February 2009 Sales: General Motors

[enzl]

With GM's limited supply of sedans...how can they expect to survive? No Pontiac or maybe one halo vehicle? Only one or two Buick sedans..no coupes. And two Cadillac sedans. Makes no sense. And then you go after a bunch of little Chevys such as Spark, Volt, and Aveo.

The inability to make a Buick sedan to sell over 100 K is a real concern. Even in 2005, Lesabre sold over 150K! Now the Lucerne is going nowhere and will die in 10.

If you are young person looking for a new car, what would draw you to any showroom? The RIGHT car. A limited lineup will turn you away. GM has lost its swagger. And it is paying dearly for it.

GM needs to remember the sedan. The sedan will always be around. The Traverse, HHR or Equinox won't replace the sedan!

Quite simply, they can't afford all divisions---selling stale product disallows the possibility of selling 150k Buick anythings! Imagine an ES350 at LaCrosse pricing---that should have been a new LeSabre or Regal--but as posters above more ably put it: 4-5 mediocrities were the result, rather than 1 strong, high volume product.

A trimmer GM with strong product is the only recipe for success at this point. The rest will be accounting tricks and gov't largess---nothing more or less. For me, 30 excellent products trumps 60 uneven ones---GM has proven in fits and starts that a great vehicle (CTS, Lambdas, G8, Vette, GMT900) is in their realm, but the white noise from reconstituted W's and a set of Delta disasters (Ion, Cobalt, Astra = Cobalt@a greater loss) just prove that there's not enough $ to do it right...which is simply more important than just producing whatevers.

[regfootball]

After being owner of a Aura XR, and having driven a 3.6L G8, I can clearly say the G8 is a nicer car. Don't get me wrong, we really like the aura but the suspension and overall interior comfort of the G8 is a whole lot better. The Aura's got more umph though.

2010 G8 v6 gets direct injection and i believe also 6 speed. it will be all you need then.

[vonVeezelsnider]

Here in Canada G8 V6s are going for 23900, Uplanders and Montana SV6s for 15995, Cobalts and Aveos for 14995.... It's going to get worse too.

[turbo200]

on the one hand those in favor of keeping the brands alive have historical references on thier side. when GM has successfully released product the consumer considered acceptable, GM's market share was huge and as recently as the '90's all of the divisions we're talking about sold much higher volumes and had a much higher percentage of the retail market. inclusively, it would be false to say GM was not the automatic choice of most consumers and not decidedly mainstream. when consumers and the media began to perceive GM as largely irrelevant and uncompetitive towards where the rest of the market and carmakers were going with thier product [coincidentally, towards the late '90's]; when people began to feel that GM wasn't updating thier line sufficiently relative to the updates the competition was recieving, then consumer share began to drastically erode....to where the situation was going from 30% share of the market in 1999 [and more than 35% in the early 90's] to where we are today and GM barely holding on to 21% of the overall market.

[turbo200]

one could easily surmise from these facts that the real argument is consumers and media turned away from GM product as they began to find it uncompetitive any longer. the result is it is not the brands themselves that are damaged or that GM needs to rid itself of. but the last vestiges of uncompetitive product.

further evidence is every new product introduction GM makes where they are either entering a segment that is unpopularized by the competition [not too many competitors] like the large crossover segment, and every new intro that is a critical success, in both of these scenarios, GM has always had dramatic success. witness enclave, CTS, malibu, solstice/sky,...

if we're just going to according to statistics and volume, GM is not so much a loser, but a victim of its own slow-moving innertia and the fight it must undertake to keep itself alive while steadily replacing the entire product line. statistics and volume figures prove GM is still acceptable en masse, in massive ways by consumers.....it just hasn't been able to quickly release all the reasonable product we fans have been egging them on for years to produce.

[turbo200]

on a side note, I always knew the G8 would catch on. in many ways the consumer is very simple. they decide they wouldn't like to spend $30k of their hard earned money [or 20k, or 15k, and so on whatever the figure] until they see a very good reason to. one very good reason is a shape and design that is enduring and fresh and attractive....G8 has that quintessential combination. in fact from a design standpoint, i find the front end to be the weakest point and that's saying a lot because the front end has real attractive qualities [well the wheels are also a weak point]. G8 is going to continue to catch on as people become aquainted with the body lines. and who knows this may be the car car that saves Pontiac from extinction, if we get some actual damned reasonable executives up there [who could see what a lot of other people are seeing, that turning opels into buicks in america is a big mistake and those cars would be better served under the more mainstream and well-liked yet premium-positioned Pontiac]. G8 is a great car underneath and that is what will clinch the deal, but the first emotive operation we make as humans is being drawn to the car, and G8 does so in a way G6 could never dream of doing, since that shape was already derivative and uninvigorating [and the large and sometimes goofy face]. the G8 will continue to build on its success as more and more people discover it. of course, GM's marketing is doing no favors whatsoever. if ever there was a need for a car with 'Bullit' style customization packages, the G8 is that. if ever there was a dumb marketing move it was saying the G8 competes with BMW and calling it a day..... you've got to make it stand out on its own and then consumers will come and see how great the car drives.