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Trucks and tidbits from GM’s earnings report

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General Motors

announced this morning that 2018 was a good year for it financially, thanks in large part to the company’s performance in North America, which was predicated, according to the company, on “strong pricing, surging

crossover

sales, successful execution of the company’s full-size truck launch, growth of

GM

Financial earnings, and disciplined cost control.”

GM reported full-year income of $8.1 billion and EBIT-adjusted income of $11.8 billion. Crossover sales in 2018 were 1,034,808, an increase of 7 percent compared to 2017 deliveries. Throw in the body-on-frame SUVs and the ute number is a total 1,295,700.

But let’s face it: It is the trucks that really matter. The

Chevy

Silverado and Colorado, the

GMC

Sierra and

Canyon

. Altogether, GM sold 973,463 pickups in the U.S. in 2018. Although

Ford

gets bragging rights for F-Series sales, GM gets to point out that it has a greater aggregate number.

An important factor regarding the trucks and the reported income is that during the last quarter, more than 90 percent of the new 2019 trucks were crew cabs (which have a higher sticker), and at GMC more than 70 percent were Denali and AT4 models (which have even higher stickers).

The “disciplined cost control” is something that is very much in the public eye right now, as the company is

taking out thousands of its workers

, and there is still the

“unallocated” plant situation

and others that will

still be under capacity

.

But there are a couple of curiosities in the full GM earnings release.

One is that so far as its autonomous efforts go, it mentions only that (1) in the first quarter of 2018 Cruise introduced a production-ready

autonomous vehicle

, and (2) Cruise attracted $5 billion in external capital from

SoftBank and Honda

.

Not a whole lot of love for autonomy. Good thing they have the trucks to fund the program, to say nothing of the external capital.

And the second is Alice-in-Wonderland curious: The third section of the release is headed “

Cadillac

Momentum Continues in 2019.” Cadillac U.S. sales were down 1.1% in 2018. Admittedly that’s less than

Buick

(-5.6%) and Chevy (-1.4%), but doesn’t “momentum” imply forward motion?

They evidently have a lot riding on Cadillac. The only photo in the release is of the Cadillac EV concept revealed just ahead of 2019

NAIAS

, and the text says: “Cadillac will lead the company to an all-electric future.”

Until or unless GM can start rolling out some

all-electric pickup trucks

, that future is probably far, far away.

Related Video:

from Autoblog http://bit.ly/2DbVecv