One might take a quick glance at General Motors’ U.S. sales totals for 2025 and come away reasonably impressed: 2.8 million vehicles sold, representing 5.5-percent growth over 2024 and securing the crown as No.1 automaker for the U.S. market.
Big SUVs and full-size pickup trucks continue feeding the bottom line, although we’ll have to wait awhile before hearing about average transaction prices. At the lower level of the market, GM boasts selling 700,000 Chevrolets and Buicks with starting prices below $30,000. A new Chevy Bolt arrives in the next few months starting under that threshold.
Frugal Shoppers Are Responding
We should be glad to see General Motors doing something to make cars more affordable, and customers are responding: Buick’s bestsellers once again are its least expensive Encore GX and Envista compact crossovers (57,528 and 58,949 units, respectively, and facing 15-percent tariffs from South Korea).
Sales of the Chevy Trax compact crossover were up 2.8 percent to 206,339 in 2025, while 32 percent more shoppers chose the Chevy Equinox midsize crossover, representing 274,356 deliveries in a fiercely competitive sector.
Even better, the all-electric Equinox EV — GM’s most affordable EV until Bolt arrives — doubled its 2025 sales to nearly 58,000 units, despite elimination of a $7,500 federal tax credit in the fourth quarter.
Cadillac’s EV Play In Trouble
So where’s the trouble spot? That would be the Cadillac luxury brand, although it led growth among GM’s four brands with 173,515 units, representing 8.3-percent growth over 2024. Cadillac remains the smallest brand in the General Motors stable, but there are reasons to question its long-term stability.
Years ago, Cadillac was serious about migrating to an all-electric lineup by 2030, except maybe the gasoline-powered Escalade cash cow would stick around. So the EV campaign was real, yielding the Cadillac Lyriq, Optiq, Vistiq and Escalade iQ (not to mention the Celestiq uber-EV).
Short On Gas-Fueled Vehicles
The strategy made sense when every brand was trying to emulate Tesla, but times changed. The Trump administration essentially declared war on EVs, eliminated subsidies and this past weekend invaded Venezuela to secure enough oil to keep internal combustion as the dominant mode of vehicle propulsion, at least in the US.
But Cadillac will soon find itself with an alarmingly thin portfolio of gasoline-powered vehicles: Cadillac just ended production of the XT4 and XT6 crossovers, and the XT5 will sunset at the end of 2026. The CT4 and CT5 sedans will also go away at the end of 2026, although an all-new CT5 is expected.
Cadillac’s One Sure Thing
That leaves the Escalade as Cadillac’s only sure thing, cranking up its 2025 sales 20.4 percent to 49,366 units — every one of them a money maker. Don’t forget the Escalade iQ, which found 8,115 driveways in 2025. Those two vehicles alone accounted for fully one-third of all Cadillac sales in 2025.
2026 is a pivotal year for Cadillac, and the brand needs more product news quickly because four EVs and an Escalade make for a marginal player, a looooong way behind BMW and Mercedes-Benz.
Full-Size Pickups Git ‘Er Done
In GM’s primary segments, sales of all Silverado variants climbed 5.1 percent to 588,709 units, while GMC Sierra deliveries were up 9.7 percent to 356,218). That includes 11,275 Silverado EVs and 8,000 Sierra EVs. While these EV numbers look respectable, GM slowed EV production across the lineup late in 2025 in response to market conditions, which is certain to ping profitability.
3-Row Crossovers Pitching In
More GM takeaways: Departure of the Malibu sedan cost Chevrolet more than 100,000 units in 2025. The platform-sharing three-row crossovers — Chevy Traverse, Buick Enclave and GMC Acadia — were up 40.1 percent, 50.6 percent,
and 12.3 percent, respectively, boosted by all-new versions arriving a year ago. Brightdrop cranked up deliveries of its 400 and 600 commercial EVs to 4,971 units, perhaps due to generous incentives, as vehicle production ended in late 2025.
Source: General Motors
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