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General Motors discussions
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The American complaint used to be that the Japanese - both white- and blue-collar employees - worked TOO hard and were burying us because of their work ethic. Has this suddenly changed in the last 10-15 years?
There is no overlap of Avalon and ES350. There is no overlap of Accord and TL. There is no overlap at Honda. List of GM overlaps would be extensive if we go through excercise here.
Seems like GM new offensive cannot address getting rid of overlapped offerings because of legal arrangements with dealers. But, if "new offensive" resulted in latest Chevy pickup and 2008 CTS, then they can be successful in spite of having too many brands/models.
It is common knowledge in business world and on Wall Street that GM has too many dealers, too many offerings, too much duplicity. Have never read any business article saying that Honda or Toyota have too many dealers, too many models too much duplicity. With GM apparent resurgence and new offensive, can they still learn something from Honda and Toyota.
Strange, it occured (occurs) so making "no sense" doesn't make sense. If youre trying to say it's your opinion.... etc., etc., have at it.
2014 Malibu 2LT, 2015 Cruze 2LT,
Toyota is probably even more dull, especially if you count Lexus. Nothing is more dull than a Camry in any trim. I'm not attracted to a lot from Honda/Acura or Nissan either, but they are more exciting than Toyota.
I think the best that GM can do with regard to reducing model overlap is the "channeling" strategy," such as Buick-Pontiac-GMC dealerships with only 3 or 4 models for each make. GMC isn't going to be killed -- it's GM's 2nd best selling make.
In rural areas BTW, it is common for all GM makes to be in one store (except Saturn and maybe Hummer and Saab). But in metro areas, GM should keep Chevy dealerships separate from Caddy stores. Chevy's sales are sufficient by themselves. By all means though, combine Cadillac, Hummer, and Saab, as GM seems to be encouraging.
Although someone said advertising doesn't actually sell the car, it sure affects the image. I recall long ago seeing ads for Accords driving past gas stations as if they had the highest gas mileage rating in the US. I bought a GM Century with higher rating and it was a V6. But the advertising reinforced what people wanted to believe and the company was happy to help them--even though it was not true.
GM needs some good attention-getting advertising. And get people to take a real look at the product in the stores.
2014 Malibu 2LT, 2015 Cruze 2LT,
Yes. Main reason should be prestige of Caddy brand and also to offer more amenities for customers who come in for service. Also, Caddy customers do not want to rub shoulders and be in same waiting room/lounge with Chevy customers. This is like in business where top executives do not associate, eat lunch with clerks, programmers or engineers.
Just to be a wiseguy, I ought to open a Mercedes-Kia dealership and have the customers share the same lounge!
Toyota, rightly or wrongly, is perceived to lead in this area. Making exciting new vehicles and creating attention getting advertising might get people into the showroom, but value
(read: resale value)and reliability trump "excitement".
A Camry might not be exciting but when you go to trade it in it outshines most GM offerings. I've been a Ford owner and am going to trade in my Explorer on a new vehicle. Its trade in value vs a 4runner of the same year and equip is not a pretty sight. The dark side is tugging at my sleeve.
And she says this is normal for most. In fact she is the first to leave every night so she can see the kids for more than 2 hours a day.
I really like the one that shows a truck pulling a heavy load up the ramp and then stops it just before going off a cliff. Driver said that was the scariest stunt he ever did.
Chevrolet
GMC/Pontiac/Buick
Cadillac/Saab/Hummer
Saturn
Of course this is the preferred way. In small towns all GM brands may be under one roof. If not too samll but a Cadillac/Saab/Hummer store is still too small they would have to dual with a brand that has more volume.
Not sure what this new GM offensive is but it was time for a new pick up and it was started 4 years ago.
You cant be serious. IN a recent issue of Money magazine they tell people the Avalon is basically as good as the ES350 for $5000 less and there is no reason to get the Lexus. All large automakers have some overlap, GM just has the most and yet no one can prove that having less models would lead to more sales for GM.
First of all the the Aura and G6 are in the same price range unlike the ES and camry so that comparison doesnt really make sense. Secondly, the G6 and Aura look more different than the ES and Camry. A good GM comparison to the ES/Camry is Lucerne/DTS and the Buick looks nothing like the Caddy. The Accord and TL have many similarities inside and out and if you dont care about HIDs and fancy stereos the Accord V6 offers much more value than the TL. If you think the Aura and G6 are merely rebadge jobs when they dont share interior designs or exterior panels than I have to question how you define rebadging.
As for 2010, by that time a new F150 and Ram will be on the market so the Tundra's work is just beginning. Things are only going to get harder from here. The GM trucks have one big shortcoming, the 4 speed auto and that will be taken care of for 2008 MY. Once they get the 6 speeds into the 5.3 and 6L models the GM trucks wont give up anything to the Tundra.
The new SUVs and such are nice, don't get me wrong...but they don't bring out any lust or cravings in me or most enthusiasts. I live in a relatively urban area, in a low rise apartment building...I have no kids...nothing to haul...so trucks and SUVs are pointless in my eyes. If you can use it, fine, but most around here don't need it. If I want people to look at me, I'll go buy a nice suit rather than an Escalade.
In mainstream Civic/Corolla/Camcord segments, I see the domestics offering nothing more exciting than the competition, adding little to the class. Dull segments as a rule, but I have no reason yet to give the domestics superiority in those areas. The future looks brighter, but today...nah. The domestics are working at niche vehicles though, I have given credit for that. It's not like I am saying the cars are crap, just little pushes my buttons. I'm not a normal consumer.
We here in America are fast becoming subservient economically to others in industrialized nations around the world. The dollar is worth a fraction of what it once was, and this is exactly why it's cheaper for companies to manufacture here - their primary direct costs, especially labor, are cheaper.
If you think the Aura and G6 are merely rebadge jobs when they dont share interior designs or exterior panels than I have to question how you define rebadging.
Can we please keep this from getting personal? Let's keep this forum open. Please remember the host's admonition not to use the word "you."
Might be "many" similarities (maybe somebody could ellaborate on a GM board), but TL has many significant differences from the Accord that make it well worth the extra cost. Own a recent TL and have test driven and looked at recent Accords. There are significant differences between the two.
Acura TL is part of Honda luxury division and it's luxury can be seen and felt. Cannot say the same about significant difference between CTS which is supposed to be GM luxury and Impala.
In the case of GM value, the Impala is a much better value than the Lucerne at current MSRP. The Lucerne with lower MSRP could easily be Chevrolet's Avalon model and would probably do well.
Just curious about board title - is "GM offensive" part of written company policy or vision?
That might be harder to speculate. But, any decent business major undergrad could easily make case and get an "A" in a course showing that GM incurs lots of extra costs (and losses) by having so many brands/models and large overlaps.
:confuse:
My memory is probably flawed here, but I think Chrysler may have had to give up their big cars and heavy duty trucks to get the government to guarantee the loans that bailed it out in 1980. Their financial resources at the time dictated that the K body New Yorker was the best they could at the time.
In large markets (like Chicago for example) a Cadillac dealer should be a stand alone dealership. Or, perhaps a Cadillac - Rolls Royce dealership.
After who knows how long they are making steps. The Saturn Aura looks to be at least something that would register on the radar of someone who isn't already set on a Camcord. When it comes out in Malibu form it will be better yet (from a marketing standpoint). It's still not something to make one excited to go check it out but it's a huge improvement. I don't see where there's anything to drag anyone form a Civic or Corolla.
I give Ford some credit. The Fusion is interesting. I'd consider it. If they build the European Focus here they'd have something as well.
The market is full of competent cars. Heck, it's harder every day to find a truly bad car. They will need to build a "I need that" car to truly turn things around.
if I recall correctly.
Magna just took over 100% of New Process Gear from DCX
as of 1/1/07. Now those folks are working as non union
employees with 1/2 pay, few benefits and self funded
retirement. I betcha a New Process transfer case COSTS
the same at the parts counter tho. !
It's often alleged, but always ill-defined therefore impossible to have occured. What's the point of "dumping" if no participant has a sufficiently dominant market share to ever hope of recouping the losses from a "dumping" campaing. Is GM "dumping" small cars onto the market place if it loses money on every single small car that it makes? Obviously not. There's a plethra of good reasons why GM still makes small cars, such as fleet fuel average for example. Is Ford or Chyrsler now engaged in massive "dumping" across their product lines right now because they lose massive amount of money on the cars that they make? Obviously not. They are just in a slump. "Dumping" is in the eyes of the behold, not reality.
GM could improve its retail sales a lot by getting its sales mix back to this ratio, which roughly mirrors the overall mix in the market. In doing so, it would be taking on Toyota head-on. But to do that it will have to improve fuel efficiency more than it already has, and either leverage the former Daewoo group to the hilt or figure out how to build cars (as opposed to trucks) for a decent profit here in the Americas (Mexico most likely - that is certainly the direction Ford has invested in heavily).
2014 Mini Cooper (stick shift of course), 2016 Camry hybrid, 2009 Outback Sport 5-spd (keeping the stick alive)
Solid product like the Aura, Impala, '08 Malibu, G6, Astra, etc? Sorry, but I dont agree that GM's mainstream sedan offerings are less inspiring than Camcord. I think almost every GM midsize sedan offers styling as good, or better than Camry/Accord.
As for the Corolla and Civic, if your only concern in fuel economy than those cars cant be beat. No other cars (this includes Nissans, Hyundais, Mazdas) in this class beat the Civic/Corolla in ecomomy. Aside from that they dont offer much that the Cobalt doesnt. Its a rule here on Edmunds that people bash the Cobalt but when you really get down to it the car isnt bad and the civic/Corolla are not in another league except in regards to fuel economy. Its interesting how no one ever brings up the 3, Elantra, Golf, etc when bashing the Cobalt for lagging the class leaders in fuel economy. The Golf with 2 more hp than the Cobalt gets 23/30 which is probably the worst compact ecomony out there.
You forgot the DTS and Lucerne. This leaves CTS, STS and SRX: three cars, one platform.
I think the reason people don't bring up some of those other models (3, Elantra, Golf, etc) is that they are far from the class leaders in sales. When you talk about competing with the other carmakers, you naturally bring up the most popular ones in terms of where you should be competing most strongly.
The Golf and Jetta have horrendous fuel economy for small cars, but the VW execs and fans would have you believe that these are actually "premium" compacts so therefore they should not be compared to other compacts like Cobalt, Civic, and Corolla. Bull, I say. But there you go. Sales of Rabbit/Jetta seem to indicate that the market doesn't agree with the VW assessment as to the premium nature of their compacts, and indeed all of a sudden we now see VW ads featuring a young guy driving down the street screaming about how the three cheapest models have base prices under $17K.
As for Cobalt, my personal thinking is that GM genuinely fails to understand what people want from compact cars. In general, they don't just want a lower-priced midsized car with the sacrifice of some interior space as the cost of the price savings. It is OK for small cars to "drive small". And since many of these cars are solo-driver commute cars every morning, they need to get the best possible fuel economy. Yet despite those primary goals, people do want them to have some features and feel "nice" inside. I would say the best thing GM could do with its compact car program is offshore it ASAP. They have already done that with the Saturn small car (although the Opel Astra isn't THAT small a car), now the next Cobalt should probably come from GM-DAT. GM North America should stick to what it knows well, large cars and trucks, and get the Zeta models up and running, and well contoured to North American buyers' tastes.
2014 Mini Cooper (stick shift of course), 2016 Camry hybrid, 2009 Outback Sport 5-spd (keeping the stick alive)
Holden are currently working on a midsize RWD Zeta car.
They already have working "mules" on the road testing.
Holden are doing all the set up work on your lastest Camaro as well, they are 95% done on this.
The working Camaro that you have over there is just a show car, looks only.
Most of the work, platform, suspension, interior and final looks are done here.
"(Holden designed platform but American designed cars)"
Sorry to burst your bubble, but an Aussie, Michael Simcoe, is in charge of the GM North America design section.
He did the Monaro and also the VE Commodore.
Plus a few other things such as that soft roader, we call it Captiva here.