2020 Gmc Yukon Denali on 2040-cars

Auto blog

U.S. new-vehicle sales in 2018 rise slightly to 17.27 million [UPDATE]

DETROIT — Sales of new vehicles in the U.S. rose slightly in 2018, defying predictions and highlighting a strong economy. Automakers reported an increase of 0.3 percent over a year ago to 17.27 million vehicles. The increase came despite rising interest rates, a volatile stock market, and rising car and truck prices that pushed some buyers out of the new-vehicle market. Industry analysts and automakers said strong economic fundamentals pushed up sales and should keep them near historic highs in 2019. "Economic conditions in the U.S. are favorable and should continue to be supportive of vehicle sales at or around their current run rate," Ford Chief Economist Emily Kolinski Morris said after the company and other automakers announced their sales numbers Thursday. That auto sales remain near the 2016 record of 17.55 million is a testimonial to the strength of the economy, said Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody's Analytics. The job market, he said, has created new employment, and wage growth has accelerated. "That's fundamental to selling anything," he said. "If there are lots of jobs and people are getting bigger paychecks, they will buy more." The unemployment rate is 3.7 percent, a 49-year low. The economy is thought to have grown close to 3 percent last year, its best performance in more than a decade. Consumers, the main driver of the economy, are spending freely. The Federal Reserve raised its key interest rate four times in 2018 but is only expected to raise it twice this year. Auto sales also were helped by low gasoline prices and rising home values, Zandi said. It all means that people are likely to keep buying new vehicles this year even as they grow more expensive. The Edmunds.com auto-pricing site estimates that the average new vehicle price hit a record $35,957 in December, about 2 percent higher than the previous year. It will be harder for automakers to keep the sales pace above 17 million because they have been enticing buyers for several years now with low-interest financing and other incentives, Zandi said. He predicts more deals in the coming year as job growth slows and credit tightens for higher-risk buyers. Edmunds, which provides content, including automotive tips and reviews, for distribution by The Associated Press, predicts that sales will drop this year to 16.9 million.

GMC Canyon will debut in Detroit

With the debut of the Chevrolet Colorado at November's Los Angeles Auto Show, perhaps it was only a matter of time before we saw the small truck's GMC counterpart. That time will be January, as we've received official confirmation that the GMC Canyon will be revived at next month's North American International Auto Show in Detroit.
The news came in the latest issue of the Detroit Auto Show's newsletter, NAIAS Connect. The article hasn't been posted online quite yet, but it details the Canyon as one of the world production debuts slated for the show.
While we've heard rumors that the Canyon would arrive in Detroit, this is our first concrete bit of evidence. As we've detailed before, we expect the Canyon to be stylistically quite different than the Colorado, though the underpinnings will be shared. The teaser image we have above is currently our only look at the new truck. We'll hopefully have more details in the next few weeks as the GMC Canyon draws closer to its official debut.

Chevy Colorado, GMC Canyon midsize pickup trucks to get diesel engines

The market for midsize pickup trucks has all but been abandoned in the US, but General Motors is about to shake the market up with the all-new (to the US) Chevrolet Colorado and GMC Canyon. Launching next year, GM already told us that its new trucks would be a "fuel-efficient alternative" to fullsize trucks, and aside from the smaller size, Automotive News says that these trucks will accomplish this with a diesel engine.
According to the AN report, the next-gen Colorado and Canyon will offer a small, four-cylinder Duramax turbo diesel with a displacement of either 2.5 or 2.8 liters - both engines are currently used in this truck for other markets. This would allow GM to join the Cummins-powered Nissan Titan and Ram 1500 EcoDiesel as the only non-HD trucks in the US to offer diesel. The article goes on to say that the diesel versions of the Colorado and Canyon would launch about a year after the trucks go into production in fall of 2014.