The Chevrolet Tahoe has been credited as one of the companies best sellers.

General Motors first quarter profit has increased by eight times compared to last year. The main reason for this is the profit that the company has made in sales of SUVs and trucks. Even though the profit has increased analyst’s estimates have been missed.

United States consumers have spent big bucks on SUVs and pickups and because of this General Motors doesn’t have the need to put aside enormous amounts of backup capital to pay for recalls. The auto making company from Detroit stated that they have earned 945 million dollars mainly because of the low gas prices which have made consumers decide to buy big wheels.

This is just what General Motors needed, with their high end trucks/SUV’s such as the Cadillac Escalade which is a very large SUV and the Chevrolet Silverado pickup. When it comes to profit margins on trucks, the margin tends to be quite large and analysts estimate that General Motors makes over 10,000 dollars per sale. In the United States, where General Motors makes the majority of its money, the company was able to sell over 198,000 pickups, which is the best first quarter number the company has had in eight years, according to the data from Ward’s automotive. The company has also managed to sell almost 55,000 large SUVs making this the best January to March sale period in over seven years. In the past six months gas has been $3 per gallon or less. The price was around $2.49 on Thursday, opposed to $3.67 a year ago, according to AAA making it much more affordable to fuel larger vehicles. The profit increase that we had from trucks has really helped us along, said Chuck Stevens, GM’s Chief Financial Officer, and has boosted the bottom line for General Motors by 500 million dollars in the first quarter.

Even though SUV and pickup sales are good they are not even close to the best peaks in the previous decade. The sales of pickups in last quarter reached its best since 2007 when General Motors sold nearly 243,000 vehicles. SUV sales are now the best since 2008 when the company sold a total number of 107,000. GM is off to a good start and judging by the oil prices their growth is expected to continue.