General Motors is no longer King of the Hill. Japanese carmaker Toyota led United States automobile sales for the first time in 2021 indicated Automotive News. The shift at the top of the rankings came after a year in which assembly lines were plagued by a scarcity of crucial computer chips, resulting in steep fourth-quarter sales declines for both companies.
United States General Motors is dropping its unprofitable European car business to the French maker of Peugeot, marking the American company's retreat from a major market and raising concerns of job cuts in the region.
General Motors plans to invest 740 million dollars through 2016 in Argentina to build a factory to turn out aluminium motors. The announcement comes as the Argentine auto industry saw a more than 20% drop in production in the first quarter compared to the record performance in the same period in a year earlier.
General Motors outsold Toyota for the first time in six quarters, rising atop the industry and underscoring the resurgence of US automakers.
General Motors expects to sell 1.5 million vehicles a year in South America by 2015, up from 1.03 million last year, according to the head of the largest U.S. automaker's operations in the region.
The Brazilian automotive industry will invest 11.2 billion US dollars over the next two years to 2012, an amount that tops the 8.1 billion of the three preceding years, local media said Saturday.