GM: No. 3 Worldwide, Still Top in the US
The leading US automaker continues to slip in the rankings, especially with an upcoming sale.
May 3, 2017
1. General Motors (GM), founded in 1908, is the largest U.S. automaker, with deliveries of 9.97 million vehicles in 2016, according to Forbes.
2. This marks an increase of 1.3%, up from 9.84 million in 2015.
3. It is likely that GM will be pushed out of the ranks of the top three vehicle producers globally in 2017.
1. Volkswagen: On Top Worldwide, But At What Cost?
2. Toyota: 2016’s No. 2 Automaker
4. The company has just announced that it is selling its European subsidiary Opel/Vauxhall to French carmaker PSA Peugeot Citroen, the 10th-largest automaker.
5. This sale would likely shrink GM’s annual sales by more than 1 million vehicles.
6. Like its rivals at the top, VW and Toyota, GM is no stranger to recent vehicle engineering scandals.
7. The company covered up faulty engineering of ignition switches that could allow the vehicles to shut down while driving and which resulted in fatalities.
8. In addition, airbags in affected GM vehicles would lose deployment capability almost concurrently with ignition failure.
9. Penalties and legal settlements on GM for these dangerous problems amounted to about $2 billion by September 2016.
10. However, that is just a fraction of what U.S. authorities imposed on VW, the German carmaker, where no fatalities were involved.
Sources: The Globalist Research Center, Forbes, Bertel Schmitt and Fortune.