In the battle of pickup trucks in the United States, the see-saw tussle between the Chevrolet Silverado and Ram 1500 continues to heat up as recent numbers show that the former number 3 has managed to overtake the second best-selling truck among Americans in sales.
When the Ram 1500 first took the spot as the second best-selling truck in the U.S., Chevrolet called out Fiat Chrysler for heavily discounting their Ram Classic to boost sales.
In nine of the past 10 months, Ram sales have surpassed the Silverado, according to the Automotive News Data Center, and currently has a 22,000-unit lead for the first five months of 2019.
But Barry Engle, General Motors President of the Americas, thinks the situation is only a “temporary phenomenon” that can be addressed as soon as GM increases production.
“Given our limited availability, we deliberately launched with a really high mix in trims,” Engle said. “But as we get broader availability and get the full portfolio out there, we’ll be just fine.”
This means that there will have be 60,000 more trucks per year for Chevrolet alone, including 20,000 extra units of the 1500s and 40,000 of the newly introduced Heavy Duty models.
GM is also looking to double its output of the off-road Silverado Trailboss within the next few months, with Engle claiming there is “real demand” for the model than what the brand initially planned for.
But overall, GM is not too bothered with the increase in sales of the Ram 1500 because if sales of other models are included, particularly the GMC Sierra, the brand retakes its lead over Ram. There’s also the recent announcement that GM will be investing $150 million into its Flint Assembly plant to build more Silverado HDs.
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