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I feel bad for the workers of Ford and Chrysler but these companies bought this on themselves. Typical for so many big businesses is they run their company based on the highest sales projections instead of the slim years. It's like building a church for the number of parishioners who will attend on Christmas and Easter while the other 50 Sundays of the year the sermons are half full. And then you wonder why your heating, cooling and electrical bills are so high.
If GM had completed the development of the electric car back in the late 90s, we would be looking at a much healthier, stronger company. Toyota would have a chance at surpassing GM. Instead they killed its development and went for the short term profits of pickups and SUVs. You have to live with your decisions. Unfortunately there is a lot of collateral damage.
All sad stories based on human nature gone wrong.
Regards,
OW
Now Countrywide, that's different. If gas was $1.75 and the housing market was booming, none of these companies would be in trouble. Nobody can go to jail for the market turning.
Have they made mistakes, yeah. But if you look at all the non financial news pertaining to at least Ford and GM, it's all positive, and the products seem to be exciting and worth waiting for. The big question seems to be if they can survive financially during an automotive depression. Nobody, not even Toyota is safe from that, although it's certain that they have the cash reserves to ride out the storm.
GM Reportedly Mulling Beat, Montana, Other Small Gas Sippers for U.S.
If I were the CEO who initiated the Malibu, Impala and the other new ideas, I would have been evaporated in any other company for the financial mess alone as well as all of my board and Executive staff.
Very academic when you hold short term quarter to quarter views over decades. This does catch up at the end of the day and bites you. The good thing is there will be an end the bad thing is that severe sucking sound of all of the people affected in the related companies.
The bigger they are...
Regards,
OW
2014 Mini Cooper (stick shift of course), 2016 Camry hybrid, 2009 Outback Sport 5-spd (keeping the stick alive)
Wait!!! Aveo is rated at 24/34. I agree, for a car that size, it sucks. But, consider this:
The Fit is 28/34
The Versa is 26/31
The Yaris is 29/36
So the Aveo is not far off in fuel economy.
Malibu is 22/30
Camry and Accord, 21/31
Altima 23/31
Again, just as good as the competition.
Oh, and among the subcompacts that are tops in their class for fuel economy, we find 29/35 for Yaris and 27/34 for Fit (automatics), both of which will save their owners 15-25% in gas expense vs the Aveo in town, the place where these cars are most often bought for use.
And in case you think I am singling out the Aveo for criticism, I think that the fuel economy of ALL the current subcompacts pretty much sucks. The Beat could turn that criticism on its ear, as could the Aygo and iQ if Toyota gets its act together and brings them over.
2014 Mini Cooper (stick shift of course), 2016 Camry hybrid, 2009 Outback Sport 5-spd (keeping the stick alive)
I'd rather have the extra room, safety and way better looks than these micro-mites offer, uh-huummm, yes I would.
2021 Kia Soul LX 6-speed stick
http://siriusbuzz.com/june-2008-auto-sales-and-sdars-relationships.php
GM reported selling about 262,000 vehicles in June, about 69,000 more than Toyota. Car sales were down 21 percent at GM and 9 percent at Toyota. Truck sales were down 16 percent at GM and nearly 39 percent at Toyota.
The overall market fell 18.3 percent, according to Autodata Corp. It was the worst June for the industry in 17 years, said Jesse Toprak, chief industry analyst for auto information site Edmunds.com, who predicted more misery ahead.
Only Honda Motor Co., whose lineup is tilted toward smaller and more fuel-efficient cars, reported a sales increase for June -- slightly over 1 percent. Honda car sales were up nearly 20 percent, truck sales down 24 percent.
Interesting that Toyota is really getting slammed by truck sales while GM truck sales are actually beating the market(-18.3 vs. -16). So folks are still buying GM trucks at a larger percentage of overall sales than last year. Kinda against the trend. Most likely due to the last days of June with the 0% interest incentive. Many analysts again proved that they have a hard time reading the tea leaves. Most thought Toyota would pass GM in June.
I think they HAVE been permanently convinced, don't you?
2014 Mini Cooper (stick shift of course), 2016 Camry hybrid, 2009 Outback Sport 5-spd (keeping the stick alive)
Who knows. We have gone thru gas crisis's about 4 times and every time we come out the other side with cheap gas. Every time the experts say that oil is running out and we must do something different. So, we can discuss again in 4 years and see where we are. What is amazing this time is that we have some in government saying we cannot do anything about it and to just suck it up.
Hopefully GM will make sure this time they keep the bases loaded with great product and have something available no matter what the customer wants. Toyota tried to get all the rest of the bases with trucks and they got bit bad.
Guess GM should start exporting to China:
Auto sales in China have been largely unaffected by high global oil prices because government controls have kept retail gasoline and diesel prices at levels that are among the world's lowest. Automakers say sales of SUVs and luxury sedans are growing at annual rates of up to 100 percent.
and Toyota were the only automakers to hike incentives in June this year
compared with last year, according to estimates by Edmunds.com.
"Toyota incentives reached a record high," said Jesse Toprak, executive
director of Industry Analysis for Edmunds.com, parent of AutoObserver.
"General Motors' last minute 72-hour sales campaign , which is giving
buyers no-interest financing for 72 months on most models, helped
increase its incentive spending for the month, and Toyota needed some
additional dollars to move its large SUVs and trucks from dealer lots."
In total, the average automotive manufacturer incentive in the U.S. was
$2,356 per vehicle sold in June, down $22, or 0.9 percent, from June
2007, but up $32, or 1.4 percent, from May.
Large SUVs had the highest average incentives, $5,097 per vehicle sold,
followed by large trucks at $4,329. Sport cars had the lowest average
incentives per vehicle sold, $1,128, followed by compact cars at $1,168.
I am amazed that incentives are only $2356 in this market. BUT looks like incentives are on the vehicles that need them. Not a shotgun method like in the past.
I think they all realize they are not getting their bang for the buck with incentives the way they used to. The combination of the recession and the enormous gas prices is serving to suppress car sales more than any incentives are going to fix.
2014 Mini Cooper (stick shift of course), 2016 Camry hybrid, 2009 Outback Sport 5-spd (keeping the stick alive)
This is why companies like GM are in the predicament that they are in. It is also why we as a nation have done little to break our addiction to oil.
There's little forward thinking in this popular belief that gas prices will drop back. It says alot with regards to big buisness playing a major role in shapping puplic policy.
Even if prices do fall back, there is the bigger issue of global warming due to green house gasses imo.
DETROIT - July 9, 2008 - Chevrolet announced today that its all-new entry in the compact segment will be called Cruze. The new Chevrolet will make its global debut at the Paris Motor Show in early October.
Cruze was developed by a global design and engineering team and will be built in multiple locations around the world. The Cruze approaches an overall length of 4.6 meters and offers ample interior space and cargo capacity for five passengers, giving it an advantage over competition in the compact segment.
The Cruze features Chevrolet’s new global design language that will continue to be a signature element for future vehicles carrying the gold bowtie. Combined with high safety standards and excellent build quality, Chevrolet will again deliver on its promise of offering a very attractive, high value package.
The new Chevrolet Cruze will be available in European markets in spring 2009, followed by other global regions. For Russia, Chevrolet's largest market in Europe, the new Cruze will also be built at GM's new St. Petersburg facility, starting in summer 2009.
I hope this is NOT the replacement for the Cobalt, because if so it means GM is dumping yet ANOTHER new model name that the public was just getting to know. And IMO, the Cobalt doesn't have any negative associations the way Cavalier did. In fact, it is known as the compact car that finally caught GM up to the competition.
They should keep the Cobalt name.
2014 Mini Cooper (stick shift of course), 2016 Camry hybrid, 2009 Outback Sport 5-spd (keeping the stick alive)
They may not want to call it a Cobalt in Russia due to Chernobyl and Cobalt-60 exposure.
Yes, looks like GM isn't learning anything, but right now they are probably throwing darts at a spinning board on how to cut costs. The powertrain looks promising.
Why it has taken the cataclysmic event of a radical adjustment in what this country pays for a gallon of gas to trigger GM management’s decision to finally tackle its Achilles Heel that has crippled the company in this new global automotive world is beyond me, given that GM’s multiple divisional structure - a legacy from when it once controlled 48 percent of the U.S. market way back in the 60s - had become woefully obsolete easily fifteen years ago.
GM is on the brink of disaster today because its executive leadership – along with its embarrassing rubber-stamp board of directors – steadfastly refused to acknowledge the fact that the company could not function properly as a viable corporate enterprise while still configured to produce and sell double the market share that it actually has in the U.S.
And while GM managers sat back and watched that market share inexorably slip away over the last fifteen years as Asian and European competitors took huge chunks of its business away, they continuously postponed taking the steps necessary – when they weren't avoiding them altogether - to reconfigure the company for the future. And now, they're out of time.
What happened? How could a company with the kind of tremendously deep talent and brain power at its disposal that GM has be caught so out of position and be so out of touch with what’s going on to the point that it has now been left mumbling “woulda-coulda-shoulda” to itself while facing the consequences of their inactions and lack of foresight?
After years of writing about this industry and analyzing GM, I can safely say the answer comes down to a very simple realization, and that is that no one at GM – from CEO Rick Wagoner on down – ever actually believed that what was happening in the U.S. market was really going to continue, that somehow, some way GM would rise up again and return to its rightful place as the biggest car company in the world. In other words, a level of hubris is alive and well within General Motors that is absolutely breathtaking to contemplate.
I know because I have observed it up close. I have seen it in the way the company still treats its suppliers, for starters. But that’s not where the real trouble was and still is at GM. It’s the vast middle management layer - that gray morass of mediocrity that I have referred to with such contempt over the years - that has absolutely destroyed GM from within.
I have watched in horror as these bureaucratic middle managers functioned as if the world revolved around their little fiefdoms inside the company, while listening in stunned disbelief to their shockingly narrow-minded perspectives on the automotive world and their place in it. Their willful naiveté took on a life of its own, and their cancerous go-along-to-get-along mentality literally paralyzed the company at every turn, no matter how attuned or enlightened the leadership regime in place was at any given time.
But GM’s vast gray middle has always been a problem, even in its heyday, which means that ultimately the buck has to stop at the top - with the series of leaders over the years who allowed GM to wallow in its mediocrity and who ultimately are responsible for GM’s predicament today.
Yes, you can blame Washington for allowing the import manufacturers to run rampant in the U.S. market with none of the penalties, duties or restrictions that their governments slapped on our domestic manufacturers when they tried to compete in their home markets, but that doesn't account for the 15-year period (the late 70s to the mid 90s) when Detroit built piss-poor vehicles that turned a sizable chunk of American consumers away from buying domestic-built cars and trucks, and for good too.
And you can blame the cost-prohibitive contracts that the Detroit manufacturers entered into with their unions, based on the impossible notion that the good times would go on forever and that there would always be money to cover the bills at the end.
And you can say that the global economy brutally altered GM’s (and Detroit’s) fortunes at an accelerated rate that no one could have predicted, yet those same manufacturers were savvy enough in some cases to take advantage of those new markets, while blowing their position in this market to smithereens, which defies explanation.
And you can argue that no chief executive of a car company - foreign or domestic – had any idea that the price of gasoline would go through the roof in a three-month period, destroying much of their business overnight, yet these same manufacturers all did business in Europe where gas has been traditionally two and even three times as expensive as in the U.S., so none of that thinking ever crept into their future planning sessions here? I find it hard to believe, and frankly inexcusable at this point.
But there were definitive signs warning us of what was headed our way long before this spring. The aftermath of Hurricane Katrina and the ensuing gas price spike – along with the emerging economies around the world - should have given the powers that be at these car companies at least a clue that America’s gasoline “holiday” was about to be permanently brought to a close.
And the full-size SUV market was showing signs of deterioration long before $5.00 gas prices permanently disabled it. American consumers – a faddish lot, by every measure – had started to lose interest in the hulking trucks three years ago (I referred to it as the growing SUV “bubble” at that time).
But none of that hand wringing really matters now because today General Motors, once this country’s shining beacon of industrial might and a symbol of success around the world, is less than a year away from outright disaster and the distinct possibility that it will go bankrupt, or will have to consider an alliance with another manufacturer to survive. (I can’t even imagine where GM would be right now if it wasn’t for its Bob Lutz-led product offensive - Chevrolet Malibu, Buick Enclave, Cadillac CTS, etc. - which has kept the company afloat in these desperate times.)
With the dire straits that GM finds itself in today CEO Rick Wagoner is now being forced to act on a course of action that he has openly scoffed at up until now, which is to consider a wholesale reappraisal of divisional operations in favor of a company-wide retrenching around the two GM divisions that still matter – Chevrolet and Cadillac.
Once upon a time when GM controlled half the market, it needed all of its divisions to adequately c
Regards,
OW
I am against all the name changing BUT in this case the new Cruz is not just an American car as I believe the Cobalt is.
It will be built and sold throughout the world with one name. I just wonder how much it took to get all the different countries/regions to agree on one name. Perhaps a Cobalt in India or China would mean something improper, perhaps in Russia, Cobalt reminds the buyers of a nuclear melt down?
Do not know, but GM has decided to go worldwide with it's brands and names so perhaps that is why the Cobalt name is being dropped.
Of course they could, but GM is working toward a world wide company with world wide products. Chevrolet is being sold pretty much everywhere and we will see more commonization of models and names.
I think Cruze sounds a lot more european and fun and modern than Cobalt. I suppose other countries may have also.
My Malibu came with XM as standard equipment with a 3 month subscription. I listened for a few hours out of curiosity and didn't renew. I prefer an MP3 for music and broadcast for local news, weather, and traffic.
GM should stick with the Cobalt name for the U.S. It has positive associations for buyers and a good history (no major recalls, well-designed, competitive in its class, etc).
2014 Mini Cooper (stick shift of course), 2016 Camry hybrid, 2009 Outback Sport 5-spd (keeping the stick alive)
Regards,
OW
I remember back in the 60s when Canadian Pontiacs had the model names Laurentian, Strato Chief, Parisienne in place of our Catalina, Star Chief, and Bonneville.
GM is dropping the Cobalt name because once again, they introduced a "new" small car that never could compete. Chevette>Cavalier>Cobalt>Cruz. Perhaps they should have these names start with a different letter.
Companies don't drop names for products that are successful.
GM always has! Camaro,Firebird, Malibu, etc, etc.
Oh, they are bringing some back. Malibu is successful. Camaro is a no-brainer.
Companies drop timeless brand names because they are clueless to the market. Period.
Regards,
OW
the Camero name is being brought back based on the glory days the car had in the 60's imo - the Camero of the 80's was getting pretty lame.
Even better would be if GM could engineer a car light enough to use a naturally aspirated 1.4L engine. THAT thing would probably pull 50 mpg in everyday real-world use, no expensive hybrid trickery needed...
And I throw that challenge out to all automakers, not just GM. I think the 2-mode GM hybrids will get good mileage, but GM is mostly going to be installing that powertrain in medium-size and larger cars, as well as some crossovers. A small car using a small gas engine will best the future hybrid models in mileage.
2014 Mini Cooper (stick shift of course), 2016 Camry hybrid, 2009 Outback Sport 5-spd (keeping the stick alive)
That would be the Aveo, if it had a direct-injection 1.4L. Supposedly the next-gen Aveo/Corsa is getting that, but a turbo 1L would probably get better mileage.
Regards,
OW
Don't forget, the Mustang almost met the Grim Reaper in favor of the feminine-looking Probe! Yeeechhhh!
As for a second Zeta for Pontiac, Hopson confirmed the brand has been kicking around "heritage" names, including Firebird and GTO, for a future muscle car. Although either "can be done" relatively easily, we don't expect Pontiac to do both. Furthermore, although a Firebird would seemingly be less expensive to produce if it shared—as it always did—its body stampings and many interior components with the Camaro, we suspect Pontiac is leaning toward the GTO.
Thank (or blame) Bob Lutz, GM's deified product guru, for that. He has asserted that the days of product sharing and badge engineering are more or less over and has stated emphatically that no carbon copy of the Camaro will make it into any other GM-brand showroom. The challenge, Hopson said, becomes making a new muscle car unique enough to appease Lutz and the market at large without being too unique for those Bud-guzzlin', mullet-draped traditionalists who see it as their mission in life to ensure any future screaming chicken returns as "Pontiac's Camaro."
Regards,
OW
I doubt many of those characters bought the vehicles new but acquired them long after they've been ragged out by their first and second owners. I remember back in the late 1970s and early 1980s seeing new Firebirds and Trans Ams being more likely purchased by flashy young guys with a bit of money than some rednecks - guys more like Disco Stu than Cletus the Slack-Jawed Yokel.
Regards,
OW
Somehow, I see that entailing carbon fiber. Not feasable on a small car
What If...
2014 Mini Cooper (stick shift of course), 2016 Camry hybrid, 2009 Outback Sport 5-spd (keeping the stick alive)
Needs to be a foreign affair like BUD.
This time, things need to change during a very likely bankruptcy at 2 or 3 of the decimated past giants.
Otherwise, it will be BS as usual.
Regards,
OW