On the Dash:
- Truck inventory constraints and new full-size model launches are driving first-quarter sales more than fuel costs.
- Dealers likely have time to adjust their sales strategies, as GM expects consumer responses to high gas prices to take four to six months.
- Monitoring gasoline price trends remains important, but immediate shifts in buyer behavior may be limited.
General Motors is reporting that higher gasoline prices tied to the Iran conflict have not yet affected its U.S. sales, the automaker’s finance chief said Wednesday.
CFO Paul Jacobson told a Bank of America 2026 Global Automotive Summit that first-quarter sales were influenced more by weather and lower inventory, particularly of trucks, than by rising fuel costs. GM is preparing to launch new full-size truck models, which will also affect early-year sales volumes.
“Usually it takes four to six months of sustained high oil prices before people start to think, ‘Maybe I should go for less mileage, or maybe I should buy down,’” Jacobson said. He later alluded that the automaker believes it has not yet reached that point.
The price of the average U.S. gallon of gasoline has risen 27% since late February, reaching $3.72, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. Despite the increase, GM executives say consumer purchasing behavior has remained largely unchanged.
Jacobson emphasized that dealers and the company are monitoring trends, but that immediate impacts from fuel prices are expected to remain limited in the near term.
