GM reports 35.7% drop in Cruze sales after curbing rental units

DETROIT — General Motors reported a 35.7 percent drop in July sales of the Lordstown-built Chevrolet Cruze today.

The compact car had 13,723 sales compared with 21,339 reported in July 2015.

At this point last year, sales of the Cruze were just of the first generation. This year, Lordstown launched production of the next-generation Cruze, which started to ship to dealers in late March.

GM's decision to pull back on rental sales led to an about 2 percent decline in the Detroit automaker's overall sales.

Daily rental sales were down 10,160 vehicles or 42 percent, in July as planned while GM sold 236,235 vehicles to individual or “retail” customers in July, up 5 percent year over year.

GM’s brands collectively had their best July retail sales performance since 2007, the automaker reported.