GM builds half a billion vehicles

General Motors says it has now produced more than 500 million vehicles globally – "the most of any automaker by far".

North America's biggest car-maker celebrated the production milestone on Monday (May 4) – 106 years after GM was founded in 1908 – by presenting a new 2016 Chevrolet Malibu to wounded Iraq war veteran Trent Brining.

Brining, a retired army corporal and Purple Heart recipient who was seriously injured in 2005 after being struck by a rocket-propelled grenade while patrolling a suburb of Baghdad, is one of five customers who will receive a new "regionally-built GM-branded vehicle".

Hosted by GM CEO Mary Barra and GM North America and global Chevrolet president Alan Batey, and attended by customers, employees and dealers, the ceremony took place at GM's Fairfax Assembly plant in Kansas, where the ninth-generation Malibu will be produced from later this year.

Barra said GM plans to sell a new record of almost 10 million vehicles this year, which would likely again make it the world's second biggest car-maker behind Toyota, which was founded in 1937 and last year produced more than 10 million vehicles.

"During 2015, we expect to sell more than 1000 new vehicles per hour, 24 hours per day," said Barra. "This adds up to nearly 10 million vehicles, the most in our history. I look at this extraordinary volume as 10 million opportunities to prove what kind of company we are and to say thank you."

GM's half-billion milestone comes relatively late in its 106-year history, after it notched up 100 million vehicles in 1964, 200 million in 1978, 300 million in 1991 and 400 million in 2003.

In that time GM brought a number of automotive innovations to the world, including the first production V8 engine (Cadillac; 1915), the first production automatic transmission (Hydra-Matic; 1940) and the first production airbags, in 1974.

GM, which became 'New GM' when it emerged from Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2009, now produces vehicles in 30 countries under 10 brands: Chevrolet, Cadillac, Baojun, Buick, GMC, Holden, Jiefang, Opel, Vauxhall and Wuling.

Australia's Holden, the UK's Vauxhall and Germany's Opel brands had all become subsidiaries by 1931, while GM began manufacturing in China – now its largest market, where it has 11 joint-ventures and two wholly owned foreign enterprises – in 1997.