TL;DRCox Automotive projects Toyota will narrow its US sales gap with GM to 83,255 vehicles through June as hybrids surge and EV sales fall over 23 percent.
Toyota is gaining on General Motors in the race for America’s sales crown, and the gap is now the narrowest it has been in half a decade. A new forecast from Cox Automotive, released on Wednesday, projects Toyota will sell approximately 1,250,000 vehicles in the United States through the first half of the year, up nearly one percent from a year ago, while GM is expected to fall more than seven percent to roughly 1,330,000.
The projected difference of 83,255 vehicles marks the closest the two automakers have been since Toyota topped GM in annual US sales for the first time in 2021, a result driven partly by semiconductor shortages that hit GM harder during the pandemic. Other than that year, GM has held the title of America’s top-selling automaker continuously since 1931.
“At these rates, and what we’re seeing right now in the selling rates, GM may be looking over their shoulder here when we get to the year’s end, that Toyota could potentially overtake them,” Charlie Chesbrough, senior economist at Cox Automotive, said during a media event. Chesbrough added that he is not yet forecasting Toyota to finish the year on top, but called the trends “concerning for General Motors.”
