Chevrolet Malibu heads for the junkyard as GM shifts focus to electric vehicles

DETROIT– The Chevrolet Malibu, the last midsize car made by a Detroit automaker, is headed to the junkyard.

General Motors confirmed Thursday that it will stop making the car introduced in 1964 as the company focuses more on electric vehicles.

The midsize sedan was once the best-selling segment in the U.S. and a mainstay of family garages across the country. But sales began to decline in the early 2000s as the SUV became more prominent and pickup truck sales grew.

Now the US car market is dominated by SUVs and trucks. Full-size pickups from Ford, Chevrolet and Ram are the best-selling vehicles in America, and the top-selling non-pickup is Toyota’s small SUV RAV4.

Last year, midsize cars accounted for just 8% of U.S. new vehicle sales, but that figure was up from 22% in 2007, according to Motorintelligence.com. Still, Americans bought 1.3 million of the cars last year in a segment dominated by the Toyota Camry and Honda Accord.

GM sold just over 130,000 Malibuses last year, down 8.5% from 2022. Sales rose to nearly 230,000 after a redesign for the 2016 model year, but many of those had low profits for car rental companies.

But the midsize car segment made a bit of a comeback last year, with sales up almost 5%.

GM said it has sold more than 10 million Malibuses, representing nine generations since its debut.

GM’s plant in Kansas City, Kansas, which now makes the Malibu small SUV and the Cadillac XT4, will stop producing the Malibu in November and the XT4 in January. The factory is getting a $390 million redesign to make a new version of the Chevrolet Bolt small electric car.

The factory will begin production of the Bolt and XT4 on the same assembly line in late 2025, giving the factory the flexibility to respond to customer demands, the company said.

The Wall Street Journal reported on the demise of the Malibu on Wednesday.