General Motors and Tesla are the big winners in the 2022 Automotive Loyalty Awards with Tesla topping Ford for U.S. brand loyalty for the first time, S&P Global Mobility said Monday.
Despite a three-year industrywide drop in customer loyalty, GM managed to win the “Overall Loyalty to Manufacturer” award for the eighth-straight year. Industrywide shortages have caused customers to shop for other brands, prompting industry average loyalty to drop from 54.6 percent in 2019 to 50.2 percent in 2022.
GM sees a consistent demand for its SUVs and pickups as inventory levels rise, S&P Global Mobility said in a statement.
“The past three years have been a challenge for the automotive industry,” Joe LaFeir, S&P Global Mobility president, said in the statement. “As customers are returning back to market post pandemic and inventory levels have slowly improved from last year’s lows, retaining loyal customers has been more challenging than ever before.”
Shortages have impacted domestic manufacturers this year — particularly Ford Motor Co.
Tesla’s win for “Overall Loyalty to Make” marks the first year in the last decade that Ford has not won the award, said Vince Palomarez, S&P Global Mobility product manager.
Ford won the award in 2021 for the 12th consecutive year, powered by its customers’ long-standing allegiance to F-Series trucks.
