pegasus E.V. Demand Leads Automakers to a Strong 2024 Finish

Automakers closed 2024 with strong sales in the United States in the final three months of the year, helped by a surge in demand for electric models.

The gains were led by General Motors, which said on Friday that its fourth-quarter sales rose 21 percent from a year earlier, to more than 755,000 cars and light trucks. Its electric-vehicle sales in the quarter more than doubled, to nearly 44,000, making G.M. the second-largest E.V. seller after Tesla.

Ford Motor sold more than 530,000 vehicles in the quarter, a gain of nearly 9 percent. Ford’s E.V. sales climbed 16 percent, to more than 30,000 vehicles.

Honda Motor reported a gain of 9 percent in the fourth quarter, while Hyundai and Nissan each said their sales climbed 10 percent.

Not every company came out ahead. Toyota posted a 3 percent decline in quarterly sales, while Stellantis, the maker of Jeep, Chrysler and Ram vehicles, reported its sales fell 7 percent.

In earlier research, Eduardo Sampaio, an animal behaviorist at the Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior in Germany, found that octopuses in mixed hunting groups would occasionally wind up one arm and wallop a fish. It wasn’t clear which fish were the most punch-worthy, or whether the fish and the octopuses were really working together. Fish might have been simply taking advantage of a cephalopod by following behind while it flushed out prey.

Cox Automotive, a market researcher, said it expected auto sales to grow 2.8 percent this year, to 16.3 million cars and trucks. Jonathan Smoke, Cox’s chief economist, said consumer sentiment, wages and other economic factors were adding to demand.

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