[Martinjlm]

Just a few fun facts:

• The Midsized Sedan segment as a whole is declining fast. 10 - 15% drops in sales year-to-year. That’s all brands all models. So far for 2024 the segment is showing total sales of 408k units Jan - April. Last year was 445k for same period.
• Compare that to Small Utilities (1.2M last year; 1.34M this year) or Midsized Utilities (991k last year;1.02M this year)
• In the segment, there’s Camry, then everybody else. Camry is double the sales of any other sedan. Camry has delivered over 100k units January to April (all hybrids I might add). That’s up 9%. Number 2 Accord has delivered 54k. Down 13%. #4 Malibu has delivered 46k. Down 11% in a segment that’s down 10%.

Sure, we can all find someone who says “I’d much rather have a sedan” or “I’d much rather have a Malibu”, but the fact of the matter is, when it comes to what customers actually buy, it’s Small Utility, Mid-Sized Utility, and Pickup Truck. Those are the segments that are growing.

Basically, GM has decided not to continue to run the race to the bottom in the sedan market. Even so, GM is extending the Alpha sedans (CT4 and CT5) longer than originally planned. That’s good news. The bad news is we shouldn’t expect to see any significant improvements. The recently updated CT5 is probably as good as it will get. Kind of interesting because the Premium Midsized car (CT5, BMW 5-Series, M-B E-Class) is declining faster than mainstream Midsized Sedan. The Premium Small Sedan (CT4, 3-Series, C-Class) is falling even harder. When you add up the numbers, customers simply aren’t buying sedans at anywhere near the numbers they used to and it ain’t getting better.

As Number 3 has pointed out, when you get to the point where staying in the game requires hundreds of millions / a billion in investment just to keep up, you cut bait rather than invest more in a fast declining market segment and invest that money in places where there is more growth.

Add to that the fact that profit margin per vehicle for utilities (and pickups) tends to be higher than profit margin per vehicle for similarly sized or priced sedans and the decisions to make more utilities than sedans just is what it is.