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Comments
The article mentioned that Toyota had a bit of a weak showing too, but didn't throw any numbers out.
Keep Chevy, to face down Honda Toyota
Dump GMC Truck,Pontiac, SAAB and Hummer
Saturn becomes your Euro fighter VW wanna be division.
Buick goes after Lexus
Caddy goes after the Germans.
Bookmark
Replying to: rockylee (Sep 03, 2007 11:34 pm)
As far as GM, goes they have a couple of home runs with the 08' CTS, Enclave, Acadia, Outlook. I think the 08'
Saab 9-3, will be a strong seller finally just like I think the new Malibu, will sell well.
You don't like the G8 or Lacross super?
I like them both including the Lucerne Super, but the ones I mentioned above along with new Malibu, should be the big bright spots for 2008'.
-Rocky
Says here GM was up 6.1%.
A double digit decline in fleet vs a 7.4% decline in total market share so far this year probably means that GM retail is up or even for the year. Pretty good news in a market that is down a total 2.3% for the industry.
Chevrolet. Too much risk in dropping GMC. Besides it makes sense to dual the dealerships with low volume Buick and Pontiac.
But:
Chevy is the low end value leaders of the everymans vehicle segments.
GMC/Buick/Pontiac are the uplevel leaders of the affordable premium market. Above Chevy but below all those Cadillacs/BMW's/Mercedes. Sorta the volume part of Lexus/Acura segments.
Cadillac/Hummer/Saab are the high end with Saab starting at jsut below $30k and hitting $45k with Cadilac doing the same except reaching much higher with some models. Hummer does what it is doing.
Saturn, always the division that confounds me but it is doing great at turning over those import buyers w/o stealing sales from other GM marques. Guess it's working.
Now are all the products right for the above? No way.
Buick is going in the right direction with the Enclave and the next LaCrosse. Hopefully a few more great products coming. If Pontiac does do the RWD G8 and G6 with an even smaller G5 that would be great. GMC needs to do a bit better with differentian from Chevy trucks. My biggest beef with GM. They sell so many GMC's they should make them look really different.
Cadillac needs a car that can beat the 3 series at it's own game. Infiniti gets there but not good enough to beat the BMW brand equity. Cadillac also needs a 7 series competitor. Let CTS take on the 5 at a lower price.
Let Hummer and Saturn continue on with what they are doing but get wome more Saturn dealerships. Need a bunch more to get volume up.
AHHHHHHHHH
General Motors is taking a lesson from the Japanese carmakers in a new incentive strategy to stay ahead of an inventory glut rather than react with a big blowout sale.
Toyota "never really got a ton of inventory on the Tundra and yet they were burying it in incentives," said Mark LaNeve, GM's vice president of vehicle sales, service and marketing in an interview with Automotive News. "They'll put it on and still keep their days supply down."
And that got LaNeve's attention. He's now applying that strategy to GM's incentive game plan.
"We've got to do a better job," La-Neve said. "The lesson I've learned watching the Japanese over the years is they put incentives on before they get a lot of inventory."
The key will be timing it so as to add incentives at the point where supply starts to peak.
Historically when its inventory levels got high, GM tended to react by tagging on a lot of incentives, LaNeve admits. Now GM will "lean in more and feather incentives in to keep the turn rates high," he said, as opposed to waiting until there is a lot of inventory and then having to overreact to the market.
GM will follow the incentive strategy with its three new crossovers - the Saturn Outlook, GMC Acadia and Buick Enclave - which have been selling well since launch with minimal incentives. GM has put $500 customer cash on the Outlook and offers financing rates of 5.9 to 7.9 percent on all three vehic
But GM's sales to rental fleets jumped 24 percent in August. "That's just a temporary blip, and we'll continue to reduce daily rental," Ballew said.
>"Insulting to everyone else"
2014 Malibu 2LT, 2015 Cruze 2LT,
What do you read from Toyota's numbers with their decrease? Here they've had a "new" Camry style, and a new Tundra truck... but the numbers are down despite their incentives.
2014 Malibu 2LT, 2015 Cruze 2LT,
The Tundra has been steadily climbing and is neck and neck with the Sierra saleswise. One off month is not cause for alarm.
The Camry is on pace to remain the #1 selling car. The new Accord and Mazda 6 may slow that down though. Also, no cause for alarm.
I read the entire market sucks!!! Car sales for pretty much everyone will be down this year. Remember when GM is down 10% and Toyota is up 10% that means there is still a large overall loss in vehicle sale volumes.
Gas prices are hurting the trucks. House building is in the tanks which is hitting the truck sales. Many cannot make their house payments. More sales are going to foreign made products which is putting many out of work and putting a lot of others on edge.
2003: 472,427
2004: 406,623
2005: 355,180
2006: 368,776
2007: 388,168
The average is just under 400,000.
"If someone had told me a few months ago I'd be driving a Buick, my reaction would have been 'no way, no how,' " says Mr. MacDonald, 46 years old. The Enclave, he said, offers the roominess to haul around his three young children and the styling and interior comforts he was accustomed to with the Mercedes. Because the Mercedes ML sells for about $30,000 more than the Enclave, his monthly payment on the Buick was almost $300 lower.
But it is an uphill battle. About two-thirds of the vehicles GM sells through its dealerships go to customers who trade in GM vehicles, according to data from the Power Information Network, a division of J.D. Power & Associates. Only a fraction – less than 3 percent – go to people trading in vehicles made by Toyota Motor Corp. or Honda Motor Co.
The three new crossovers do much better. Half of all Acadias and Outlooks go to customers who trade in GM vehicles; about 20 percent go to people trading Asian-brand vehicles. For the Enclave, the numbers are slightly lower but still better: 44 percent of all trade-ins are non-GM brands; 14 percent of the trade-ins are Asian vehicles.
Did I misunderstand the data? It's saying the 2/3 of the vehicles traded for GMs are GMs. That doesn't mean there is 1/3 being traded with other brands. That means 1/3 of the cars traded into GM dealers are from other brands. Then for the news group more of the other brands are being traded into the GM dealers than for overall GM dealerships.
2014 Malibu 2LT, 2015 Cruze 2LT,
You just end up competing with yourself.
There is NO reason why you couldn't have a Chevy Denali if you wanted one.
Since I would kill Pontiac, losing GMC isn't a problem.
Buick would get a luxury crossover to compete w/ the Lexus RX330. Actually,they already have one.
SAAB is dead, Hummer is a dead end. Caddy should be able to make it on their own.
On the other hand, Vauxhall, (UK badge for Opel - why does it still exist ?), is selling some very smart cars now after years in the doldrums. Also some fairly hot stuff; Astra VXR @ 240bhp and the 6.0 Ltr Monaro with 398 bhp, (just been refreshed I think). The Monaro is actually an Australian Holden re-badged for here.
Going in the right direction Toyota and Honda continue to get stronger.
So, my thinking was that only 2/3 of the old customers are buying a GM vehicle (actually less than 2/3) while 1/3 are new customers, but they do not make up for the lost old GM customers. This may not be a logical conclusion though.
CNNMoney.com recently compiled a list of 10 new and redesigned cars that “look so enticing you should consider holding off other purchases until you’ve had a chance to check them out.” Three GM vehicles are featured, including:
2008 Chevy Malibu, available this fall
2008 Cadillac CTS, arriving in dealerships now
2008 Buick Enclave, in showrooms now
To read the story and check out these vehicles yourself, click here.
-Rocky
I still wonder though, would pairing up Chevy and Cadillac dealers increase sales for both??? W/ the exception of the Vette, Chevy would have anything you need under $30K, Caddy over.
They are essentially re-bodied Opels.
Or rebodied Chevy's if you look at the 9-7.
It would cost a ton to get SAAB competitive in the market.
both US and Europe.
Not a good idea.
If you want Caddy to be a real Luxury brand,then Caddy has to have a stand alone store and sales staff.
You don't see Toyota's and Lexus sold from the same store do you?
I think there is enough business for a stand alone Chevy store,and a stand alone Caddy store.
-Rocky
Especially when Opel is supplying Saturns already.
At least Oldsmobile got a decent funeral. Saturn got nothing.
A lot of people don’t realize General Motors killed a second division, Saturn, recently. That’s because there was never an obit. Why? For some reason, G.M. wants people to think that Saturn is still alive. But G.M. has not only killed it, it has dismembered the body and dumped pieces at undisclosed locations, and replaced it with an impostor.
Saturn, the automobile manufacturer, R.I.P.
First why??? Chevrolet has plenty of product and overfills the showroom. No need to add more models for the salespeople to learn. 2nd why would anyone mix a premium product with a dreg low level product(unless you are in an area that has few buyers)? As far as I know there are no Bloomingtons with Targets in the store. There are no Lexus with Toyotas(unless again the market is small enough).
No basic Marketing would tell you not to do it.
I really feel that GM has done the best they can w/o really taking some huge risk. Dropping brands is very expensive it you do not let them die a slow death.
they have the low end store Chevy
The mid end store GMC/Buick/Pontiac
and the high end Cadillac/Saab/Hummer
and the one that always confounds me Saturn, but it does seem to be doing its job and if they open more stores they could really get some volume.
BUT if Saab sent away here in the states not a big deal. Hummer probably has a few more years and if they do what they say they will it should do great (hybrid/high MPG).
Also they need to separate/move Caddilac higher to leave more room for the mid models.
Jim Press, Toyota Motor Corp.'s top executive in the United States, today was named a vice chairman and president of Chrysler LLC. In his new job, Press has the same title as Tom LaSorda. Chrysler said LaSorda will be responsible for manufacturing and suppliers, while Press will be responsible for sales and marketing. Both will report to Chrysler CEO Bob Nardelli. Press worked for Toyota for 37 years. Toyota today said it named Shigeru Hayakawa to replace Press as president of Toyota North America.
Does the CTS stand a chance against the 5 in the lux sports segment? All long term reviews coming out have only good things to say and lots of surprize. In fact the only complaint is that they bundled options. Does BMW bundle options or are the ala carte? I know Toyota/Honda/Lexus/Acura do it.
Once upon a time, they only sold Cadillacs, but added other divisions over the years. There used to be another dealer about 10 mins away that sold Pontiac/GMC and Dodge. That dealer jettisoned Pontiac/GMC, and I think picked up either Jeep, Chrysler, or both. Then I guess they just got Hummer when that brand first came out...makes sense to pair something expensive like that with Cadillac. And once Buick volume dropped to the point that their stand-alone dealers were no longer viable, I guess they just picked up Buick as well.
Yup, that's them, on Greenbelt Road just off the Beltway! I remember back in the day they used to put their logo in cursive on the trunks of Caddys, trying to match the Cadillac font. It would say...
A Capitol
Cadillac
Their font didn't quite match the Cadillac font though, and I think they used a cheaper plastic, so it would look pretty bad after a few years.
http://wheels.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/09/05/saturn-a-different-kind-of-car-compan- y-indeed/
The CTS may line up against the 5er, E-class, M, and GS in size, but Cadillac is too low-rent to play in that league. The V6-only engine choices disqualify it, since the others all have regular V8 options. The existence of the STS also holds the CTS down in fact and perception.
So other than a "low-rent" price tag will the mags do a comparison to the 5 class or will they wait for the Cadillac 3 series vehicle to be built before they do the comparison? And I missed one other issue, the cupholder location.
Cannot wait for the first comparo. Should be exciting whichever way it works out.
Although the last CTS manual I drove was like rowing a rod through a box of rocks, not having a manual on your high performance model is a dumb move.
Heck, when I moved down here 27 years ago the Dodge dealer still had gas pumps in front of it. They not only sold Dodge but also were a regular service station.