Welcome to the Daily 5 report for Friday, Jan. 3.
The numbers are still coming in this afternoon, but it's clear that U.S. light-vehicle sales results are going to look good for December, the fourth quarter and 2024 as a whole.
There were mostly positive reports from General Motors, Ford Motor Co., Toyota Motor North America, Honda Motor Co., Hyundai-Kia, Subaru and others. Even Nissan Motor Co., despite its many problems, still finished in the black for the quarter and the year.
Ironically, the world's most valuable automaker, Tesla Inc., reported its first annual global sales decline — we won't know its U.S. results until registration figures come out in a few months.
The bottom line: The U.S. new-car and light-truck market is expected to tally just under 16 million sales in 2024, analysts forecast, up from 15.6 million in 2023.
Not bad considering all the headwinds the industry faced last year with high interest rates, election year jitters and weather catastrophes. And don't forget that for about two weeks, half of U.S. dealerships could barely move metal because of the CDK cyberattacks.
As always, our comprehensive sales coverage today by David Phillips has the most relevant numbers — and we'll continue to update this story as the later reports drop.
GM's results, in particular, were solid across the board, with all four brands — Buick, Cadillac, Chevy and GMC — posting gains for the fourth quarter and the year. That's also good news for Jaclyn McQuaid, who took over from Duncan Aldred in September as vice president of global Buick and GMC.
"I have a lot of passion for the truck space, and I have a lot of passion for GMC, but candidly, I didn't have a whole lot of background in electric vehicles until I went over and spent the last two years strategizing our entry into Europe," McQuaid said in her first interview with Automotive News since taking over leadership of both brands. The interview with Lindsay VanHulle took place before today's results were released.
In the other major story breaking today, the Biden administration stayed loyal to its union constituency and blocked the $14.1 billion acquisition of U.S. Steel Corp. by Japan's Nippon Steel Corp. over concerns of losing U.S. ownership of a major steel producer.
The United Steelworkers want unionized Cleveland-Cliffs to acquire U.S. Steel, but that deal would likely run into antitrust concerns. For the auto industry, competition in the steel industry is a good thing because it helps keep pricing under control. U.S. Steel and Nippon are promising a court fight to keep the deal alive. We'll see.
Looking ahead to next week, look for our all-out coverage of CES in Las Vegas. Numerous technology announcements are coming, and we'll cover as many as we can.
That's it for now. Have a great weekend.
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— Philip Nussel, online editor
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