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GM cutting production at two plants

General Motors is continuing to adjust to excess supply of some of its brands' models. To get production more in line with the vehicles' actual demand, the automotive giant is idling two of its factories in North America in the coming months. The Orion Assembly plant is going to be down from March 9-13, according to an anonymous plant worker and another insider speaking to Automotive News. The factory builds the Chevrolet Sonic and Buick Verano, but there are plenty of both models sitting on dealer lots, including 216 days worth of Sonics, according to AN. The factory already had two idle periods announced to reduce the excess. In addition, downtime is scheduled at GM's "Flex" line at the Oshawa, Ontario, Canada, plant from April 13-17. This affects supply of the Chevrolet Camaro, Impala, Buick Regal and Cadillac XTS. Among them, the automotive giant has the largest supply of Regals ready for dealers with 213 days worth of them, according to AN. The future for the whole Oshawa factory is cloudy in general, though. There are rumors that it could close entirely in the future because the Camaro is leaving and the Regal and XTS might not last much longer than 2017. The Canadian government and the labor union there intend to put up a fight, though. News Source: Automotive News - sub. req.Image Credit: Bill Pugliano / Getty Images Plants/Manufacturing Buick Cadillac Chevrolet GM orion assembly oshawa plant idle

GM raises 2023 guidance on strong sales, higher profits

General Motors beat first-quarter profit estimates and raised its full-year earnings and cash-flow guidance after vehicle demand at the start of the year surpassed expectations. Its shares rose in premarket trading. GM made $2.21 a share in adjusted profit in the first quarter, compared to a consensus forecast of $1.72 a share. Revenue rose 11% to $39.99 billion, it said Tuesday, which was more than the $39.24 billion analysts expected. The stronger results stem from rising sales in the US, even in the face of higher interest rates and inflation. GM executives said demand was strong enough to revise 2023 guidance upward, boosting profit estimates for the year by $500 million to between $11 billion and $13 billion. “We did it with strong production and inventory discipline and consistent pricing,” GM Chief Financial Officer Paul Jacobson said on a call with journalists. “All in all, weÂ’re feeling confident about 2023.” The Detroit automaker raised per-share full-year guidance to between $6.35 and $7.35, up from $6 to $7 a share, and said free cash flow would also increase by $500 million to a range of $5.5 billion to $7.5 billion.  GMÂ’s shares pared a gain of as much as 4.4% before the start of regular trading Tuesday, rising 3.5% to $35.50 as of 6:55 a.m. in New York. The stock was up 1.9% for the year as of the close on Monday.  North American Strength The automakerÂ’s sales were particularly strong in North America, where first-quarter earnings rose before interest and taxes rose to $3.6 billion. Vehicle sales rose 18% to 707,000 in the region. Jacobson said the company originally expected to sell 15 million vehicles in the US this year, slightly less than the 15.5 million annualized rate automakers foresaw in the first quarter. North American demand was enough to offset a weak performance in China, GMÂ’s second-largest market. The automaker continues to struggle in the country, where its vehicle sales fell 25% to 462,000 vehicles in the quarter. Profits from its joint ventures in the market slumped 65% to $83 million.  The market has struggled overall in the wake of Covid-19 restrictions and foreign automakers have had to overcome a growing preference for Chinese brands by competing on price, squeezing profit margins. The situation in China probably wonÂ’t significantly improve until the second half of the year, according to Jacobson. GM remains on target to sell 150,000 electric vehicles this year, the CFO said.

Daily Driver: 2016 Cadillac ATS-V Sedan

Daily Driver videos are micro-reviews of vehicles in the Autoblog press fleet, reviewed by the staffers that drive them every day. Today's Daily Driver features the 2016 Cadillac ATS-V sedan, reviewed by David Gluckman. You can watch the video above or read a transcript below. And don't forget to watch more Autoblog videos at /videos. Show full video transcript text [00:00:00] Hey, it's David Gluckman with another Daily Driver. Today I'm driving a 2016 Cadillac ATS-V. This is the sedan model and it has the optional eight-speed automatic transmission. The ATS-V is the small performance car in Cadillac's lineup. It sits below the CTS-V, which is also new for 2016. Ever since the base ATS came out a few years ago, this has always been a wonderful chassis in search of a great engine to compliment it. This car really changes that. [00:00:30] They've dialed up the chassis, the suspension is a little stiffer, the body is even stiffer, and they've put this really nice 3.6-liter twin-turbo V6 engine under the hood. In terms of power and torque, the new V6 outguns it's main bogey, the BMW M3 and M4. The Cadillac engine puts out 464 horsepower and 445 pound feet of torque, which is tons. [00:01:00] The one issue, though, is the way it delivers that power. It's not as smooth as the BMW and there's a bit of turbo lag that you really don't feel in the German engine. Once you get moving, however, this engine really just wakes up. There's no lag once you're at highway speed. You can floor it and there's plenty of power and torque for easy passes and runup to extra-legal speeds. [00:01:30] It's tons of fun there but around town it just kind of lacks a little bit of the smoothness and responsiveness that we're kind of expecting for a car in this class. The engine does sound pretty nice, though. It has this nice little growl when you start it up and when you get on it, it actually sounds more like a supercharged engine than a turbocharged one. It's a little strange, I think that's maybe some active noise cancellation that Cadillac is doing to cancel out the whooshes and whirs that we're used to from a turbocharger. [00:02:00] That's fine with me. Whatever it is, it sounds good. This car gets the same fancy rear limited-slip differential that the Corvette introduced a couple years ago. It does a really good job of keeping everything manageable. You almost can't tell that the car has 464 horsepower. It keeps everything in line.