SUVs combine for more than 8,500 units with both MDX and RDX topping 4,100 units in March

GM 1st Quarter EV Sales Flounder

General Motors Co. saw a 1.5% decline in overall sales year over year in the first quarter.

GM’s U.S. dealers sold 594,233 new vehicles in the first three months of 2024 compared with 603,208 a year ago. The automaker noted its retail sales, or sales to individual customers, increased 6%. It attributed the sales decline to the drop in fleet deliveries.

GM sold 16,425 electric vehicles in the United States, down from 20,000 in the first quarter of 2023, a milestone that was supported by sales of the since-discontinued electric Chevrolet Bolt.

The Cadillac Lyriq’s sales increased 499% from 968 to 5,800 a small number by any measure.

The new Chevrolet Blazer EV tallied just 600 deliveries in the first quarter. The new Silverado EV Work Truck had just over 1,000 deliveries. At GMC, the electric Hummer EV pickup and SUV deliveries increased from 2 reported in the first quarter of 2023 to 1,668 this first quarter. And GM delivered 256 of the BrightDrop electric delivery vans.

GM aims to sell 200,000 and 300,000 EVs in North America this year. They may have to give them away to reach those numbers.

By comparison, Tesla sold 386,810 in the 1st Quarter alone, down 8.5% as customer demand for all-electric vehicles continues to wane.