Sales of Cobalts tumble in May

June 3, 2009 at 12:00a.m.

Its sales are down 52 percent for the first five months of this year.

STAFF/WIRE REPORT

It was the worst May ever for sales of the Chevrolet Cobalt.

General Motors said Tuesday that it sold 12,764 Cobalts in the U.S. last month.

GM had never sold fewer than 21,000 Cobalts in May since the model was launched in fall 2004 from its Lordstown complex.

Last month’s results were down 52 percent from a year earlier. In May 2008, Cobalt sales reached 26,702, which was its best result for a May.

Since then, however, the recession has pushed car sales down.

Sales have been so slow recently that last month’s total, even though it was down, was the best month the Cobalt has had in 2009.

In the first five months of this year, Cobalt sales are down 52 percent at 44,829.

The Pontiac G5, which also is made in Lordstown, had sales of 731 last month. That was down 71 percent from the 2,516 that were sold in May 2008.

Overall, GM’s sales fell 30 percent from a year ago, but they improved 11 percent from April as consumers pushed the automaker to its best sales month this year.

GM said it delivered 191,875 vehicles in May, helped by 110,866 in truck sales.

GM entered bankruptcy protection with the hope of emerging within 60 to 90 days as a smaller, less debt-burdened company.

The Pontiac, Hummer, Saturn and Saab brands accounted for the company’s biggest sales declines. GM has said it plans to get rid of those divisions as part of its restructuring and stick to four core brands: Chevrolet, Buick, Cadillac and GMC.

Saturn sales fell 56 percent, and Pontiac sales were down 52 percent.

Mark LaNeve, GM’s vice president of North American sales and marketing, said the automaker expects to lose some market share given the sell off or phasing out of some of its brands, but it doesn’t expect its share to fall below 16 percent.

The fact that a bankruptcy filing loomed over the company throughout the month of May did not hurt sales, he said, adding that consumers may have become desensitized to news of the bankruptcy protection filing.

Chrysler LLC’s sales fell 47 percent in May, but the company says being under bankruptcy protection did little to deter customers from purchasing its vehicles.

Chrysler said Tuesday it sold 79,010 cars and light trucks last month. The company said its sales were pulled lower because it didn’t sell any cars to fleet buyers like rental car companies, but its retail sales to individual buyers were the best they’ve been all year.

With 789 dealers set to stop selling the company’s cars next week, many of those purchases were fueled by deep discounts. Chrysler had the highest average incentive among automakers last month — $4,159 per vehicle, according to Edmunds.com.

Ford Motor Co. posted even better results as it continued to snatch market share from its rivals. Ford said its May U.S. sales fell 24 percent from last year but rose 20 percent from April and its share of the U.S. market rose to the highest level since 2006.