2022 Gmc Yukon 4wd Denali on 2040-cars

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Pickup sales may hit 2M units for first time since 2007

Even as fuel prices creep back up, trucks are still a hot item among new-vehicle shoppers. To see how popular pickup trucks still are, you don't have to look any further than how much effort automakers put into the continual one-upmanship of their trucks. Backing this fact up, USA Today is reporting that the segment could top two million sales this year - a total not matched since 2007, though still far from the pre-recession, three-million-unit levels.
Through August, the Ford F-Series continues to be the segment leader with almost 500,000 units sold, but the Chevy Silverado (328,269), Ram 1500 (234,642), GMC Sierra (122,232) and Toyota Tacoma (110,293) are all seeing at least 20-percent sales increases, helping to account for around 1.44 million truck sales so far this year - not including possible outliers like the Suzuki Equator and Chevy Avalanche.
This year alone, General Motors has completely redesigned its fullsize trucks, Ram and Toyota have significantly updated their offerings, the next-gen Ford F-150 will be out next year and Nissan is promising an all-new Titan around the same time with an eventual Cummins diesel under the hood. It would seem, then, that truck sales are poised to continue their upward trend.

2020 GMC Sierra 1500 Interior Driveway Test | Still lagging behind

GM has caught nothing but grief for the interiors of its full-size pickups since they were redesigned. Some of it is about perspective. Ram blew everybody away with the new 1500’s interior, but it's not like the Ford F-150 is embarrassed by it. Chevy and GMC are. Even a top-shelf Sierra Denali doesnÂ’t live up to the luxurious environment its price tag would promise.  The trim of Sierra we're testing is an AT4, though. ThatÂ’s the light off-roading version of the Sierra thatÂ’s mechanically the same as the Silverado Trail Boss we recently reviewed. Looking at the interior from a pure functionality standpoint, the Sierra is perfectly fine at performing its truck duties. The seats are wide, flat and comfortable. It has huge armrests on both sides so you can stretch out as much as your truck stretches the boundaries of the road (seriously, this thing is huge). All the buttons in the center stack are well-labeled, easily found and big enough to stab away at without hitting the wrong one. It even has a volume and tuning knob. Yeehaw!  But look at the design. And the styling, or lack thereof. ItÂ’s plain and lacking in imagination. The whole center stack is just one big slab of black plastic, and the only splashes of color or style to distinguish it visually are bits of silver surrounding knobs and bits of gray surrounding air vents. That's certainly not enough to make it attractive. There are token pieces of "wood" inserted on Denali models, but they're almost hidden away along the center console and doors.  The screen looks as if itÂ’s scrunched into the top of the stack due to the vents curving in on both sides, making it look smaller than its perfectly acceptable 8-inch size. That just makes it more obvious that GM doesn't offer something to challenge the gigantic 12-inch optional screen on the Ram 1500. Not good, because size does matter when it comes to trucks, even if it's measured in a touchscreen's inches rather than engine displacement. LetÂ’s not discount how good all of the tech is in the Sierra 1500, though. GMÂ’s infotainment software that runs on the screen is glitch-free and runs like lightning through screens and menus. The performance is impressive, and of course both Apple CarPlay and Android Auto are on board.

Frustrated GM investors ask what more Mary Barra can do

DETROIT — General Motors Co Chief Executive Mary Barra has transformed the No. 1 U.S. automaker in her almost five years in charge, but that is still not enough to satisfy investors. Ahead of third-quarter results due on Oct. 31, GM shares are trading about 6 percent below the $33 per share price at which they launched in 2010 in a post-bankruptcy initial public offering. The Detroit carmaker's stock is down 22 percent since Barra took over in January 2014. After hitting an all-time high of $46.48 on Oct. 24, 2017, the shares have declined 33 percent. In the same period, the Standard & Poor's 500 index has climbed 7.8 percent. Several shareholders contacted by Reuters said GM could face a third major action by activist shareholders in less than four years if the share price does not improve. "I've been expecting it," said John Levin, chairman of Levin Capital Strategies. "It just seems a tempting morsel to somebody." Levin's firm owns more than seven million GM shares. Barra has guided the company through the settlement of a federal criminal probe of a mishandled safety recall, sold off money-losing European operations, and returned $25 billion to shareholders through dividends and stock buybacks from 2012 through 2017. GM declined to comment for this story, but the company's executives privately express frustration with the market's reluctance to see it as anything more than a manufacturer tied mainly to auto market sales cycles. GM's profitable North American truck and SUV business and its money-making China operations are valued at just $14 billion, excluding the value of GM's stake in its $14.6 billion Cruise automated vehicle business and its cash reserves from its $44 billion market capitalization. The recent slump in the Chinese market, GM's largest, and plateauing U.S. demand are ratcheting up the pressure. GM is one of the few global automakers without a founding family or a government to serve as a bulwark against corporate raiders. In 2015, a group led by investor Harry Wilson pressed GM to launch a $5 billion share buyback, and commit to what is now an $18 billion ceiling on the level of cash the company would hold. In 2017, GM fended off a call by hedge fund manager David Einhorn to split its common stock shares into two classes. Einhorn, whose firm still owned more than 21 million shares at the end of June, declined to comment about GM's stock price. Other investors said there were no clear alternatives to Barra's approach.