Chevrolet Malibu
First-half sales, 2008: 87,410
First-half sales, 2007: 60,025
Increase: 45.6%
The Chevrolet Malibu has been a much-needed hit for General Motors (GM). June sales were up 86.4% from the year-ago month, to 13,650. That includes 295 units of a gasoline-electric hybrid version that first went on sale in January. GM said hybrid sales were slow because of low battery availability and because the Malibu hybrid was initially launched in only 11 U.S. markets in the Northeast and West Coast. The conventional Malibu debuted in November 2007. Demand is strong for the base four-cylinder model, GM said. The Malibu shares the same underlying architecture as the Pontiac G6 and the Saturn Aura.
