Chevy Offers $4,000 Incentives to Boost Silverado Sales

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By Douglas A. McIntyre Published
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The Chevrolet division of General Motors Co. (NYSE: GM) offers one of the top three selling pickups in America. However, sales growth of its Silverado has trailed that of its only two real rivals — Ford Motor Co.’s (NYSE: F) F-150, which has the largest sales volume, and the Dodge Ram, which boosts the most rapid sales growth so far this year. To help improve Silverado sales, Chevy has offered big discounts. The Labor Day period is no exception.

The nationwide incentive for the Silverado includes 0% financing for 72 months, a $3,250 discount on the manufacturer’s retail price and a $750 option package value discount. Some buyers do not have to make their first payment for 90 days. These discounts are available on the Silverado 1500 Crew Cab All-Star Edition.

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Four of the three top-selling vehicles in the United States, through the first seven months of this year, are pickups. The only exception is the Toyota Motor Corp. (NYSE: TM) Camry sedan. The F-150 is by far the largest selling vehicle in America. Through July, Ford sold 429,065, up 0.3%. The Silverado was in second place for the period at 282,776. Its sales fell 0.7%. Sales of the third place Dodge Ram are soaring — up 18.8% for the period to 239,481. At the current rate, there is some chance the Ram will outsell the Silverado this year.

To show how important the Silverado is to GM, the nation’s largest car company sold 1,048,114 cars and light trucks, up 3.5%, in the first seven months. So, the Silverado is nearly 30% of all GM sales.

It is hard to pin down why Silverado sales have been poor, because reviews of its latest version have been strong. For example, according to Kelley Blue Book:

Though its familiar sheet metal does very little to suggest otherwise, the 2014 Chevrolet Silverado is all-new from head to toe. It’s what lies beneath the bodywork that counts, as the Silverado’s improvements become immediately evident once you step inside. The revamped cabin is perhaps the quietest in the segment, and the use of higher-quality materials helps to spice things up considerably. A trio of new engines combined with significant chassis and suspension upgrades put the new Silverado on competitive footing with the recently redesigned Ram 1500, the forthcoming 2014 Toyota Tundra, and Ford’s top-selling F-150. Fuel economy numbers are nothing to get excited about, but the 2014 Chevy Silverado delivers big on its promise of blending work-truck capability with everyday civility.

But those improvements have not caught on with consumers, and Chevy has been forced to offer particularly large discounts.

READ ALSO: Cars So Hot They Are Out of Stock 2014

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About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.

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