When GM introduced the Chevrolet Cruze to the market some three months ago, it wasn’t just launching a car, it was trying to change one of its most persistent perception problems. GM managers know that their firm has never built a memorably successful compact car, a fact that was underlined by President Obama’s bailout-era question “why can’t they build a Corolla?” The Cruze was supposed to change all that, but a short three months after its launch, even the hometown cheerleaders at the Detroit Free Press are beginning to wonder if GM is “running out of time to kick Cruze sales into high gear.” After all, the Cruze was just fifth on the C-Segment sales chart last month, losing out to such aging offerings as the Civic, Corolla, Focus and Elantra, all of which are due to be replaced within the next 3 to 12 months. And since the Crue took its time getting to the US market, one analyst concludes
As a result of having been in production two years, it will age more quickly. The relevance in the market is one of the things consumers are willing to pay premium for
This seems to reinforce the conclusion drawn by the WSJ’s Dan Neil who wrote of the Cruze
But I’m sorry to say Chevrolet’s compact car of tomorrow feels more like its car of this afternoon, about 3:48 p.m. This is a car of quickly expiring market advantages.
Do we have a comparison of how well (or not so well) the Cobalt was selling before its replacement by the Cruze?
About the same I think. But Cobalt was a much cheaper (in every sense of the word) car.
But I can still remember that Maximum Bob touted the Cobalt as Chevy’s “premium” small car comparing with its predecessor Cavalier. Well, we all can see how it actually turns out. GM has been on this forever ‘premium’ replacement product cycle treadmill for awhile.
BTW, is this the mysterious case of missing VW Jetta in the chart?
Two questions:
1. what’s the average transaction price for each vehicle
2. what’s the discount %age on them
There can only be one number 1; I’m sure Ford is giving away the Focus and Toyota has ramped up incentives recently. If GM can make money on 100k units a year, what’s the problem?
Exactly. We are conditioned to see unit sales are the ultimate arbitor of success. The car companies are now more interested in the average transaction price and gross profit per unit. They don’t need to sell 300k a year for the car to be a financial success. We are also too narrowly focused on US sales. The Cruze design is being sold world-wide, so we should be looking at total sales, not just US sales.
Good point.
Along those lines – are its retail market share sales greater than the Cobalt? That is where ave. trans prices are much higher than volume fleet sales to stem losses from UAW factories that need to always be in production.
Selling fewer than 10,000 cars a month of an “eagerly anticipated” new model, three months in, can’t bode well for the car — no matter how high the transaction prices are right now. Some of that may be production constrained, but I still think that’s fairly pitiful.
I will say I’m surprised by how many rental Cruzes I’ve seen. One would think GM would want to avoid this association with the car like the plague, particularly this early.
Longer term, the much bigger problem for the Cruze is that there is absolutely no compelling reason to take your chances on one, over its heady competition.
Yes, it does some things well. Most things, actually. But I don’t see anyone except the most loyal GM apologists taking a chance on a Cruze over, say, a Civic, or even the new Elantra. Both those cars have proven, reliable track records in the market. GM doesn’t.
I don’t know the average discount. However, the Chevy dealer around the corner has a huge sign “New Cruise Lease $179 a month, $0 down”. They can’t be making too much money on those.
As far as the comment above about rental fleets, I see this a bit differently.
Having GM cars in rental fleets is a great way to get people (who would never go out of their way to do so otherwise) to test-drive one, and if they like it, could become a future owner of one.
Big IF there, I know!
The problem with the rental as test-drive angle is that the trims Hertz buys are really putting their worst foot forward. Even when the car is new you have chintzy cloth seats, a tinny stereo with $4 paper cones, hard rubber steering wheel, no sunroof, the weak base motor and mileage axle, etc. A year and 30,000 miles of rental treatment later you’re often showcasing rattles, sloppy worn bushings, misalignment.
I’d want no part of that. If you have to sell rental cars then badge them as something else.
Rob, we live in the same city, and I’ve seen a Cruze only ONCE. Where did you see all those rentals?
@Pete — The company I work for has a hangar at the Sunport. I’ve seen them pretty regularly over the past few weeks coming and going from the rental car facility.
I saw my first set of Cruzes at a rental lot at Dallas Love Field last month. I counted 11 there.
@redmondjp — You do have a point. My last two automotive purchases were at least partly influenced by favorable impressions from rentals… of vehicles that were well into their respective life cycles by that time. Dumping a brand-new (well, to North America anyway) vehicle on rental lots doesn’t seem like a sound way to build “brand equity” in cold, hard dollars. It does sound like another way to convince the public that “GM” means “fleet special.”
We shall see.
Unfortunately I think the Lordstown plant is geared to produce over 200k a year. Running at about 50% utilization rate is not the way to earn any money, no matter how high GM you think can charge in the market.
I didn’t even realize it was available yet…yes, anecdotal, but I follow the auto biz closer than 95% of the general population (and I watch network TV!), so clearly exposure/marketing has been an issue so far.
Also, no Suzuki, VW, etc on that list?
I agree. It seems to me that the marketing could have been a little better.
I was very surprised to find out that it was had far more features and was far more sophisticated than I would have expected.
I’ve seen plenty of Cruze ads during major network shows, and the car has been featured on Hawaii 5-0, supposedly the number-one new show of this season.
Really?…hmmm. I guess I’m just accustomed to being beaten over the head with advertising, like Ford’s (relatively good) campaign for the Fiesta. Those ads run constantly.
When you have something new and good, and a reputation for mediocrity, it sometimes pays to use the megaphone approach.
Also, no Suzuki, VW, etc on that list?
Suzuki has sold 10380 SX4s…
…in the entire year of 2010.
Geeber – the obvious product placement of the GM vehicles in Five-O is why I quit watching that show. Some of the shots were SO obvious. Made it seem like an hour long commercial. And Hawaii is apparently a VERY violent place… LOL!
How many years did it take the cars on the list above the Cruze to gain acceptance and market dominance? Expecting and an instant hit and calling it a failure if it’s not, is dumb
It took the release of the Chevette, the Citation and the Cavalier for the top two to run away with sales. Once people bought one of those three pieces of crap, they stayed away in droves and flocked to the import dealers. Myself included (although my last GM mistake was a 1982 Trans Am, and equally large piece of crap.).
Chevrolet isn’t an unknown quantity the way Honda was when the Civic was released. Look at how the Accord gained recognition, acceptance, and a waiting list 7 seconds after it was introduced 2 years after the first Civic.
Kevin has a point too. Why did th Citation sell over 800,000 cars in its first year and now GM needs fleet sales and almost free leases to move 8,000 of its new compact in month 3?
Exactly. After decades of Vegas, Chevettes and Cavaliers, customers are going to be hesitant to take GM’s compact offerings seriously, and many will wait to see how the Cruze fares in the hands of fellow drivers before giving it a chance. After all, it’s still an easier decision to buy a Corolla or Civic, especially with GM’s content/pricing strategy for the Cruze. Even tho GM wants a hit more desperately than a meth addict does, it will take time to shake the perception that they can’t/won’t make a good compact car.
Guys, Hyundai has already shown what can change people’s perceptions – a great warranty and a much improved product. No doubt GM isn’t turning out the utter crap they used to, but then no one is. It’s going to take a very high value proposition for car buyers to give GM a chance. Based on their pricing and warranty strategy, they appear to not agree with that analysis. The sales figures speak for themselves.
On Halloween Saturday, I went to my local Chevy dealer to testdrive a Cruze. They only had two in stock. One was $22k and the other was $24k. Both were locked up, and I never found anybody to wait on me after waiting about 20 minutes. I realize it was a busy day and they were trying to make their end of the month quota, but still.
My first impression of the Cruze was that it was too expensive, and the dealership sucked.
March: Cobalt 10,316. Corolla 29,623. Civic 22,463
April: Cobalt 13,701. Corolla 27,932. Civic 25,042
May: Cobalt 16,173. Corolla 26,953. Civic 28,458
June: Cobalt 10,141. Corolla 21,876. Civic 26,474.
In those 4 months the Cobalt was outsold slightly over 4:1 by the two class leaders. The Cruze is also being outsold slightly over 4:1.
Thanks for the figures aspade. So if the Cruze is selling at roughly the same rate as the Cobalt was, and if as Dan points out below the Cruze is selling near MSRP as opposed to the knock down prices the Cobalt was – why should GM be worried?
Market share isn’t everything.
Ehhh… so do you think a supposed GM’s revivlal in small car segment which is now selling as ‘well’ as its dismal predecessor (which has proven again and again needed to dispose at the fleet rental market at rock bottom price) is a GOOD thing?
Congratulation on your appointment as the ‘Chief’ of Spinning in the ‘new’ GM.
If the Cruze is selling at near MSRP then it is right now a run away success. I regularly saw Cobalts selling for $3000 off sticker as the advertised price, good lord knows how low the price got once the haggling began.
IF the Cruze is selling near asking price then dealers should be doing the “dance of joy.”
If GM can make the same amount of (or more) profit on lower volume sales of a higher priced car (Cruze) than they can with high volume sales of a lower priced car (Cobalt), then they’re ahead of the game.
The key is sustaining that level of sales over the long haul (like the Corolla and Civic are able to do with reputations garnered over decades). If the Cruze is worth the higher price, well, GM has a chance with it.
If it turns out to be not much better than the Cobalt, the Cruze is doomed. Only time will tell.
I would expect that the Cruze is going to cost a lot more to produce than the Cobalt, since the development costs of the Cobalt should have been paid off long ago.
So I’m not buying the theory that Chevy’s making that much more margin on the Cruze.
But since the Cruze is on sale nearly “world-wide” then how long does it take to amortize the development costs?
I saw, or rather got a glimpse of my first Cruze this morning on I-75 during my commute. Pleasant enough looking even with the glaring “black triangle”. I haven’t been to the dealer yet, but am due for an oil change, so I’ll check one out over my vacation in a few weeks if they have one in the showroom.
If the car is that good, it’ll take some time to get in the car-buying public’s mind that it would be worth their time to consider. After all, the economy’s still pretty bad and even if you do have a good job, if you don’t really need a car, is it the right thing to do to spend the money and assume a debt? For some, yes. For others – hmm, maybe, I don’t know. Wait for incentives and see.
EDIT: Phooey! It looks like I’m shadowing Educator Dan again!
I live in Warren, down the street from the Tech Center. So I have been seeing Cruise’s for years now. They local dealers are leasing them dirt cheap, so there are a lot of them around here. I talked to one person that was issued one from work, and she liked it. Not as much as the Ford Fusion she had previously. That actually costs less.
Which brings up a point. Who would pay $24k for one of these? You can get a loaded 4cy Fusion,Sonata,Altima, or Mazda 6. And a Malibu.
Those two quotes by the “mystery” analyst & the WSJ writer about the Cruze feeling old don’t make any sense when the VERY old Focus is outselling the Cruze by ~5K/month. If Ford can outsell GM w/a model that is basically the same one that was on the roads when Clinton was president and “Office Space” was in theaters, then GM is really going to hurt when the new versions of the Big-3 come out.
I’m not a GM-hater…but the Cruze seems to be just another link in the Citation-Cavalier-Cobalt chain. At least the new Malibu bucked the original Malibu/G6/Aura trend, even if it is still second to the Fusion as far as domestics go.
The sales numbers ominously suggest that the Cruze is attracting only previous GM devotees, rather than winning sales away from other brands.
My impression of the Cruze, ever since it came out, is that it looks too conservative and doesn’t do anything exceptionally well. That’s not what it takes to win back anyone who bought GM’s junk years back and vowed never to repeat the same mistake. You can’t introduce vehicles in this market that are perceived as par for the course, or even outdated, at the time they’re introduced.
Aside from an exterior that is a little too bland, conservative – the Cruze has generally been getting rave reviews from the automotive press for its sporty handling and steering feedback, as well as for its quality cabin/dash.
The problem GM has w/ the Cruze is the same that Ford has w/ the Focus.
Aside from certain % of buyers in the mainstream compact/subcompact segment who don’t mind paying a premium for a better handling car w/ a higher end interior (these type of buyers also tend to load up their purchases w/ all the latest tech gadgets), the rest of the buyers in the segment are price conscious.
The irony in all of this is that VW had determined that trying to offer “premium” models in this segment in the US was a losing proposition and went the other way.
Our neighbors bought one of the first Cruzes in the area. They let me take a test drive around the block. It struck me as being very refined for a GM small car. This car will be a revelation to those who have owned a Saturn Ion or Chevrolet Cobalt. Whether it appeals to Corolla or Civic owners remains to be seen.
But I wouldn’t focus on the total sales figures too much. If it is selling at the same rate as the Cobalt, but to more retail customers and with higher transaction prices, then it’s a winner for GM.
You’re putting a brave face on it, but all the Cruzes in San Diego are airport rentals and there are $0 down, $179 lease deals available.
“It struck me as being very refined for a GM small car.”
You have identified the problem. I have not driven one, but from what I have read, it is “almost as good as a Civic or Corolla.” Almost as good doesn’t cut it here. The Focus is almost as good, and a lot cheaper, being at the end of its design cycle. The new one promises to be better.
If GM is selling these to rental fleets or on 179/mo. promos, they are not making more money on this car than they were on the Cobalt. This does not look encouraging.
@jpcavanaugh
By all acounts, the Cruze is better than the Civic and WAY better than the Corolla.
The reason why the Cruze isn’t seller better is the combination of its higher pricing, the fact that most buyers in the segment don’t care about better handling/steering feedback and GM having to overcome its previous reputation in this segment w/ the Cobalt, Cavalier, Citation, etc.
In a certain way, it’s similar to the adversity that Suzuki is having w/ the Kizashi – despite that also being highly praised by the automotive press.
This being a GM small car, the solution is obvious: time to rename the car :) That seems to be about the only way they fix small cars. I think by now people are conditioned to just know that every compact chevy is a POS- especially since most people have experience driving them as rentals. (that also stigmitizes them as rental-level fleet cars)
I have to admit- I also didn’t realize this was already out. It must be very anynmous looking IRL. Since the Civic, Corolla, and Elantra will be all new very soon, I think this car is doomed- especially since it no longer has the virtue of being dirt-cheap like the old GM compacts.
To really know if this is a problem, one needs to know what is the production capacity of the Cruze and if the number is artificially low because GM is trying to make sure there are no problems with the car with the US suppliers. Without this knowledge, this number doesn’t mean anything.
Anyone know the average days on the lot with the Cruze?
As long as ChryCo keeps pushing a car like Caliber the Cruze has nothing to worry about.
I do find myself wondering why GM didn’t put at least a fraction of their attention and resources used in the development of “Camaro” into a decent small car. Cruze, to me, is a GM Corolla.
Interesting that both the Cruze and Fiesta are performing below expectations. Could it be the high sticker prices? Cruze is priced like a mid size car, Fiesta like a compact.
Maybe this will make GM come to their senses and add the hatchback Cruze to the mix.
I don’t think the Cruze’s position is that bad right now, considering it’s only been out 3 months.
But they are overpriced. A quick Autotrader check in my area showed the cheapest one at $17592. Meanwhile Elantras are starting in the $14s and $16s.
You can get a bigger Hyundai Sonata for less money…Have a proper engine…faster acceleration…AND get better fuel mileage……
Cruze and Fiesta prove that American buyers will have to adjust to the idea of $25,000 compacts and $20,000 subcompacts as mainstream products.
In the case of the Cruze, they seem to be adjusting by continuing to buy competitors’ products.
For me it’s pretty simple. No hatchback/wagon, no manual, no interest.
(Yes I know that theoretically a manual is/will be available but I’ve seen others say some feature {ie ABS or manual} is out there but none are actually built/available.)
The price is high but competitive with the other cars I’m looking at. Too bad the car itself is not.
“For me it’s pretty simple. No hatchback/wagon, no manual, no interest.”
Ya but for the general public these things are meaningless. These would not be the reasons it has not succeeded if indeed it is in fact in trouble which is a little premature.
According to GM, they had 9,000 Cruze’s ‘on the lot’ on Nov. 1st
They sold 8000 during the month of November and produced 20,000.
Does that mean that they started December with 21,000 unsold Cruzes?
It’s a shame this site is becoming a soap box of anti GM rhetoric.
Seriously…three months on sale…and already we have posts asking if the Cruze is in trouble…while ignoring the true poor sellers like the Taurus, Fiesta, Flex, all of the mediocre rebadges Lincoln sells, etc?
Yup, the Cruze is dead. If it weren’t a Daewoo being resold as a Government Motors product, it might have had a chance. ;)
srogers,
It seems worth noting that rebadged Daewoos are also sold here as Suzukis, and they’re also some of the lowest rated cars on the market. GM relying on Daewoo to address their small car issues is indicative of some pretty poor decision making, or pretty profound desperation.
Z71_Silvy,
Is the Fiesta officially a flop yet? I won’t shed a tear, same for the ridiculous Taurus.
CJ, my Daewoo crack was primariiy intended to piss off Z71. (Except that I believe that he has the last laugh – he always gets a response to his predictable trolling.)
I have not seen a Cruze myself, but the early reports are that it is a ‘nice enough’ compact. Maybe even Daewoo can improve their products!
I think that the problem with Cruze sales is purely marketing – Chevy reputation and their historical non-participation in the compact class.
@Z71 Silvy: “It’s a shame this site is becoming a soap box of anti GM rhetoric.”
How long have you been on this board? You were being sarcastic, right? That’s got to be the funniest thing I’ve seen all day…
They are actually selling the Cruze now in the USA? Still haven’t seen one.
I don’t think I’ve seen a Chevrolet Cruze on the road.
Still way too soon to buy a Detroit Three car. They need several years seasoning and satisfactory reliability reports.
Asian carmakers dominate Consumer Reports’ 2010 reliability ratings. Honda, Toyota, Mitsubishi, Hyundai and Porsche are the top five in that order. Ford is middle ranked followed by most European manufacturers. General Motors (GM) is second from last and Chrysler is dead last. The Detroit Three say their cars are superior, and the zoo’s unicorn exhibit opens next week! Why should a customer commit to a major purchase from a manufacturer notorious for atrocious product quality and appalling customer care that won’t back up its reliability and durability claims with an honest, comprehensive 10 year warranty?
Yes, the Cruze is dead. It didn’t sell 300,000 units in the first fifteen minutes, so obviously it is a failure. Nobody seemed to notice that for a new nameplate, it outsold the Mazda 3 (that everybody p!sses their pants over in this forum), the Nissan Sentra (I didn’t even know this was still in North America!), the Kia Forte, the Subaru Imprezza (another p!sser), and the poor old Caliber. The cars it didn’t outsell have been around for a long time and are well known quantities.
Let’s talk about this in 6 months. If it’s still not selling, then you have a point. Right now it’s still early.
No matter how good the car may be, people will need a lot of convincing to buy a Cruze. Every promise on improved in the next new name compact has not gone over well. I agree that the warranty is a big turn off especially if Hyundai can offer one so long, why won’t GM stand behind it’s cars like that.
Personally I just don’t find it a car I want to buy, it’s boring. Just wait till the new Elantra and new Focus come out, the Cruze doesn’t stand a chance if it can’t even beat the old versions of those two cars.
The Cruze seems like a nice enough car, competitively priced. I think it’s achilles heel is going to be that 1.4L turbo motor. Simply too small for a car that size.
This is what people need to re-think. The turbo means that an engine of that size makes ample power and torque for a car of that size. Other manufacturers are going down this route, too.
Its too early to call the Cruze a flop. But I do think the writing’s already on the wall. It’s just that we’ve seen this storyline from GM so many times before. A new product that’s vastly superior to the hopelessly outdated penaltybox it replaces. Inevitably, the car is, at best, not quite good enough. While “not quite good enough” isn’t nearly as bad as it was a decade ago, only brand loyalists and bargain hunters are willing to take GM seriously anymore. The legions of mediocre-to-awful past products, combined with decidedly average new cars like the Cruze greatly overshadow the hype that surrounds every new GM car.
Other comments have mentioned Hyundai’s quick turnaround, or Honda’s rapid rise in the ’70s and wonder why GM can’t do the same. That’s simple. In the ’70s, anything Japanese was starting to catch on fast, thanks to Toyota and Datsun’s trailblazing in the late ’60s. Especially to younger buyers who weren’t interested in their father’s Oldsmobile, Japanese cars were smarter, more efficient and better built than the sloppily-built barges coming out of Detroit. By the late ’70s, anything that wasn’t a Vega or Pinto was worth a shot. Honda was already a household name thanks to its motorcycles, which bankrupted the awful Meridian Triumph and nearly killed the equally awful AMF Harley Davidson, but the initial Civics and Accords were such gems that good word-of-mouth quickly spread.And it’s not that the Japanese products of the ’70s/early ’80s were perfect, but they lacked assembly and driveability issues that plagued the Big Three. My parents bought a Toyota Corona off the showroom floor on impulse in 1980 for well over sticker…the car was a complete ripoff and was a rustbucket by ’85, but it was such a revelation compared to the horrendous A and X body GM company cars my dad drove at the time that my parents have religiously bought nothing but Japanese for 30 years.
Hyundai’s different. In 1986, they sold 126,000 Excels (More than any first-year automaker in U.S. history) solely on price and Japan’s. But the cars were awful, mostly because Hyundai didn’t have a whole lot of experience…Hyundai started by building Ford Cortinas under license in 1968 and its first original car, the Pony, was a Mitsubishi-powered affair largely inspired by the Morris Marina. Hyundai quickly became a joke in the States, but the company steadily worked to improve its product and image. The ’99 Sonata and ’01 Elantra were generally acceptable cars, and the shocking 10 year warranty prompted many buyers to give them a shot. As it turned out the cars were held up better than anyone expected, and their replacements were substantially better. Sales grew, first because the cars were a bargain, and later because the cars were actually…good. And now, with 2011 just around the corner,Hyundai has released a new Sonata that matches, if not beats, the Toyota Camry and Honda. No other automaker has done that, period. Second chances in life are rare and nearly unheard of in the car industry, but Hyundai has pulled off the seemingly impossible through product and sheer determination.
And it’s not that Detroit isn’t capable of such a turnaround…somehow, Ford has managed a similar feat in the last few years, although it’s been decades in the making. After playing second fiddle to Chevrolet for half a century and disastrous trip through the Malaise Era that culminated in a fourth-place finish behind Olds and Buick in 1983, Ford turned things around in a big way. The aero ’83 Thunderbird and ’84 Tempo were hits, but the futuristic ’86 Taurus was a sensation that turned Detroit on its head. Sadly, Ford didn’t offer another competitive car for twenty years, but the Explorer kept the company in the good graces of consumers for most of that time. However, cars like the original Focus and Fusion leveraged Ford’s international resources far better GM or Chrysler, the ’05 Mustang kept hope alive. Ford mortgaged everything to stay alive in ’06-’07 when it appeared to be the worst off in Detroit, while pulling off small miracles with update products on existing products. Now, with the surprisingly good new Fusion, the widely anticipated Fiesta, the truly European forthcoming Focus, and a Mustang that’s so good, it even beat out the new Camaro with the outgoing Modular 4.6. Perhaps best of all, I was behind a 2011 Mustang V6 (in my 2011 Mustang GT 5.0) with a license plate frame that read “Ford: Built without taxpayer dollars.” You just can’t buy that kind of PR.
Meanwhile, General Motors has done almost nothing to put themselves on par, much less ahead, of the competition in over 30 years. The bankruptcy finally got rid of a couple unnecessary brands and the management positions were shuffled, but not much else has changed. Instead, the bailout has enraged already-wary American consumers. But it’s not that I don’t believe GM can turnaround its reputation. They absolutely can. It’s just that marketing hype and so-so new cars aren’t going to get it done
If Chevy built a Corolla, they’d have an even bigger problem on their hands.
Why would doubling sales be a problem?
B/c the Corolla is selling on little else besides Toyota’s reputation and customer loyalty.
Traditionally, GM has viewed small cars as toys used to keep the natives happy while the company went about its grandiose plans of putting a Cadillac or an SUV in every garage.
The Corvair, Vega, Chevette, X-cars and J-cars; the company’s record with small cars is one of failure and mediocrity. I owned a couple of them and after a extremely unpleasant experience with one of their X-cars I swore of GM cars and haven’t owned one since 1984. Even if GM has finally gotten religion about small cars and the Cruze turns out to be an exemplary vehicle, a lot of potential buyers will be waiting to see how it performs two or three years down the road. As the old says goes: Fool me once, shame on you-fool me twice, shame on me.
Three issues hurting it’s sales:
1. A lot of people who might otherwise be inclined to consider are still upset over the govt bailout.
2. They are too expensive
3. A lot of 2010 Colbalts still floating around. My brother just bought a Colbalt LS for his four teenage daughters to use over the next 5-6 years, and he paid around $12,000.
I have two main comments on these sales results for the Chevrolet Cruze (not particularly a fan of the car or of Chevrolet in general but trying to look at cold, hard facts):
1. This is only the third month the car is on sale in the US!!! I agree with geozinger on this, you can’t judge the success of a car based on its sales in the first few months! Also as far as I know the figures are on the up: 516 in September, 5,048 in October and 8,060 in November. You’d be seriously worried if sales dropped but to me this looks like a normal gearing up to higher levels. Let’s look at the figures in 6 months time and judge then.
If you are interested in the November US best selling models ranking it is here: http://bestsellingcars.wordpress.com/category/usa/
2. Let’s say for a second that the Cruze US sales end up being truly disappointing. I would then be tempted to say: who cares?
As it has been repeated over and over on this blog, the future of the car industry is not in the USA but in China. The Cruze has been within the Top 10 best selling cars in China for the whole of 2010. Even better, in November it reached #3 with best-ever sales of 23,843, only 1,200 short of the #1 and ahead of the Civic, Corolla, Focus and Elantra. This means that with a bit of luck and the help of the hatchback version, the Cruze could actually become the best selling car in China in 2011.
Puts the US figures in their right perspective.
If you are interested in the Chinese Top 100 models ranking in November it is here: http://bestsellingcars.wordpress.com/category/china/
Again, am not a Chevy fan here, but thought it worthwhile to share that info…
Cruze inventory is under 30 days; this is not an indicator of a nameplate in trouble, it is an indicator of a vehicle with low inventory losing buyers because there isn’t enough to go around.
Look at the 2011 Corolla, that seems like a boat anchor from a technology standpoint in comparison; and the refresh of the 2012 Civic is supposed to be light, at best, as reported by TTAC.
The real threat is the new Elantra and the coming Focus. I don’t understand how there could have been 16K Corolla buyers, and if you walk around a Hertz lot, I’m starting to wonder how many Corollas are going to fleet.
But here is the point missed in all of this – it doesn’t matter if GM sells only one Cruze a year at $1 in profit. That is net profit; something the Cobalt could never do; I seemed to remember the object was not sell sheet metal at a loss, selling more is just a bonus. ANYTHING is an improvement over selling at a loss and making it up in volume. ;-)
It looks like Chevy has around 21000 Cruze on the lot at the beginning of Dec.
Nov. sales is about 8,000. No matter how you cut it, I have difficulty to understand how one can say ‘Cruze[‘s] inventory isunder 30 days’.
It’s the economy. Things are tight, very tight. When that happens people become very conservative. Cruze is a new plate from an average manufacturer. That translates into a very much wait and see attitude. Maybe the next car. Meanwhile the old standbys do well because they are a known quantity. Watch the new Focus. An old plate with a new car. Should be interesting. If Ford doesn’t F it up, it should do better than the Cruze.
If the Cruze is selling out here in Washington St, who knows as if I see them, I’m not aware of what they are as they seem to be blending in mighty well with all the other 4 door sedans on the road. :-)
That said, I’m starting to see more Fiestas on the road without even trying. On Tuesday coming home early not feeling well, spotted TWO of them, both hatchbacks at that. A red one at the parking garage where I work (clearly very new as no plates on it yet), the other parked on the street w/ the owner either putting in or getting out something from the back end, in blue.
As others have said, in this economy, cars are not flying off showroom/dealer lots as quickly overall so cars like the Fiesta and Cruze may take a little while to ramp up sales speed, but the real test is, are they selling reasonably close to MSRP or are they heavily discounted? That’s the real question as both seem to be priced as premium models for their respective classes.
Looks like a nice enough car. In all seriousness, I have never seen an ad for one. Never. I’ve been waiting to see one on the road, and have not.
The Cruze is an iPod/Bluetooth 20k interface on wheels (as is the 18k Fiesta). Consumer Reports reviewed the Fiesta, and gave it mediocre marks, far below the Honda Fit.
If the Cruze is too far behind the current Civic/Corolla, then it’s got a tough hill to climb, even if it’s got solid “bones” (as does the Fiesta).
“Toys” do not a $20k+ car make, at least in the “B” and “C” segments.
Edit: The upcoming Focus (as good as it’s predicted to be) will also test this theory — a hatchback equipped to my liking (with the 6spd auto) touched $25k – into well-equipped midsize sedan territory.
For all you hatchback lovers, Holden are starting full-scale local production of one next year, they’re also changing the engine (we don’t get the 1.4T here yet), and I can only hope the apocalyptically awful auto box too.
http://www.caradvice.com.au/94007/locally-produced-holden-cruze-spied/