General Motors retained its crown as the top-selling automaker in the US in 2023, edging past rival Toyota Motor, as easing supply snags and sustained demand drive the industry to its best year since the pandemic.
The Detroit automaker shrugged off a hit from a costly auto strike to report 2023 US new vehicle sales of 2,594,698 units, up 14.1% from last year, while Toyota’s annual sales rose 6.6% to 2,248,477 vehicles.
Automakers are expected to have sold a total of 15,499,224 vehicles in the US in 2023, the highest since 2019, when the industry reported sales of 17,044,011 vehicles, according to figures from consultant Cox Automotive.
The resurgence in sales comes after companies ramped up their production to keep up with sustained demand for new vehicles in 2023, though some analysts warn that high interest rates will take a toll on demand this year.
“High vehicle prices and high interest rates remain the industry’s Grinch right now, and that trend will continue into next year,” Cox said.
In a sign that demand is easing, car dealers had to offer generous incentives and discounts in December to clear older inventory after two years of holding back on promotions.
“This is the third consecutive year in which US consumers spent more than half a trillion dollars buying new vehicles,” J.D. Power said in a report last month.
Electric vehicles also grabbed a bigger share of consumer wallets.
Toyota said on Wednesday sales of electrified vehicles rose 30.4% to 657,327 vehicles, making up 29.2% of its overall US sales.
GM sold 75,883 EVs – of which 62,045 were Bolts and 13,838 were Ultium platform EVs.
The Detroit automaker expectsthe robust demand to carry over into 2024 andforecast total industry sales of 16 million units for the year.
Shares of GM were down but cut losses after itpostedfull-year sales.
The company also said it wouldoffer$7,500 incentives on its EVs that lost a US government tax credit this week.
Total US EV sales are expected to be about 8% of overall auto sales in 2023, with that number rising to around 10% this year, Cox added. But analysts say high interest rates are set to hurt EV demand as well.
“Sales of EVs are likely to continue to improve, just not at the astronomical rate the industry saw in years past,” AutoForecast Solutions said in a report.
An influential committee of MPs is seeking COVID-19-style financial support for Jaguar Land Rover as it tries to recover from a cyberattack.
After a week of plant closures, the Committee for Business and Trade has written to the chancellor, asking her what is being offered to the carmaker “to mitigate the risk of significant, long-term commercial damage to affected firms”.
The 34,000 UK workers of Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) are to remain at home until at least next week after a cyberattack discovered last week halted operations.
Staff are still being paid from JLR sites in Halewood, Merseyside, and Solihull and Wolverhampton in the West Midlands, but the entire economy around the West Midlands is affected.
JLR suppliers Evtec, WHS Plastics, SurTec and OPmobility have had to temporarily lay off roughly 6,000 staff.
Operations could be disrupted for “most of September” or worse, according to a report from The Sunday Times.
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On Thursday, Business and Trade Committee chair Liam Byrne wrote to Chancellor Rachel Reeves, saying: “Firms across the supply chain are now warning the committee of disruption to both upstream and downstream businesses.
“This disruption, we are told, may imminently pose very significant risks to cashflow.”
Intervention, akin to the emergency steps taken to secure British Steel production, is suggested by Mr Byrne to “protect sovereign areas of strength in the UK’s industrial, scientific and technological base”.
A group of English-speaking hackers claimed responsibility for the JLR attack via a Telegram platform called Scattered Lapsus$ Hunters, an amalgamation of the names of hacking groups Scattered Spider, Lapsus$ and ShinyHunters.
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Four arrested over M&S, Co-Op and Harrods cyber attacks
Scattered Spider, a loose group of relatively young hackers, were behind the Co-Op, Harrods and M&S attacks.
Four people were arrested for their suspected involvement in the April attacks and have been bailed.
The majority of a panel of Brazilian Supreme Court judges have voted to convict the country’s former president Jair Bolsonaro of attempting a coup after his 2022 election defeat.
The far-right politician, who ruled Brazil between 2019 and 2022, was found guilty on five counts by three members of a five-justice panel.
Just one of the five judges has acquitted Bolsonaro and when the final one has voted, the panel will decide on the former president’s sentence – which could amount to decades in prison.
The five counts were trying to stage a coup, being part of an armed criminal organisation, attempted violent abolition of the democratic rule of law, being implicated in violence, and posing a serious threat to the state’s assets and listed heritage.
Image: Pic: AP
The 70-year-old, who has denied any wrongdoing, is currently under house arrest at his home in Brasilia.
His lawyers have said they will appeal the verdict.
The ruling will deepen political divisions in Brazil and is also likely to prompt a backlash from the United States government.
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Bolsonaro ally Donald Trump has already called the case a “witch hunt”, slapped Brazil with tariff hikes and revoked US visas for most members of Brazil’s high court.
Bolsonaro is the first former Brazilian president to be convicted of attempting a coup.
He has not attended the court proceedings, and on Thursday he was seen at his garage at his property, but did not talk to the media.
Justice Alexandre de Moraes, who is overseeing the case, said on Tuesday that Bolsonaro was the leader of a coup plot and of a criminal organisation, and voted in favour of convicting him. Justices Flavio Dino, Carmen Lucia and Cristiano Zanin sided with Justice Moraes in the trial.
On Wednesday, another justice, Luiz Fux, disagreed and voted to acquit the ex-president of all charges.
Justice Lucia said she was convinced by the evidence the attorney general’s office put forward against Bolsonaro.
She said: “He is the instigator, the leader of an organisation that orchestrated every possible move to maintain or seize power.”
The far-right politician had been previously banned from running for office until 2030 in a different case.
He is expected to choose an heir who is likely to challenge President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva next year.
Chaos broke out at Utah Valley University when prominent right-wing influencer Charlie Kirk was shot dead in front of thousands of people.
Mr Kirk, 31, was speaking to students about mass shootings on Wednesday when he was shot in the neck, leading students to flee and a manhunt for the killer beginning.
Many questions remain, with differing accounts and multiple videos across social media.
The Sky News Data and Forensic team has tracked and mapped the events before, during and after the killing to find out as much as possible about what happened.
When and where did the shooting happen?
Mr Kirk was speaking to around 3,000 people from under a small white tent on the campus when he was shot.
The event was part of his “prove me wrong” series, which saw the right-wing influencer visit campuses across the country and debate contentious subjects like gun control, free speech, LGBTQ+ rights and abortion rights with left-wing students.
The event began at roughly 12pm local time.
Mr Kirk was taking questions about mass shootings and gun violence when, at roughly 12.20pm, he was shot.
It was a single shot that struck him in the neck, a university spokesman confirmed.
Image: Charlie Kirk at a university event before he was fatally shot. Pic: Reuters/Trent Nelson/The Salt Lake Tribune
Madison Lattin, who was standing only a few dozen feet to the left of Mr Kirk when he was shot, said: “Blood is falling and dripping down, and you’re just like so scared, not just for him but your own safety.”
Footage from the scene showed Mr Kirk being carried away within seconds of the shooting.
Where did the shot come from?
In a statement on Thursday, the FBI said they had tracked the gunman’s movements onto the campus, “through the stairwells, up to the roof, across the roof, to a shooting location”.
They said they first tracked his movements from 11.52am, when they said he arrived on campus.
Videos from the event show the gunman was on top of the Losee Centre building – just over 130m away from where Kirk was speaking, according to an online measuring tool.
Two videos show a figure on the roof before and immediately after a shot is fired.
The first video shows what appears to be someone lying down. The person filming says “he just ran from over there” – pointing in the direction of a stairwell coming up the roof.
The second video is filmed in the moments after the shot is fired. You see a silhouette that appears to stand and move away from the roof’s edge.
Using videos taken near the stage, Sky News was able to confirm that this position has a direct line of sight to where Kirk was sitting at the time of the attack.
Audio analyst Rob Maher has estimated the distance the shot travelled, reaching a similar conclusion to Sky News’ analysis.
“The time gap between the crack sound and the pop sound in the recordings close to the podium is about 240 milliseconds,” he told Sky News.
“Since the exact trajectory of the bullet and the bullet’s speed is not known, I have to make an assumption that the bullet speed was likely about 800 meters per second. With that assumption, the time gap indicates that the firearm was likely about 140m from the podium”.
Image: Pic: Rob Maher
What weapon was used?
The weapon suspected of being used in the shooting has been found, according to FBI agent Robert Bohls, who told a news briefing in Orem, Utah, that it was a “high-powered, bolt-action rifle”.
“That rifle was recovered in a wooded area where the shooter had fled,” he said. “The FBI laboratory will be analysing this weapon.”
Mr Bohls added that they also found an “impression of a palm print and forearm imprints for analysis”; however the shooter remained at large.
Firearms consultant David Dyson told Sky News that, based on the range from where they are believed to have fired, the gunman would likely need to be a somewhat skilled target shooter.
But he suggested that while the shot may be difficult for anyone without experience, it’s “not a great range” for someone with practice.
“There’s target disciplines, for instance, [at] 800m. So you can shoot quite accurately at far greater distances than 150 yards,” he said.
“If we’re in that sort of ballpark, then you’re not looking at somebody with phenomenal skill,” he added.
What do we know about the shooter?
A manhunt is under way for the killer, which began on the university campus but has now extended beyond.
Police radio recordings show the first mention of the incident at 12.26pm, about six minutes after the shooting occurred.
Officers were on the scene within minutes, with one officer describing the suspect at 12.35pm as “wearing jeans, black shirt, black mask, long rifle”.
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Audio recording of police response after Charlie Kirk shot
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Police audio after the incident
By 12.58pm, 32 mins after the shooting, armed officers could be seen checking the perimeter of the Losee building.
In an update on Thursday, authorities offered a few more details about the shooter, who they referred to as a male.
Beau Mason, commissioner of the Department of Public Safety, said he “appears to be of college age” and that he “blended in well with a college institution”.
The authorities added they were “doing everything we can to find him” but that “we’re not sure how far he has gone yet”.
Image: The person of interest the FBI is looking for. Pics: FBI Salt Lake City/X
The FBI later released images of a “person of interest” in the shooting.
Two people were arrested after the shooting, but neither was determined to have any connection with the shooting and were later released.
What sort of security was on site?
Witnesses have spoken about a supposed lack of security checkpoints, with people being able to walk into the event with backpacks without being searched.
“Anybody in the world could park anywhere around the university and walk right in,” one witness told Sky News affiliate NBC news.
The UVU website states that “generally, anyone is allowed to enter areas that are open to the public” but non-public areas are restricted by “access cards, locked doors, or monitored entryways”.
A 2012 drone video shows the area around the shooter’s location on the 4th floor. A metal railing encloses an accessible balcony area which means that to reach the roof where the shot was taken, they could have climbed or jumped over the railing.
Image: Pic: Eric Fowkes
Extra security measures were put in place for the event. UVU Police Chief Jeff Long said six police officers were there as well as plainclothes police officers in the crowd.
Chief Long confirmed that Mr Kirk also had a security team, which travels with him, and said he coordinated with Mr Kirk’s lead security officer.
Analysis of the videos from the event show at least four men, who appear to be Kirk’s security team, surrounding the stage.
“We train for these things, and you think you have these things covered,” Chief Jeff Long said in his statement last night.
“You try to get your bases covered and unfortunately today we didn’t”.
The Data and Forensics team is a multi-skilled unit dedicated to providing transparent journalism from Sky News. We gather, analyse and visualise data to tell data-driven stories. We combine traditional reporting skills with advanced analysis of satellite images, social media and other open source information. Through multimedia storytelling we aim to better explain the world while also showing how our journalism is done.