Ya think? Still, it’s nice to hear the beneficiaries of over $50 billion in taxpayer assistance acknowledge the simple fact that Chevrolet must carry the can for the New GM. “Chevrolet is going to take on a larger role as we go from eight brands to four,” Brent Dewar asserted in a statement that demonstrated his command of English understatement—or represented a worrying obvious insight into what he’s supposed to do for a living. “Here in North America we are going to be responsible for 70 percent of volumes.” Automotive News [sub] runs the numbers. “Chevrolet has represented more than 60 percent of GM’s sales so far in 2009, compared with 54 percent in 2002.” Yes, well, as GM’s U.S. market share has been on a downward trajectory since 1982—dropping 29 points in 27 years—one wonders if Chevy’s entirely theoretical 10 percent growth would be enough to save the sinking ship. Anyone want to know how Mr. Dewar plans on raising the Titanic?
Despite the reduced number of brands, Dewar said GM aims to boost its U.S. market share in coming years with new products such as the Cruze small car and Chevrolet Volt electric car. Both are slated to hit showrooms next year.
A small car and an untested new propulsion technology as Chevy (and thus GM’s) savior? As the Brits would say, time gentlemen.
Ha! A Romain Jerome Titanic watch! Someone’s inner WIS is showing!
New tech for Chevrolet? Corvair much?
For all these years, they’ve been telling us that SUV and pickup truck sales have been what’s profitable, and that there is no money to be made in the small car business.
Yet, it is still the same people running the show at GM. So how have things changed? SUV and pickup sales are down. The small car sector has gotten more competitive, and the small car products are much better than even five years ago.
Well, DUH! Like the FORD division, Chevy is the vast majority of GM sales, and is also probably healthier than any other GM division except the profitable GMC.
Well Robert, tell us then what kind of vehicles you think would make Chevy profitable?
You criticise them for building SUVs and trucks, now you’re criticising them for building small fuel efficient cars that make money.
Do you have a valid point to make, or do you just hate Chevy?
GM cam plant seeds, but it cannot make them grow. The Cruze and Volt are apparently competitive seeds, still its up to the public to choose or react to GM. Considering GM’s marketing and such, they are looking more for reactions then choices from the public. Reactions like buy American, cause its what Americans do.
Whether Robert Farago hates GM or Chevy is not important, because the consumer doesn’t love GM, Chevy or the rest of the brands nearly enough to make a go of it.
I’ve seen alcoholics pleading for one more chance with friends, family and officials that they can change. Sadly most do not. Here we are giving the drinker cases of scotch in the form of tax money and expecting sobriety. Hardly.
A firm C11 or C7 would be the best medicine but we can’t expect that from bought and paid for government.
Maxb49:
Chevy’s a full-line automaker; it’s not a question of what kind of car they need to create (other than not a luxury car or a high-priced sports car cough cough). As always, The Next Big (Small?) Thing is not going to save GM.
Chevy needs to build the BEST cars and trucks, and nothing but the best. AND they have to be cheaper than the competition.
This is not the time for Chevy to stop and change their shoes. The competition is still running way ahead of them, and it isn’t going to stop for no one, no how.
This is the time for GM to pull out all the stops and improve everything they have to make it better than anyone else’s. Well, that time was ten years ago . . .
Unfortunately, the nationalized automaker lacks the institutional culture to pull it off. So Chevy’s first step: replace Henderson with an outsider. (And Dewar too.)
Until and unless that happens, you can write them off. And even it does, too. There’s not enough time/money to git er done.
You can’t build a reputation on what you promise to do. The Daewoo-sourced Aveo is a cheap POS that some excuse because it was cheap (and made cheaply). That being what Daewoo and GM have done, their past actions, while not a predictor of the future, give one insight into what most likely will come in the future. And that doesn’t bode well.
I wonder what people would be saying if the economy hadn’t driven off a cliff, and the Japanese had continued their push into pickups and SUVs? GM and the others were only making money on big vehicles because the Japanese hadn’t mounted a strong attack on that segment of the market (yet). I doubt the Big 2.8 would have survived that assault.
Oh wait, 2/3 are already bankrupt and the third mortgaged their logo. As if it would have any value post-bankruptcy…
Adub:
You can’t build a reputation on what you promise to do.
Yes we can!
Chevy’s Next Big Thing (Volt) has all of the earmarks of a loser. As RF said, they need to be doing it better and cheaper than the hungry competition, and they aren’t even close. GM is the auto equivalent of Flounder; Fat, drunk, and stupid is no way to run an automaker.
Robert Farago :
October 11th, 2009 at 1:43 pm
Chevy needs to build the BEST cars and trucks, and nothing but the best. AND they have to be cheaper than the competition.
Problem is, how do you define “the best”? That’s a moving target for most car buyers. For me, it might be the best handling, performing car. For my neighbor, it might be the safest. For his best buddy, it might be the one with the best fuel mileage.
How can a car be all things to all people? It can’t. And it certainly can’t be a world beater in every potential way, and be cheaper to buy than the competition.
That being what Daewoo and GM have done, their past actions, while not a predictor of the future, give one insight into what most likely will come in the future. And that doesn’t bode well.
If that’s a general rule to follow, let’s see how it reads with other automakers that have a history of making crap.
“That being what Hyundai and Kia have done, their past actions, while not a predictor of the future, give one insight into what most likely will come in the future. And that doesn’t bode well.”
I guess Koreans can improve their quality and build good cars only if they’re not affiliated with General Motors, eh?
Consumer Reports will automatically favor GM products and automatically downgrade Toyotas before some GM haters will acknowledge that basing current purchase decisions on impressions formed decades ago is not prudent.
Cue the dude with OCD issues over DexCool.
Chevy needs to build the BEST cars and trucks, and nothing but the best. AND they have to be cheaper than the competition.
I don’t think the market is that price sensitive. As long as Chevy’s pricing is competitive with Toyondissan, they can still probably price above Hyundai/Kia without diminishing returns. The Koreans have improved quality but still have negative cachet as a “cheap” car.
Build a good product, price it fairly and people will buy it. Having a lower MSRP conveys the same negative message about value as cash on the hood incentives.
Adub :
I wonder what people would be saying if the economy hadn’t driven off a cliff, and the Japanese had continued their push into pickups and SUVs? GM and the others were only making money on big vehicles because the Japanese hadn’t mounted a strong attack on that segment of the market (yet). I doubt the Big 2.8 would have survived that assault.
That’s nonsense. Toyota and Nissan have been trying to crack the fullsize pickup market for most of the past decade. Hell, Toyota spent $1B developing the new Tundra and another billion on the assembly plant in Texas to build it, plus hundreds of millions on advertising. I’d say that’s a “strong attempt” on that market segment.
Considering that both Toyota and Nissan whiffed with their first attempts to build and sell full sized pickups, and that while the current Tundra and Titan are closer to what the market wants, neither Japanese branded pickup has done particularly well.
Nissan pretty much has acknowledged that they’d be better off sourcing a truck from Chrysler, and the Tundra wasn’t meeting Toyota’s sales projections even before the financial meltdown. If I’m not mistaken, Chrysler sells more Rams than Toyota sells Tundras.
Some folks just don’t want to admit that GM, Ford and Chevy can indeed build good vehicles. In the case of the BOF trucks, all but the most inveterate Detroit haters admit that the domestic automakers have it down when it comes to pickups. Toyota and Nissan continue to benchmark their pickup designs against the F-150 and Silverado.
basing current purchase decisions on impressions formed decades ago is not prudent.
Sorry, but people do have long memories. If a manufacturer sold someone a bad car years ago, that experience is going to factor into their future decisions and interactions with that company, no matter what you think. It’s human nature. A car purchase isn’t like a bad experience at a restaurant. A car purchase is the second biggest purchase in people’s lives after their home. It is a decision that they will have to live with for several years after they decide. Prior experiences with a company plays a role in that decision. If you have no prior experience with a company, it’s irrelevant. GM has a history it has to live with, both good and bad. You can’t simply only embrace the good and ignore the bad.
Titanic is so “old GM” …
btw, I wonder where this tasteless exercise in watch materials goes … material from PAN-AM 103, or WTC, anyone?
Adub : “You can’t build a reputation on what you promise to do.”
Perhaps not, but you can sure win the Nobel Prize.
With the boat that is General Motors taking on water faster than the pumps provided from Washington can bail and water lapping at the gunnels with rough seas ahead.
The decisions that would save them must have been made years ago.
As GS650G so clearly stated…
“I’ve seen alcoholics pleading for one more chance with friends, family and officials that they can change. Sadly most do not. Here we are giving the drinker cases of scotch in the form of tax money and expecting sobriety.”
The choices now are, burial or cremation.
But is the Titanic watch waterproof to 12,460 feet?
Maybe this is just an indication that slowly but surely GM is starting to figure what needs to be done. It’s been just over 90 days since the “reinvention”, let’s see where GM is in 90 more days; that should be a much better indicator of whether or not GM’s management has connected the dots.
Since when does Chevrolet have a better brand image than Hyundai? In my neck of the woods (California) it is my impression that Hyundai has a better brand. I certainly see a lot more Hyundai passenger cars than Chevrolets here in Silicon Valley.
I think Chevrolet may be beyond saving here in California. After all, the Malibu was supposed to be competitive with the Accord/Camry, it was priced cheaper and it didn’t sell in remotely the same volume as the imports. This is because Chevy is not in the decision pool for most people in the blue states.
What would it take to win people over? I’m thinking it would take a LOT of extra expense in perceived quality. Say, an extra grade up in all interior materials. This would, of course, make the cars unprofitable in the short term but revive the image in the long run.
n the case of the BOF trucks, all but the most inveterate Detroit haters admit that the domestic automakers have it down when it comes to pickups.
They do know what the domestic market wants, but I automatically give less credit to any success born of a punitive tariff, which applies to pickups.
basing current purchase decisions on impressions formed decades ago is not prudent.
If it weren’t for basing purchases on impressions formed decades ago, GM and Chrysler wouldn’t be around now. Hyundai had to work like crazy to build their brand reputation, producing an equal car for less until they finally won some respect, all the while realizing that they were the underdog that needed to prove something. But Hyundai was growing from nothing in the US. GM and Chrysler can’t shrink. But they can’t easily win back a brand reputation if only some cars are competitive and you have to know which ones to buy. So, yes, they need to beat or exceed the competition throughout their line and do it for less money in order to regain their brand image. But they can’t be profitable doing that, as far as I can see.
Cue the dude with OCD issues over DexCool.
nahhh, it’s not worth it. I got rid of my dex cool disaster GM products long enough ago not to be so angry about it anymore.
To paraphrase a reggae song – “No G-M, no cry”
Wow, breathtaking insight there, Dewar. The volume brand is the backbone of the company. I never would’ve guessed.
Speaking of volume brands, I’m puzzled by the new, leaner, meaner Gov’t Motors. Chevrolet is the volume brand, Cadillac is the luxury brand, but what the hell are Buick and GMC supposed to be? Since the bottom fell out of the full-size truck market, GMC seems redundant, even irrelevant, to me, and Buick is supposed to be…near-luxury? Isn’t that a slot better filled by top-level trim options on existing cars? Why is there no entry level brand, like Saturn was supposed to be? And why is there a need for more than three brands in one’s stable? But I digress.
Ultimately, the point of this story is “meet the new boss, same as the old boss.”
To address the elephant in the room, the market is pissed and GM is trying to ignore it. Those wonderful (not!) sales figures for Sept have borne this out.
GM has to have product that is so compelling that the market is willing to hold its collective noses and vote positively with their wallets. Cruze? Volt? I don’t think so. And if there was someting actually in the wings, the general is so desperate that it’s guaranteed that everyone would have heard about it by now.
To sum up: the cupboard is bare, your market is actively against you and time is running out.
Sounds like a success to me, no?
I’ve never seen this author write anything positive about GM on this site no matter what GM does. GM could come out with the greatest car in the world and he will make it look like a negative. Also, if anyone responds to GM in a positive way, he’ll usually takes it off….which is what I expect him to do with my response.
“GS650G :
October 11th, 2009 at 1:27 pm
Whether Robert Farago hates GM or Chevy is not important,”
No, whether YOU accuse various people in this forum of hating GM is not important. Even when one severely criticizes a company, it does not mean he or she hates it. My only car I bought new was a GM small, fuel efficient Pontiac in the 80s. I had it for 11 yrs and about 65k miles. It was a mixed bag, but only when I bought my next car (a used Accord coupe 5 sp ’90) I realized how poor the quality and refinement and materials were on the POS Pontiac.
What IS important is THIS:
GM has lost its good name and is going to DIE, with or without our hard-earned $50 BILLION in wasted bailout.
BECAUSE as the proverb goes, it is better to lose your EYE than your good name, and GM has lost theirs.
They tried HARD to lose it too, over more than 3 decades and losing Home games to theh imports 35 years IN A ROW and blaming everybody ELSE (as YOU blame the CONSUMER!) for it!
It will be impossibly hard for GM to regain its good name.
I don’t want to cause problems, but I am confused as to what a good car is any more.
Everyone says Toyoda and Honda make great cars. Every time I rode in one or drive one, they are uncomfortable, they are not pleasant to drive, and the gas mileage is not great.
The Chevy Aveo looks like junk, but if you can buy one for a dirt cheap price, I have seen 9K new, does that make it a bad car? These days a 20K car does not look great either.
Maybe there ought to be a tread entitled: “Definition of a great car”. Once that has been settled we can decide who makes them, and who doesn’t.