GM, Ford, Chrysler Lose Sales of 1 Million Pickups, SUVs a Year
June 4 (Bloomberg) -- Ken Thompson never had much trouble selling Silverado pickups at Classic Chevrolet in Grapevine, Texas, the largest U.S. truck dealership. Today, at the 23-acre, 2,000-vehicle lot near Dallas, customers walk away from deals at $16,988, a third off the sticker price, he says.
``It's the deepest discount we've seen in many months,'' says Thompson, the manager of fleet sales. The problem isn't sticker shock, he says. It's pump paralysis. ``You fill up one of these and it costs over $100,'' Thompson says.
Multiply Classic's slump by declines at the 14,293 other
General Motors Corp.,
Ford Motor Co. and Chrysler LLC dealerships in the U.S., and the scale of the financial disaster facing them emerges. Pickups and the larger lines of sport-utility vehicles aren't just Detroit's biggest chunk of revenue, they have generated almost all of the industry's operating income, says
John Casesa, an analyst for Casesa Shapiro Group in New York.
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