Chevrolet Malibu heads for the junkyard as GM shifts focus to electric vehicles

DETROIT (AP) — The Chevrolet Malibu, the final midsize automobile made by a Detroit automaker, is heading for the junkyard.

Normal Motors confirmed Thursday that it’ll cease making the automobile launched in 1964 as the corporate focuses extra on electrical autos.

The midsize sedan was as soon as the top-selling phase within the U.S., a stalwart of household garages nationwide. However its gross sales began to say no within the early 2000s because the SUV turned extra distinguished and pickup truck gross sales grew.

Now the U.S. auto market is dominated by SUVs and vans. Full-size pickups from Ford, Chevrolet and Ram are the highest promoting autos in America, and the top-selling non pickup is Toyota’s RAV4 small SUV.

Final yr midsize vehicles made up solely 8% of U.S. new automobile gross sales, nevertheless it was 22% as lately as 2007, in accordance with Motorintelligence.com. Nonetheless, Individuals purchased 1.3 million of the vehicles final yr in a phase dominated by the Toyota Camry and Honda Accord.

GM offered simply over 130,000 Malibus final yr, 8.5% fewer than in 2022. Gross sales rose to almost 230,000 after a redesign for the 2016 mannequin yr, however a lot of these had been at low earnings to rental automobile corporations.

However the midsize automobile phase made a little bit of a comeback final yr with gross sales up nearly 5%.

GM mentioned it offered over 10 million Malibus, making 9 generations since its debut.

GM’s manufacturing facility in Kansas Metropolis, Kansas, which now makes the Malibu and the Cadillac XT4 small SUV, will cease making the Malibu in November and the XT4 in January. The plant will get a $390 million retooling to make a brand new model of the Chevrolet Bolt small electrical automobile.

The plant will start producing the Bolt and XT4 on the identical meeting line in late 2025, giving the plant the pliability to answer buyer calls for, the corporate mentioned.

The Wall Avenue Journal reported the demise of the Malibu on Wednesday.