GM’s March sales (PDF chart) slid 45 percent compared to last March. As usual, the official press release is crawling with standard-issue PR equivocation. 156,380 deliveries in March? Why in a total contextual vaccuum, that sounds downright mediocre! Compared with February’s pity party, “7 of 8 GM brands saw total sales increases with total volume up 23 percent.” And Mark “Rough Chuckles” LaNeve hears a slow, government-backed turnaround coming. “We had a strong close at the end of the month as customers responded to strong incentives, President Obama’s positive statements about GM, and the government backing domestic warranties,” soliloquizes GM’s S&M masochist-in-chief.
But slicing and dicing only distracts from the truth for so long. And when the truth is this ugly, it rarely stays in the shadows anyway. By brand, Pontiac was the big winner last month, with sales falling “only” 30 percent. Buick was next-best with a 40 percent drop, and things just keep getting worse all the way to Hummer which fell 76 percent, selling fewer than 900 units. Light trucks (-45 percent) were worse off than cars (-40 percent), but only the profit-free G8 (2,938 units sold) stands out as a genuine sales success.
I wouldn’t mind a G8 if I just had the dough to spend and needed a 4th car. The tragedy in that car is they finally get a worthy sedan in their lineup and the economy takes a giant crap all over them. I can’t see how GM can spin their sales numbers to sound even remotely good, though.
Hmm. I woulda thought that, with Wagoner out of the way, things would have picked up by now.
Rick;
That is the funniest thing I have read in a month. Thank you for the yuk.
I hate to see a good brand die, although the only GM’s I’ve ever bought new were Saturns. Yep, plain old boring Saturns. The ones they built in the ’90s ran FOREVER and you could beat the tar out of them. Those plastic body panels take a little getting used to at first but even after ten years, they look as good as when they were new. No pitting, dents, etc., with the added bonus of cheap to repair.
The problem with GM is the same problem the infects all corporations on the stock exchange. The Board stops listening to customers and only hears there stock holders. Money, not product, is what they’re after and well, you can see the result.
Lemmesee…GM had the highest incentives in the industry (approx. $4900/buggy-edmunds) and the biggest sales drop. They spent just over 3/4 B in incentives alone.
Our tax dollars at work.
I would say consumers are showing less than “Total Confidence” in GimMe (yes, I know the program didn’t affect March sales).
Hey Prez, here’s the answer-pull the plug today.
Bunter
Saturn was down 58%. It’s not looking good for the sixtth sphere brand.
I bet one person bought a lot rotted GM vehicle last month as a result of the government backing the warranties.
Progress!
What tripe.
Which is why Ricky had to go. On December 4 he stated to Congress that sales would have picked up by now.
You just can’t be that clueless, and expect to be able to hold on to your job.
Who the hell bought 900 Hummers??? Someone stocking up for a private militia?
For all of GM’s faults, warts, gubment & media whipping, they still sold more cars than Toyota, and the domestics still hold more than 50% of the market. Yet, they are still the ONLY cars “nobody wants”. I don’t know what to make of it, because a lot of the criticism is well-deserved, but man, the contrast between this article and the one above it is…nevermind.
Edward, how do you know exactly that the G8 is profit-free?
golf4me :
April 1st, 2009 at 3:54 pm
For all of GM’s faults, warts, gubment & media whipping, they still sold more cars than Toyota
False. GM sold 68,877 cars in the United States last month; Toyota sold 80,597.
GM, however, did sell more light vehicles in the United States. (Worldwide, Toyota probably sold more light vehicles than GM, although those figures aren’t available.) That is, the term “car” does not include vans, pickups, SUVs, or CUVs. It just includes cars.
Oh, and very few GM sales are to individuals without employee discounts. A very large portion of their sales domestically are to rental and other corporate fleets, government agencies, or people who get an employee discount because they work at, used to work at, are related to somebody who works at, or are related to somebody who used to work at, GM or a GM supplier.
In any case, the really sad thing in these stats is that Buick outsold Saturn. Considering that Buick shares a dealer network with GMC and Pontiac and Saturn is stand-alone, this shows how much a folly Saturn is.
Geo, vee-HICK-les…that’s what I meant, sorry.
And, can you show me the numbers that their sales are only to fleets and employees? I don’t doubt you, but I’d like to see where you came up with that fact.
True about Saturn.
Difference being that at Toyota, they send a scythe through management for having failed to see what was coming; while at GM they need to use dynamite to get management to assume responsibility for the morass they’re responsible for.
And then there’s the issue of which one of those two companies is in best shape. GM’s the one with the experience …
All this aside – the car industry as we knew it is no more. This fall in sales is sending shockwaves through the entire supply chain and after-sales network.
Robert, the editor is having difficulties.
Oh, and according to Geotpf, the site name should be changed to TTALV. Better roll out another logo contest…
if and when we implement Return to Greatness sales will rebound. if not it’s BK followed by dissolution.
I walked through a big Buick-Pontiac-GMC store today on the way to the parts department.
Like a tomb.
Ignore the figures. They don’t indicate diddly. Look at the APRIL figures next month. That will be the true state of affairs as all these shenanigans have come home to roost.
My bet is that GM will WISH that they only lost 45% as any potential customers will only be vultures trying to score desperation deals. Watch Ford’s dead cat bounce then!
Without a compact sedan Saturn has lost it’s main product offering and huge numbers of customers. GM could have used a outlet for a high quality compact sedan and missed it’s chance again. GM did a great job of giving Saturn exactly the wrong product at the wrong time. Compact sedans/wagons/coupes when few were buying them (91-2001), a eight passenger crossover as sales in that catagory tanked, two years without a mid-sedan and then 2 V6 models when the world wanted 4cly’s, V6 compact SUV’s when the world wanted 4 cly’s and no compact sedan when that became hottest segment in the country and a convertible just when convertible sales fell off the table. Timing is the key to life and GM had lousy timing for Saturn.
golf4me :
April 1st, 2009 at 4:49 pm
And, can you show me the numbers that their sales are only to fleets and employees? I don’t doubt you, but I’d like to see where you came up with that fact.
A little Googling got me these figures from first half of 2006:
http://forums.motortrend.com/70/6319622/the-general-forum/revealed-the-real-sales-figures-minus-the-fleet-sa/index.html
Compact Sedan — Retail — Total
Civic — 151,000 — 152,000
Corolla — 113,000 — 129,000
Cobalt — 63,000 — 96,000
Midsize Sedan — Retail — Total
Accord — 153,000 — 155,000
Camry — 146,000 –168,000
Impala — 54,000 — 120,000
Compact Trucks — Retail — Total
Tacoma — 82,000 — 84,000
Frontier — 36,000 — 37,000
Ranger — 34,000 — 42,000
Full Size Trucks — Retail — Total
F150 — 306,000 — 374,000
Silverado — 227,000 — 274,000
Ram — 158,000 — 171,000
Minivan — Retail — Total
Odyssey — 79,000 — 79,000
Sienna — 67,000 — 77,000
Caravan — 55,000 — 103,000
Compact SUV — Retail — Total
CR-V — 67,000 — 67,000
Escape — 53,000 — 72,000
RAV4 — 42,000 — 45,000
Midsize SUV — Retail — Total
Pilot — 74,000 — 75,000
Grand Cherokee — 65,000 — 89,000
Explorer — 61,000 — 83,000
Fullsize SUV — Retail — Total
Tahoe — 67,000 — 72,000
Expedition — 32,000 — 41,000
Suburban — 27,000 — 32,000
Things haven’t changed that dramatically, although I believe fleet sales have dropped (overall) further than retail.
Basically, for most mainstream models of cars (that is, not the Corvette, etc.), Toyota is 90% retail, Honda is like 98% retail, and the domestics are less than 70%, with some models having almost no retail sales. This jives with numbers I’ve seen in the past. Now, with pickups, things are better for the domestics. My correcting the “cars” and “light vehicles” is that a fair number of people buy domestic pickups and SUVs at retail (although there are quite a few fleet sales in there as well), but almost nobody buys a domestic car at retail. Then, you got to factor in employee discounts for the retail sales (numbers that are fairly high but unknown publicly), and you get very small numbers indeed. Most of the retail sales are further diminished in profitability due to the consistantly high incentives they have to put on every vehicle to move the metal.
Here’s a TTAC link on the subject from about the same time period:
https://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/the-big-25s-fleet-sales-fiasco/
Basically, Detroit makes large pickups, large SUVs, Corvettes, Cadillacs, and fleet vehicles. That’s about it.
The domestics cannot make a compact or mid sedan and make a profit doing it, even the imports figured out that the money is in SUV’s and trucks.
so intoday enviorment the locals are toast and the advantage goes to the imports. Why is it that the companies that are around the longest end up in a comprimising position?
What’s the phrase? Terminal decline?
I want to know WHO was buying GM stock at
$3.50+?????????????????????????????????????????
as recently as last week. WTF?
… Toyota is 90% retail, Honda is like 98% retail, and the domestics are less than 70%…
… almost nobody buys a domestic car at retail.
At the risk of sounding argumentative, seven out of ten is far from “almost nobody.”