You may recall that GM recently blamed Saturn's rapidly sinking sales on the brand's "awareness problem." The spin that started there has spiraled over to GM's two-mode hybrids. Automotive News [AN, sub] earnestly reports that "so far, the word isn't getting out… Marketing to build awareness, and move the metal, has to be kicked up." Ah, that MUST be it! 'Cause… GM says so! "There's very little awareness that we even have these products," GM marketing maven Mark LaNeve tells an entirely credulous Jamie Lareau. "We're going to be constrained by battery availability, but we still think that we could work it up to 5 to 10 percent of our full-sized SUV sales." Constrained? As in "we can't get them?" To be fair (hey, it's Monday), AN points out that the mondo-expensive hybrid SUVs are a gigantic flop: they've sold just 1,540 Tahoe and Yukon hybrids compared to their 8k to 12k annual sales target. This may have a little something to do with it: "The top-end, four-wheel-drive Tahoe LT starts at $40,460. The hybrid starts at $50,490. The Yukon starts at $36,245 and the top-end, all-wheel-drive Yukon Denali at $50,380. The hybrid starts at $50,945. All prices include shipping." Ouch.
Find Reviews by Make:
Read all comments
If Mr. LaNeve worked anywhere but GM, you’d have to wonder how long he has to go in his current position as its pretty unusual for a marketing maven to highlight a company’s deficiencies in their area. However, this being GM where the Chairman/CEO is excused (and even rewarded handsomely) from posting profits or sustaining sales and/or market share, I’m sure this is par for the course.
Does anybody else find it funny that a ‘low-profile’ is the ostensible reason for slow sales when these monsters have a huge “HYBRID” sticker plastered on the side?
Gee, you don’t think that completely misunderstanding the demographics of hybrid buyers would have anything to do with it?
Let’s see; hybrid buyers are generally left-leaning, environmentally concerned, somewhat–but not egregiously–affluent, and if they’re statement-seeking, the statement they want to make is a sort of pragmatic, antimaterialist one. From GM’s stable of brands, the closest to this (well, in 2000-2003) would have been Saab and Saturn.
So what does GM do? Make huge, gas-guzzling luxury hybrids that would appeal to exactly the kind of people who wouldn’t buy hybrids in the first place, while giving why-bother versions to the brands that actually _could_ move them. On average, the buyer of a GMT900 SUV wouldn’t even bother with the hybrid version, and the people who would have bought a Saab or Saturn one have already bought Priuses, Camrys and Escapes.
But no, in GM Product Planning’s mind, it has to be because they’re not shouting loudly enough and/or because the public isn’t ready. It couldn’t be a failure to understand the market, because that would mean the Product Planning was wrong, and that never happens.
GM has some good engineers, plant managers and lineworkers, completely handicapped by an inept marketing department, malicious accountants and (if they go C11) criminally irresponsible management.
psarhjinian, Exactly right.
Now, a tourque rich diesel would have fit these monsters much better (from a marketing and demographis standpoint).
Well, isn’t the low profile exactly what GM aimed for? The cars are obviously overpriced, and for a reason. Hybrid technology is expensive, and the cars are made with a loss. And therefore, as GM is losing money on every car sold, they have made the conscious decision not the profile the cars. So, what is this spin really about? GM blames the low sales on their own conscious efforts not to market the cars? Do they actually say that it is their own fault this time? Or does it sound like it was somebody elses fault? Like the profiling and marketing was out of their hands?
Ah, the constant bullshit spin… It’s like a jungle out there this week… Where does it all end? It makes me sad…
I find it rather amusing that GM seems to think all their problems are marketing related – the inability to get the correct message across to customers. If only they could craft the right ad campaign, people would be lining up for these beasts regardless of price, fuel economy and competing products.
Dodge – pay attention!!!
DO NOT put your hybrid in the top of the line Durango and expect anybody to pay 50 grand for it.
Put the hybrid in your base and mid level Durango and you will have a chance to do something at the 30K price point.
Oh well, if that includes shipping, that’s changes everything…where do I sign?
GM…rule #1: make a good product at a good price that people want to buy and amazingly it’ll sell itself. The Pie Ala Mode hybrids do not do either.
crackers,
A lot of their problems are marketing related. The key difference is that Product Planning is part of Marketing, and it’s Product Planning that’s being flubbed more often than not.
GM can engineer a good product. That’s engineering’s responsibility and they generally have done a decent job since about ~2000 or so. Blueskying the product, giving Engineering direction, budget and scope on what to build, the price point to build to, etc is the job of Planning, and it’s those tasks that are being done badly.
All of GM’s woes (well, nearly all those that can’t be foistered on Accounting) come from Planning and/or Marketing:
* Too many brands/models in the same space with no differentiation
* Poorly-targeted vehicles (Aztek, SSR, Terraza, the GMT900 hybrids)
* Americanizing a good design (Saturn L, Malibu) or setting the quality bar too low for economy- and mainstream offerings
* Inability to sell good products
* Good products with no market, or unreasonable amounts of money thrown at a market that doesn’t exist.
GM Marketing comes off sounding like a petulant child sometimes: “No one appreciates our product”, “Customer aren’t aware… “, “Perception gap… “, etc. That’s all well and good, but collectively GM has had five to eight years of good engineering work and very little to show for it. That sounds like a failure of planning and marketing, and a corresponding failure on the part of management to provide direction to marketing.
I can see his point.
The people buying conventional cars and crossovers instead of GM BAS Whybrids that the same or (in some cases) worse mileage are such obvious fools.
Like wise those that go for a large cross over (or “gasp” minivan) to get a family hauler with better mpg than a Yukahoban for less money rather than paying a $10k spiff to GM are doing it simply because they are unaware of the opportunity.
All of these folks clearly are fiscally challenged in comparison with the money management geniuses at Duh General.
Cheerio boyz,
Bunter
“We’re going to be constrained by battery availability…”
I don’t think so.
For all of GM’s talk about how much more absolute numbers of gallons of fuel can be saved by hybridizing monster vehicles rather than smaller ones, it still comes across as “GM is addicted to producing monster vehicles, and this is our rationale for making hybrid versions”
Look at me, I get 20 miles per gallon instead of 16 (gloat).
Hybridizing a three ton vehicle is largely an exercise in oxymoronism.
On the Sales and Production conference call, La Neve was asked what GM would do about dismal hybrid sales.
Aside from mentioning the problem of “awareness” and without committing to raising “awareness,” he didn’t answer the question.
I ran across another article wherein Lutz mentioned that the upcoming Saturn Vue two-mode hybrid would add $8K to $9K to the price of the Vue.
This tech is, in the GM implementation, just too expensive to make any kind of sense at all. GM knows this and they’re just going through the motions, treading water until gas prices sink and trucks become profitable again (more LSD, Mr. Lutz?) or something else arises to save them from their own history.
I’m curious, does LSD in this context stand for “Long, Slow Death?”
How about the fact that it is a vehicle that no one asked for in the first place!
The folks that actually need an SUV for activies other than posing will continue to by the SUV they need, with real towing capacity. A 10grand premium make ZERO sense. Even at $4.00 per gallon $10,000 large does go a very long way.
Those poser dudes that drove Tahoe and Escalades because they thought they were cool have moved on to the next “cool” thing whatever that is!
GM needs to face facts a large part of the whole SUV mustic and appeal was the “in your face, I have more than you and DONT GIVE A DAMN” image.
Looking like you are concerned about how much gas cost while you drive a 6000lb posermobile DOES NOT LOOK COOL!
Honda also struck out with their “Muscle Hybrid” Accord.
I could actually see a GMT900 Hybrid selling as the “contractors special”.
Take the 4.3L V6 combine it with a hybrid system and the ability to provide power to the job site. Offer it as a no frills $18-20k 4X2.
The unfitting industry would love it.
It could also be quite popular with government & fleet buyers who often are under mandate to purchase “green” tech.
Didn’t they purchase a Super Bowl ad seen by over 100 million people in the US?
The regional one-price dealer here has 5 in stock with the cheapest almost $3k below invoice but that’s still $50,500.
Transformers 2, the sequel to last year’s GM product placement lovefest, doesn’t come out for another year. Any other opportunities?
Do you guys realize that the Tahoe/Yukon hybrids are nothing but PR material? The only reason why they were created were so that Rick Wagoner can stand at a podium and say “Hey, we’re green. We build Hybrids, just like Toyota. In fact, we offer MORE hybrid models than Toyota!” Leaving out the fact that all of GM’s hybrids are just hybridized versions of mostly mediocre models, and that they get 1 MPG better than their gas powered counterparts. Toyota has a car that was built from the ground up to be a hybrid (Prius), and that their hybridized vehicles get at least 10 MPG better than their gas counterparts. But then again, if they told the truth, we would just know that these GM hybrids are a bad attempt at greenwashing, and we can’t have that.
I know that GM is run by idiots. But even they know that there is no remote way these can be successful. They are nothing but PR.
Perkins: “Now, a tourque rich diesel would have fit these monsters much better (from a marketing and demographis standpoint).”
That’s Toyota’s plan.
ZoomZoom: “I’m curious, does LSD in this context stand for “Long, Slow Death?””
Why not?
Something tells me diesels were the way to go if GM wanted to market SUVs in the same sentence as efficiency. GM salesman: “So what if the top of the line Yukon only has 280hp? It has over 500lb-ft of torque to pull that boat ya got there!” Customer: “Where do I sign?”
Yes, it was a much better decision to put a true two mode hybrid system in a monster like the Yukahoe. And leave the better designed, and better driving, Malibu with an oversized alternator mild hybrid system.
Hmmm, Chevron owned Cobasys can’t provide enough batteries for GM’s piddly effort? Conspiracy, nah!
And what is with the marketing guy complaining that nobody knows about his products? He has the biggest marketing budget in the entire automotive industry and is admitting he can’t do his job!
“You’re fired!”