According to Automotive News [sub], GM plans to shed an additional 520 dealers through “attrition” by the end of 2010. AN does the math: 1380 (by corporate fiat, so to speak) + 520 (attrition) + 500 (HUMMER, Saab and Saturn’s disappeared) = 2400 dead franchises trading. Given that many stores have overlapping franchises, I’m not sure how many dealers GM will have at the end of the federally-sponsored day. In any case, GM is on the ropes on the coasts and tanking in Texas. The bankrupt automaker needs a wide spread of smaller dealers to cover their last redoubt (the heartland). Still, one wonders what the ideal frnachise network size should be, and this process of attrition. More specifically, what will GM’s market share be and what’s GMAC’s role in this “inadvertent” downsizing? Is the lender—sorry, “bank”—continuing to make life difficult for GM stores? In other words, are Government Motors’ dealers fading as GM’s market share continues to tumble or will they be pushed? Or both? Oh, and AN reports that GM dealers are having something of a morale problem. Ya think?
The general offered
No apologies
He said “The soldiers erred in judgement
They should have hired a hooker”
No apologies
to the outraged Japanese
No “Sorry little girl”
The pigs just took her
Tireskids and teethmarks
What happened to this place?
Lawyers and loan sharks
Are laying America to waste
Freddie said that “Juan thinks, I think
He’s the devil”
What a lofty title
For such a petty little tyrant
Bigger beasts abound
And they kick this world around
At this crazy speed
With violence and greed
Tireskids and teethmarks
What happened to this place?
Lawyers and loan sharks
Are laying America to waste
So what makes a man a man
In these tough times
As druglords buy up the banks
And warlords radiate the oceans
Ecosystems fail
Snakes and snails and puppy tails
Are wagging in the womb
Beneath the trampled moon
Tireskids and teethmarks
What happened to this place?
Lawyers and loan sharks
Are laying America to waste
The general offered
No apologies
Joni Mitchell.
This is just why I am really hating GM right now. Rather than nut it up and name the dealers that they wany gone (like Chrysler did), they’re being punks and more or less making the dealers do it themselves by not living up to stupid demands by GM. I said it the other day, but Chrysler seems to be a lot more serious about making this C11 thing work for them, and it wouldn’t shock me to see them become stronger while GM fails miserably. At least Chrysler seems to be encouraged by the reorganization, GM seems to be fighting it, and trying to keep things the way they have always been. It’s really sad.
With the dealer culls and division closures it is inevitable that GM will never get more than 15% of the domestic market.
According to documents GM submitted to Congress, the Stupak hearing last Friday, GM is planning 1,280 more dealer closings through attrition. They say are averaging 80 a month thus far in 2009.
Now this is GM math so it should be taken with a grain of salt.
Dealer attrition in 2009 is averaging 80 GM dealers per month. This rate would imply attrition of 1,280 dealerships through October, 2010 or approximately the same number of dealers that have been offered winddown agreements.
http://energycommerce.house.gov/Press_111/20090612/gmnetworkanalysis.pdf
How come it’s okay for Toyota to have only 1,200 dealers, but people are outraged that GM is paring their dealership count down to 3,600?
It seems to me that clearly, GM is still going to have too many dealers to support even after the cuts.
So they’re being starved to death – how nice. GM ought to have the guts to just pull the plug.
The heartland is indeed their last redoubt, so they’d be wise to maintain dealerships in areas that Toyota, Honda and the like are unlikely to penetrate.
“How come it’s okay for Toyota to have only 1,200 dealers, but people are outraged that GM is paring their dealership count down to 3,600?
It seems to me that clearly, GM is still going to have too many dealers to support even after the cuts.”
Shabster, this question keeps on getting asked. The paring down had to happen given GM’s circumstances. The shame and the outrage is that it took government action to make it happen, rather than GM figuring out how to do it themselves as their market share continued to decrease over the last couple of decades. Under the best of circumstances it wouldn’t be a nice thing – firing people never is – but at least it wouldn’t be at the behest of the PTFOA.
…and on a related topic, the Dodge dealer here is closing for good – today is its last day. This is not one of the dealerships that was on the original closure list.
“AN does the math: 1380 (by corporate fiat, so to speak) + 520 (attrition) + 500 (HUMMER, Saab and Saturn’s disappeared) = 2400 dead dealers trading. Deduct that from GM’s current roster (6000) and New GM will have 3600 dealers.”
There is surely some overlap here. There’s a Cadillac-Hummer dealer here in PDX…the dealer will still be here, though he’ll only be carrying Caddies presumably. So is that a “closed” dealer? Do your typical Pontiac-Buick-GMC dealer count as three dealers or as one?
Does anyone know how many physically distinct addresses (i.e., independent businesses) that 6,000 number is? And what the post-cull number will be?
afabbro
Good point (made by others as well). My bad.
Text amended.