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General Motors' U.S. light-vehicle sales rose 18 percent in the first quarter to 599,187 vehicles as all four of its brands achieved increases, the automaker said Monday.

Buick led GM's sales growth, with sales nearly doubling. Cadillac and Chevrolet reported double-digit increases, while GMC sales rose 7.6 percent.

"GM is off to a great start in 2023," GM North America President Steve Carlisle said in a statement. "We gained significant market share in the first quarter, pricing was strong, inventories are in very good shape and we sold more than 20,000 EVs in a quarter for the first time."

Duncan Aldred, vice president of global Buick and GMC, told Automotive News in January that 2023 represents a rebound year for Buick after the brand was "severely impacted" by microchip shortages in 2022. First-quarter sales of the Buick Encore GX subcompact crossover more than doubled, and sales of the Envision compact crossover more than tripled.

GM said its…

This year’s annual dealership group ranking chock-full of change

It won't take long for readers of Automotive News' latest ranking of the top 150 dealership groups based in the U.S. to notice changes in the lineup.

Starting at the top, for the first time, is auto retail giant Lithia Motors Inc.

Lithia, once the smallest publicly traded dealership group before embarking on a multiyear dealership buying spree, passed longtime No. 1 AutoNation Inc. in new vehicles sold in 2022. The toppling of AutoNation, which had held the top spot since 1997, was expected as Lithia purchased dealerships at a rate far outpacing its rival.

It's fitting that Lithia, which has helped drive the dealership buy-sell market to new heights with its acquisition strategy, is now No. 1 on a list that strongly reflects the impact of consolidation in auto retail.

After seeing megadeals completed in 2021, new buyers entered the market, including dealers who hadn't previo…

It won't take long for readers of Automotive News' latest ranking of the top 150 dealership groups based in the U.S. to notice changes in the lineup.

Starting at the top, for the first time, is auto retail giant Lithia Motors Inc.

Lithia, once the smallest publicly traded dealership group before embarking on a multiyear dealership buying spree, passed longtime No. 1 AutoNation Inc. in new vehicles sold in 2022. The toppling of AutoNation, which had held the top spot since 1997, was expected as Lithia purchased dealerships at a rate far outpacing its rival.

It's fitting that Lithia, which has helped drive the dealership buy-sell market to new heights with its acquisition strategy, is now No. 1 on a list that strongly reflects the impact of consolidation in auto retail.

After seeing megadeals completed in 2021, new buyers entered the market, including dealers who hadn't previously explored growth through the acquisition space, said George Karolis, p…

As accelerated dealership consolidation reshapes the auto retail landscape, Automotive News' annual ranking of the top 150 dealership groups based in the U.S. is changing, too.

The groups on the list commanded a bigger percentage of the U.S. industry's new light-vehicle sales in 2022 and held a growing share of the U.S. dealership count, according to the Automotive News Research & Data Center, which compiles the list. As those groups got larger, they also performed better than the industry as a whole in a year that saw overall new-car sales decline. The top 150 recorded a collective new-vehicle sales decline far narrower than the decline in overall U.S. light-vehicle sales.

This annual list usually has no surprise at the top — AutoNation Inc. has been No. 1 since 1997. But that's different this year as deal-making juggernaut Lithia Motors blew past rival AutoNation to sit at the top of the ranking.

The senior director of transparency and insights for the Center of Sustainable Energy discusses challenges around installing EV charging infrastructure and educating mass-market consumers on charging.

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New groups on 2023 list 2022 rank Dealership group 53 Envision Motors 65 McGovern Automotive Group 86 Page Auto 95 Hiley Automotive Group 101 Great Lakes Auto Group 107 Georgica Auto Holdings 110 Young Automotive Group 119 Healey Brothers Automotive Group 137 Dobbs Family Automotive 141 Preston Auto Group 144 Castle Automotive Group 146 Bakhtiari Auto Group 149 Capitol Auto Group Source: Automotive News Research & Data Center

Thirteen dealership groups are new to this year’s list. Of the new arrivals, Envision Motors in West Covina, Calif., ranked highest at No. 53. McGovern Automotive Group in Newton, Mass., was next at No. 65, followed by Page Auto in Coral Springs, Fla., at No. 86.

GMC has been pushing prices and content for its premium trucks and SUVs into luxury vehicle territory — and that upward climb may not yet have peaked.

The brand's average transaction price last year was $59,031, according to GM Financial data that GMC provided to Automotive News. It rose to $62,367 in the first quarter of this year, the data show.

GMC's average pricing in 2022 was $60,069, compared with average luxury pricing of $66,242, according to data from third-party auto research site Edmunds. GMC's average price has continued to rise, to $63,731, this year through February.

Data from auto research site Kelley Blue Book shows similar trends.

And GMC will stretch even higher as the brand anticipates two newer top trims — Denali Ultimate and AT4X — will come to market in greater numbers this year after supply constraints limited their availability in 2022, said Duncan Aldred, vice president of global Buick and GMC.…

Hyundai and Kia racked up more U.S. sales gains in March, setting records for the month, as inventories continue to improve across the industry.

Volume rose 27 percent to 75,404 last month at Hyundai, with retail deliveries increasing 15 percent to 68,312. Hyundai said sales to fleet customers represented 9.4 percent of March volume.

The company ended March with 53,119 cars and light trucks in U.S. inventory, down slightly from 54,156 at the close of February but up from 17,271 a year earlier.

U.S. sales advanced 20 percent to 71,294 at Kia, its fifth-straight month of a gain of 20 percent or more.

Kia said four models — Carnival, Sportage, Telluride and Forte — set March records while sales of electrified models increased 10 percent, even as deliveries of the EV6 slumped 69 percent to 988 from 3,156 a year earlier.

Kia has one of the lowest days-supply of vehicles across the industry and on Saturday said production and avai…

Jeep's latest collection of Easter Jeep Safari concepts features a mix of eco-friendly powertrains, luxury and the brand's trademark ruggedness.

The seven concepts were scheduled to be tested the first weekend in April on the off-road terrain in Moab, Utah, for the 57th annual gathering of Jeep enthusiasts — one of the largest off-road gatherings in the world, hosted by Moab's Red Rock 4-Wheelers club.

Jeep uses the event to glean insights from off-roaders and give designers and engineers hands-on experience in the wilderness to help them develop future models.

Mark Allen, head of Jeep exterior design, said team members who are first-time participants in the Moab adventure always come back "a changed person" with a "different perspective of their role in creating Jeeps."

"I always say, if you work on Jeep — you're an engineer, designer or if you touch it in some way or the other — I need you to know Jeep," Allen said. …

Disclaimer: This TV show will be a dramatization of real events.

Who better to portray a heavyweight in the auto industry than a heavyweight in the entertainment industry?

"Fall of the God of Cars," a six-part dramatic TV miniseries on former Renault Nissan boss Carlos Ghosn and his Great Escape to Lebanon from Japanese custody, will star Tony Shalhoub. The American actor with Lebanese roots made his big break as the title character of "Monk," a detective dramedy that aired from 2002 to 2009. He is currently cast in the critically acclaimed comedy series "The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel."

The versatile Shalhoub has five Emmys, a Tony and a Golden Globe on his resume.

"Carlos Ghosn was a superstar of the car industry, the first person ever to have simultaneously been CEO of two Fortune 500 companies," British filmmaker Michael Winterbottom said in a statement. "It is wonderful to have Tony Shalhoub on board to play this complex…