There’s hope for cheap cars yet.
The Chevrolet Trax is cheap, fresh, and all-new for the 2024 model year. It’s quickly winning favor with cost-conscious buyers, with the model impressing in the sales charts in its first year of sale.
With prices for all trims starting under $25,000, it’s no surprise the Trax is pulling in sales. Look at GM’s third-quarter sales figures for this year, and you’ll see some mighty interesting numbers. Chief among them is the Trax’s quarterly result, up 498% compared to Q3 last year. That figure is somewhat misleading, with sales last year limited by the discontinuation of the last-generation Trax at the end of the 2022 model year. Regardless, with 37,869 units sold in Q3, it’s Chevrolet’s third-best-selling vehicle right now, behind the Silverado and Equinox.
Indeed, the Trax has been selling well since its release in Q2 this year, racking up 65,255 units in total. That eclipses the number Chevrolet sold in 2021 and 2022, with 42,590 and 26,597 units sold respectively. The Trax’s best year on record was in 2019, with 116,816 sold. If the new model can keep shifting units at the current rate for a full year, it could readily smash that record. In other amusing statistics, Chevrolet sold more units of the Trax in Q3 than all of Cadillac combined, with the luxury brand shifting 35,638 units in the same time period.
The Trax figures have come in at a time when GM is finding success across the small SUV segment. The 2024 Chevrolet Trailblazer has had its best year on sale for its current generation model, while the Buick Encore GX just posted its best-ever Q3 result with 20,060 units delivered. GM will also be watching closely as the 2024 Buick Envista starts racking up sales, with its first quarterly result seeing 5,385 units delivered.
The Trax is notable for defying the current narrative in the U.S. market, which has seen cheaper cars dying out in droves. Cars like the Mitsubishi Mirage, Kia Rio, and Nissan Versa all sold less than 30,000 units in 2022, with several of these models slated to be discontinued in coming years. In fairness, many cheaper models are nearing end-of-life, having become dated after many years on sale. This makes them less appealing over time as customers grow to expect greater features and amenities. At the same time, this is in part due to the fact that automakers haven’t seen good reason to invest in these cheaper nameplates going forward.
In any case, the popularity of the new Trax is easy to understand given its price and up-to-date feature set. Chevrolet will be hoping it will continue to grab sales from other budget models as its rivals flee the bottom end of the market.
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