Industry News: General Motors and Ram Fight For Their Share In The Truck Market

[William Maley]

With Ford changing over to the next-generation F-150, General Motors and Chrysler see a rare opportunity to grab a bigger slice of the truck marketplace.

"Without question you'll see GM and Ram will continue to play the incentive game to continue to bite into Ford's share," said Bill Rinna, LMC Automotive senior manager of North American forecasts to The Detroit News.

Ford has idled its Dearborn Truck plant for several weeks to to retool for the 2015 F-150, a new model that will utilize aluminum in its construction. That leaves the Kansas City plant to keep producing the current F-150, till it undergoes a retooling early next year. With Ford unable to produce as many F-150s and a number of current buyers waiting for a new model, Ford won't be able to sell as many F-Series trucks. The company said that it expects to lose more than 90,000 sales of F-150 pickups during the changeover.

Because of this, Chrysler and GM are ratcheting up their incentives to take away some of those sales going to Ford. Ram Trucks are offering either 0 percent for 72 months or $2,000 off on certain 2014 models. Chevrolet has expanded their Truck Month sales campaign which includes getting up to $9,500 off a 2014 Chevrolet Silverado All-Star LT Double Cab when someone trades in a 99 model year or newer vehicle. GMC is offering $5,000 off on certain Sierra regular cabs, and 0 percent financing and $1,500 on certain Sierra models.

"The analysts are saying we're going to go after their share. Heck yes, we're going to go after their share," said Ram Trucks CEO and president Bob Hegbloom.

Through September, Ram currently holds 21.3 percent of truck market; up 2.9 percent. Chevrolet saw its share climb 0.1 percent to 25.4 percent, while GMC saw its share climb 0.3 percent to 9 percent. Ford saw its share drop 2.2 percent to 37 percent.

Source: The Detroit News

William Maley is a staff writer for Cheers & Gears. He can be reached at [email protected] or you can follow him on twitter at @realmudmonster.

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[Z-06]

There was the similar article last year when GM brought the new trucks in market. This is part of the game. What would Bobby boy say when Ram goes into that phase?

 

To me, this game would be more damaging to Ford than GM, given the revolutionary vs. evolutionary nature of the trucks introduced. Ford has a lot of investment riding on the F150 than GM did on the 1500s.

 

Trick would be how much can aluminum impact F150 in the long run.

[ocnblu]

GMC offering $5k off on "certain" Sierra regular cabs?  I am very interested in learning more!

[daves87rs]

Should make it interesting!

[balthazar]

Wait.

1. Factories shut down for several weeks every time there is a major production/ model year change. 
2. Ford stating they will lose 90,000 sales seems way off. They sold 645,000 in 2012, even 3 week's time out of 645K is 37K units, no where near 90,000.

At that rate, to reach 90K units would take 7.2 weeks. That's basically 2 months, not 'several weeks'.