“This is not the time for niche vehicles," Maximum Bob told the world yesterday. "We can’t afford to hit singles and bunts. We need triples and home runs.” There's more, all dutifully, faithfully, credulously and supportively reported by The Detroit Free Press' Mark Phelan. Neither Lutz nor Phelan realize putting all their efforts into high-profit trucks and ignoring cars that weren't "high volume" is what got GM where they aren't today. If GM had gone for a few singles and doubles in small cars– or had even landed a few solid bunts– while they were swinging for the fences in SUVs and pickup trucks, they would have a few more runners on base today. But now GM's trailing, it's the bottom of the ninth and they're hurriedly calling in designated hitters from Korea. The problem is that the game goes on. GM can't call "time out" while they try to rewrite their playbook and rebuild their team. And while they're combing their farm teams trying to find someone who can play in the big leagues, the transplants continue bringing home the profits with a succession of solid base hits. And yet the cheerleading continues.
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No mention of foul balls and strike outs?
Where are you getting all these pictures of my wife….?
kinda reminds me of The First National Change Bank.
I have family members living in metro Detroit who work for GM or Ford. I have to hear the complaints that the press in Detroit is anti-domestic.
But they also think the whole country’s economy is as bad as Michigan’s economy.
So I’ve learned a lesson. I don’t read my own myopic local press.
These pics sure make it hard to explain to passers-by that I’m reading an auto blog. Just saying.
I would argue to Lutz that Hideki Matsui seems to do just well hitting singles and doubles and almost always manages to get on base. Kinda ties into the discussion below about Japanese patience, doesn’t it?
Let’s extend the analogy a little: five bunts does not equal a home run; ergo, the Acadia, Traverse, Outlook and Enclave do not equal one Highlander.
Mass market is all well and good, but dilution is still a problem. What’s one great product worth when it’s marketing effort is split between four or more brands?
…and then there’s the fact that, despite Lutz’ statements above, GM recent product annoucements are all niche products (Saab 9-4x, Cadillac SRX/Provoq and Solstice hardtop), while the real mass-market products (Cruze, Beat) are either years away and/or not coming at all.
This leadership team is terribly anemic. No coordination between senior execs (I mean really, how hard would it be for Wagoner to call Lutz and have a quick powwow to avoid contradicting each other in the day’s PR fests) and a poor ability to actually affect the direction of the company.
Great abs
thank you for the cheesecake. it made my morning
Anyone else horrified that GM is forced to rebadge Daewoo’s for their small cars? I don’t even like GM but I feel like giving them a hug and telling them about the rabbits while I put them out of their misery.
Damnitt….I’m at work for crying out loud!
“We can’t afford to hit singles and bunts. We need triples and home runs.”
Or strike outs like the GTO, XLR, Tahoe-hybrid, Saturn Ion, Saturn L, Saturn Astra, etc. etc. etc.
Of all the products introduced in the Lutz years I can’t think of a single home run. A home run is when you round the bases and demonstrate a clear advantage over the opposing team. They are rare in the big leagues.
GM’s best recent effort is the Malibu, which rates maybe a double. Would someone please tell Lutz to just shut up!
GM just announced and have provided photos of the following new products: Chevy Cruze, Saab 9-4x, Cadillac SRX, Buick LaCrosse, and Chevy Equinox. I imagine that the only “high volume” of that bunch with be the Cruze. Looks sharp with those 19 inch wheels.
Ah, the old “Everything is Priority One” School of Management….
@detroit1701,
Lets see how sharp it looks with 15 inch steelies as that is going to be the volume seller. It looks good, but I’m going to reserve judgment until I see on one the street…and the Enterprise car lot.
I guess if you can sell a few cars in every country than that counts as high volume. The Solstice/Sky would be considered niche in the US but it’s also sold in Europe and Korea.
psarjhinian- 5 bunts does= a home run if the lead runner scores. The Lambda CUVs do equal and perhaps surpass the Highlander.
John Horner- don’t include the Saturn ION in that list. Saturn sold over 100K per year. That’s the kind of volume that Lutz is talking about.
Saturn dealers are probably ready to sue because they went from a car that sold regularly to a car (Astra) that isn’t likely to sell 10K all year.
@jjdaddyo
EXACTLY!
When you don’t know what your doing, it all seems important.
It’s just like in racing where if you have never driven at 120mph you feel nervous, like you’re on information overload. Once your comfortable, you find that you rest on the straightaways and can (gasp!) take a moment to stretch.
@davey49
The lambda’s really are 5 bunts – wrong product that gets easily outclassed. Not good when your entire company is riding on the result.
Give me a “G”!
Give me an “M”!
What have we got?
“Global Mess-up!”
Wooooooooooooooo!
Lutz is boring me now. Isn’t there anyone at GM who’s just as senile, to take his place….?
“This is not the time for niche vehicles” comes just a week or two after the decidedly low-volume ZR1 lays rubber down on the Nurburgring. Talk about confused.
More pics like this please! Great stuff! Cars and girls. Timeless…
It eases the pain of watching the carcass getting flogged once again.
jjdaddyo: “Ah, the old “Everything is Priority One” School of Management….”
Yes, that nonsensical old rhetoric that makes eyeballs glaze over among those in the trenches.
What I’d like to see is some humility about the shortcomings in existing products, followed by attention to things that would make them more competitive. I’m not talking about new sheet metal.. GM V6’s get good gas mileage–but aren’t as smooth and quiet as Toyondas. Why not? And can’t the Cobalt’s 4 be less agricultural? Interiors could be improved, and can’t they come in some color besides beige or gray? Reduce the Impala’s road noise from mirrors, suspension, etc. Criminy, Max Bob, take a look at what you’ve got on the bench. You’re old enough to remember the excitement surrounding the annual model change (which was usually mostly cosmetic)!
The point that Bob Lutz is making is that we will not spend money on vehicles like the Solstice or the late SSR that sell in low volumes. As far as the current portfolio requiring apologies, I would argue that the Enclave/Acadia are superior to the Highlander – better looking, more space, better packaging, equal mpg. Hell, the Acadia gets better mpg than the V6 Kia Sportage. No apologies needed. Ditto the Malibu (and Aura). Have yet to find a reviewer give the nod to a Camry over the Malibu. My sister just drove from St. Louis to Indy with her 4-cyl Aura and she got 36.3 mpg driving at or just below the speed limit with one passenger and 4 days luggage. These cars are more than doubles.
The point isn’t that Lambdas aren’t very good, it’s that they don’t get nearly the marketing or product support of the Highlander, Pilot, CX-9 or Flex because GM has to split the effort.
Imagine how much better the car would be if the money could be put into the core product instead of four or five offshoots. Heck, imagine how good the marketing would be if they only had to do it for one product.
To say nothing of the cost of competing against yourself: every time a buyer makes a decision between two functionally equivalent GM products, it’s wasted dollars for GM.
gm-uawtool:
And I just drove a Malibu with the 4 cylinder + 4spd atx from SW Michigan to SE Michigan and back (~400 mi round trip) on the highway averaging a measly 26mpg keeping pace with traffic with cruise control on. At the end of that trip, I’m still happy I own a V6 Mazda6 and not a Malibu. Same gas mileage and it doesn’t give up in defeat when you’re trying to enjoy some lateral G’s. Oh, and the ergonomics in the Mazda still have the Malibu beat, and it was built 5.5yrs ago.
But for the beige Camcord owner… It’s probably just fine.
gm-uawtool, “…Malibu….Aura… These cars are more than doubles.”
To paraphrase Cubby Broccoli the James Bond producer to George Lazenby (James Bond #2), You saying so doesn’t make you a star, my saying so doesn’t make you a star it’s the audience that determines you’re a star.
The Malibu and the Aura in my opinion are excellent cars but only the Malibu has caught on due to lack of marketing (cash) for Saturn. Better for GM to have had only one or two Lambda crossover models than four. GM needs volume to make it a double or a triple. A good car is not enough to qualify as a double or a triple, if you don’t have enough money to market all the models.
Look at the volume if the Aura is a more than a double then the Camry for all its faults is a grand slam. The customers determine if it is a success or not.
Sales of the 3 Lambdas together have sold 73086 in the first six months of 2008. Sales of the Highlander is 61089. I wonder about claims that badge engineering doesn’t result in extra sales.
Somehow I do not believe that if GM only made the Acadia that they would have sold 73K units so far.
netrun- the Lambdas aren’t outclassed by anything
Davey: you are right, GM probably wouldn’t have sold 73 Acadias, but they probably would have sold 80-90k if Chevy was the only brand.
As for the Solstice, this IS the type of car GM should be producing. The Solstice is sold world wide for Pontiac, Saturn, Opel and Daewoo – all produced in the US at 1 plant.
The Saturn Vue is sold all over the world as an Opel, Chevy and Daewoo. Next up for the platform will be the replacement for the Equinox and then the Caddy and GMC versions(could do without this last one). Yes imagine the savings GM would realize if they dropped Saturn and GMC and only had to design a Chevy/Opel/Daewoo and a Caddy version.
The Cruze will be sold the world over as the same car (why another new name in the US).
GM has the right idea, but it seems that they really need bankruptcy to kill a couple brands to make this world car vision work so they can stop building 4 bodies with 4 interiors with 4 ad campaigns and 4 brochures for the same damn vehicle.
“These cars are more than doubles.”
I gave the Malibu a double in part because the launch was botched. A big advertising campaign when there were very few vehicles available is a sign of a dysfunctional company culture. Note that when the F150 fell off the top of the sales charts …. Malibu was nowhere to be found in the new top five.
GM has a couple of competitive models on the market now, which is absurd for the world’s former largest car company. For every decent offering there is an evil twin of mediocrity sitting in the background.
Even when GM products are superficially equal on paper (one struggles to think of even one example where a GM product is superior on paper, hence part of GM’s problem), millions like me still won’t consider one.
I’m not inclined to put my money on a vehicle that I just know is going to disappoint me over the long term when living with it I’ll keep discovering more areas where the beancounters stuck it to me. For example my first (and LAST) GM car, a 2003 SAAB 9-3 (a/k/a Aura a/k/a Malibu a/k/a G-6) in which I discovered, while rooting around in the trunk one day, that the full sized rear speaker housings (when viewed from inside the car) only contained dinky little clock-radio sized speakers (as viewed from below).
This helped explain why the stereo sounded so terrible that I just left it turned off for the remaining two years of my lease, and listened instead to the numerous squeaks and rattles that started appearing at less than 6,000 miles, and which the dealer could never fix.
Between poor management and being saddled with the UAW and the excessive cost structure that comes with it, there’s just no way that GM can produce products that are truly competitive in initial engineering (the beancounters take care of that); equipment content (e.g. GM’s cheesy interiors); initial quality or long term durability.
This animal is suffering and has no hope of recovery – time to put it down.