This is mind bogglingly stupid:
With this attitude I think GM is headed for oblivion. They are making the same mistake they have made over and over again since the early 70s.
Here’s the full article:
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,25893253-12377,00.html
Is that GM’s mistake, or the US public’s mistake?
If gas prices had remained at their mid-2008 levels, those of the Great Spike, the transition would be well underway.
It’s both. GM makes them because they’re expensive, they don’t last, they need to be repaired more frequently and those repairs are generally more expensive. They’re literally “Cash Cows.” Then they advertise heavily to brainwash 'merkins that they want & need them.
'merkins, in return, do as they’re told. After all, when times are tough it’d be unAmerican to buy anything less than a pioneer’s tool that can traverse the rugged country that…ok, that was long ago paved over,
GM has three vehicles right now in the top ten best sellers - you would ask them to stop selling two of them. That probably wouldn’t help their financial strength right now.
Better their other fuel efficient models (which do exist) get better and more competitive and either displace the Impala or Silverado or even (perish the thought) knock off the Corolla or Camry.
The problem isn’t that they do make big gas-guzzlers, it’s that they don’t make a decent small car to go along with it.
I would love to see an American car trounce the Camry and Corolla. What a coup to top the best commuter cars in the world!
GM could grow something on Saturn but … oh wait, that’s right. The fucking geniuses axed Saturn and kept Pontiac. Their leadership is blind.
Well, no. As of this writing they are discontinuing Pontiac, and selling off Saturn (to Penske).
The Saturn experiment never panned out well. The early ones had great fuel economy but when the Japanese tore them apart they found they had nothing to worry about - quality control was pretty poor.
Later ones were a combination of badge engineering, utilization of European platforms (actually a pretty good idea, but one that would have worked equally well with Buick) and the use of the admittedly strong dealer network. No reason to keep a separate division to do this - GM had way too many divisions already.
Seriously, dude. Stop. You have no idea what you’re talking about. The car makers responded to the Americans demand for trucks and SUVs, not the other way around.
Please cite that vehicles like the Explorer and Trailblazer require more repairs than passenger cars made by the same company.
Or possibly the US politicians’ mistake for making it so easy to own gas guzzlers. Low gas taxes especially.
According to that article, Penske will only be distributing 3 models of Saturn, 2 (read: 3) of which will be discontinued in 2 years. Ok, so Saturn’s in limbo until Penske finds a manufacturer. If they decide they want to.
Ignorance fought.
The problem with big trucks/SUVs is not that it is bad business to produce them… and it’s actually very profitable to sell them.
You have to remember, the problem with big vehicles is that sales trends spike up and down dramatically with the gas price climate.
A Camry sells steadily, consistently, and Camry sales are money in the bank. Running a plant that makes Camrys is great. You know the margins, the sales, the work force, and it hums along. It becomes consistent, reliable, smooth.
You cannot bank on that business with SUVs. Oil markets pull the rug out of your business for 1.5 years, then you need to ramp up production when oil prices plunge.
GM needs a steady line like the Accord or Camry. The rug just doesn’t get yanked from these ho-hum, well-built vehicles.
An SUV rolls… or oil prices surge… and profits go out the window for X amount of time.
That is a dice game. I’d much rather run a Camry assembly line and workforce. It is much more efficient in terms of dollars, reliability, workforce and…AND … company IMAGE.
The funny thing is that GM already has a Camry fighter. It’s the Chevy Malibu, which has done consistently well in reviews. It’s only GM’s bad reputation that holds this car down.
I agree - this is possibly the most mind bogglingly stupid OP in a while and I salute you for stepping up and lowering the bar for everyone.
GM is in no position to not generate as much cash as possible. True what they need is a steady operational cash flow with decent margins but right now if they do not have stock that paying customers want, those customers will go to a company that does.
Perhaps you want to go re-run your OP as “American car buyers have still not learned their lesson” and spout off about lack of foresight w.r.t. gas prices, maintenance costs and those impacts on personal cash flow in lean economic times.
Correct: Image problems. On paper, SUVs make money. Off paper, they drag your company down and people slowly begin to associate your company with big, fat clunkers. Lawd knows the media kills GM for such issues.
Technically, SUVs are good business… on paper. In this climate, they are snookered, because their long-term viability is going to suffer as generations upon generations see “GM” and think “clunker”, “Gas hog” and “unreliable” etc.
Forget how the world should be (a place with no bias and objective buyers), and deal with how the world really works (images and associations).
2010 Chevrolet Camaro rated at 29 mpg highway - Autoblog Chevy spent a fortune developing this Camaro. It claims 29 MPH on the highway. I have seen a few they look good. It is not building for the future but trying to capture a hotrodder market.
This is what they get for having a chairman whose name is a portmanteau of putz and lulz.
But car makers do influence demand. I can’t remember the last time I saw a Malibu ad on TV, for example.
The model lineup also affects what people buy. There’s a paucity of small or mid-size wagons, which probably helps SUV sales. (OK, there’s the Aveo, but my local Chevrolet dealer told me they never stocked it.)
I don’t understand why they are discontinuing the Pontiac Vibe (along with the Pontiac brand) instead of continuing to sell the car, perhaps as a Chevy Vibe. It’s a fairly good, relatively fuel-efficient small car.
I guess I will just keep my opinions to myself from now on. 