General Motors’ sales rose 17% in the first quarter of 2025 compared with the same period last year, exceeding analyst expectations and underscoring a pull-ahead in customer demand due to tariff fears despite long-standing affordability hurdles in the market.
GM reported Tuesday it sold 693,363 vehicles in the first quarter in the U.S., compared with a 1.5% slide one year ago to 594,233 vehicles sold.
Electric vehicle sales nearly doubled in the quarter, rising 94% to 31,887, making GM the second-largest seller of electric vehicles in the U.S. behind Tesla. Those sales were driven by sharp sales increases in both the Equinox and Blazer EVs.
Rory Harvey, GM executive vice president and president of global markets, said in a statement that GM’s sales growth for the quarter ending March 31 outpaced other automakers due to its vehicle portfolio. Cadillac, Chevrolet, GMC and Buick all reported double-digit growth in the quarter.
“We’re the industry leader in trucks and affordable small SUVs, Cadillac is growing significantly in luxury, and we have the broadest portfolio of EVs in the industry,” Harvey said.
Sales gains
GM sold 61,822 Buicks in the quarter, up 39%. Total Chevrolet sales of 443,564 marked a nearly 14% increase, and GMC rose about 18% to 146,220 vehicles.
Cadillac sales rose about 18% to 41,757, including the first sales figures for the all-electric Optiq, at 1,716, and the Escalade IQ EV, with 1,956 sold in the quarter compared with 12,683 of its internal-combustion counterpart.
Not every sales gain for GM reflected dramatic improvements. GM reported sales of just 274 Chevrolet BrightDrop vehicles in the quarter, up 7% from 256 sold in first quarter 2024.
Low sales of the vans, which include BrightDrop 400 and 600 EV models as well as BrightDrop Zevo 400 and 600, reflect an ongoing struggle that GM has had in moving these Canadian-made electric vehicles. GM folded the commercial vans into its Chevrolet brand in a bid to increase sales to dealers, while a Free Press photographer captured images last month of hundreds of vehicles lining a Flint, Michigan, storage lot. Reuters published similar photos from the CAMI Assembly plant in Ontario.
Vehicle inventory
GM said its inventory of vehicles, which is the number of vehicles currently on dealer lots or en route, fell 8% to 549,312 in the first quarter — even though there were two fewer sales days in first-quarter 2025 compared with 2024.
Those levels fall within GM’s target expectations, the company said, though inventory availability will likely become a serious concern across the industry once tariffs go into effect. Sales of the Chevrolet Trax SUV, which is made in South Korea, shot up 57%.
GM also said the average transaction price for its vehicles rose less than 3% in the quarter, to roughly $51,000. The Detroit automaker also said the company practiced “disciplined” incentive spending below 4%, less than the industry average of 7%.
Analyst reactions
GM’s sales surpassed some analyst predictions, even though those estimates still put GM ahead of the competition.
Sales predictions of 656,450 vehicles from Atlanta analytics firm Cox Automotive published ahead of GM’s report was 36,913 vehicles below the actual results. Cox also said pre-tariff concerns drove customers to dealerships at larger than normal levels.
Charlie Chesbrough, senior economist for Cox Automotive, told reporters March 26 that General Motors led automaker sales for the quarter, well ahead of the market, driven by sales gains in all four brands.
Jessica Caldwell, Edmunds’ head of insights, said March sales were particularly strong despite ongoing affordability issues and broader economic concerns.
“Inventory levels were healthy for many brands, incentives continued to make a comeback, and there was clear evidence of pent-up demand after the sluggish sales years that followed 2020,” Caldwell said in a statement. “Although automotive tariffs — now set to take effect on April 2 — might have pulled ahead some vehicle purchases in Q1, the quarter’s results were largely driven by the strength of the industry’s underlying fundamentals. That said, the road ahead is less certain: These same tariffs will likely create headwinds for the industry in Q2 and beyond.”
Analysts unanimously agree that tariff impacts on 2025 sales will be less than positive. Already contending with high prices and interest rates, car shoppers should expect increased competition on dealer lots and fewer discounts.
Meanwhile, the 25% tariff on all cars and light-duty trucks imported into the U.S. that’s set to go into effect this week won’t just cause new car prices to rise. Used car prices will also likely increase, analysts say, and selection, especially of lightly used vehicles, will dwindle.
“If the market were left alone, with no massive tariff impact on automotive, we’d expect sales to see a 1-2% gain over last year, and finish near 16.3 million. That was our view just a few weeks ago,” Chesbrough said last week. “However, what seems most likely now is some tariffs, for some countries, for some period of time.”
Ford Motor Co. also reported first-quarter sales Tuesday, recording a 1.3% decline to 501,291 vehicles, due mostly to the timing on rental fleet sales and its discontinuation of the popular Ford Edge SUV and Transit Connect van. Ford’s retail sales from dealerships rose 5%.
Stellantis, owner of the Jeep, Ram, Chrysler, Dodge and Fiat brands, said its U.S. sales fell 12% for the first quarter of 2025 compared with the same period a year ago, from 332,540 to 293,225 vehicles.
This story has been updated to accurately reflect GM’s inventory levels.
Jackie Charniga covers General Motors for the Free Press. Reach her at jcharniga@freepress.com.
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: General Motors’ sales jump 17% in 1st quarter of 2025, with EV sales nearly doubling
Reporting by Jackie Charniga, Detroit Free Press / Detroit Free Press
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