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AUTO CENTRAL CHICAGO – January 9, 2022; Every Sunday Larry Nutson, The Chicago Car Guy and Executive Producer, with able assistance from senior editor Thom Cannell from The Auto Channel Michigan Bureau, compile The Auto Channel’s “take” on this past week’s automotive news, condensed into easy to digest news Nuggets.
LEARN MORE: Full versions of today’s news nuggets along with thousands of pages of relevant news and opinions, information stored in a million page library published and indexed on The Auto Channel during the past 25 years. Complete information can be found by copying a bold headline and then inserting into any Site Search Box.
Nutson’s Automotive News Wrap-up – Week Ending January 8, 2022; Below are the past week’s important, relevant, semi-secret, or snappy automotive news, opinions and insider back stories presented as
expertly crafted easy-to-digest news nuggets.
* General Motors has been the top-selling automaker in the United States since 1931. Toyota now holds the No. 1 spot in the U.S. market for 2021, selling 2.3 million vehicles to GM’s 2.2 million. This is largely due to the supply chain issues that crippled GM production for much of the year. But it’s more than that, as Reuters points out. GM has been diminishing itself by choice. The company largely abandoned the compact car segment, and cut production of midsize Malibu sedans to favor trucks during the worst of the chip shortage. Result: Toyota sold more than 729,000 passenger cars in the United States during 2021. GM sold about 162,000 cars. Toyota’s lead in cars overcame its deficit to GM in U.S. truck sales.
* Ford, Toyota, Honda, Hyundai, Kia all had sales declines in December. GM slid 43% in Q4. 2021 closed on a down note with total sales just over 15 million vehicles, up 3.4% from 2020, the year the pandemic took hold in the U.S.
* Tesla global sales is evidence of the rapidly rising acceptance of electric cars, especially in China. Tesla Inc. delivered 308,600 vehicles worldwide in the fourth quarter, smashing the previous record for the electric-car maker and setting a capstone on a year in which the company joined the exclusive $1 trillion market valuation club. The better-than-expected results pushed Tesla’s total sales for the year to more than 936,000, up about 87% over 2020’s deliveries of just under half a million vehicles.
* More than 2200 exhibitors were planning to be at CES 2022 this week. However, overall, the show got scaled down due to concerns over the Covid Omnicon variant. In the automotive space, General Motors, BMW, Stellantis and Mercedes all canceled their physical presence. Fisker, BrightDrop, and Blink Charging still were at the show. The Chevrolet Silverado EV, Mercedes-Benz Vision EQXX concept and the 2023 BMW iX M60 were unveiled through online events during CES.
* At CES 2022, the Chrysler brand revealed the Chrysler Airflow Concept, giving a glimpse at the leading-edge drive-system technology, fully connected customer experiences and advanced mobility features, wrapped in inspiring, dynamic design, which will
