Yesterday, we wrote about Susan Docherty’s grand strategy for Cadillac: Make Cadillac great in Europe to convince the Chinese to buy Cadillac. Clever strategy. But what if it fails in Europe? Trust me, its European failure is assured. In the meantime, the story has landed in Europe. Germany’s premiere car dealer magazine Der Kfz-Betrieb runs with the story today (with a nice shout-out to TTAC, Danke.)
The experts at Der KFz-Betrieb give the grand Cadillac strategy only passing mention and recommend to check with TTAC if someone wants an assessment. What the magazine is most interested in are Docherty’s comments about the “lackluster performance of Chevrolet in Europe.” That grabs Deutschland’s dealers more than non-existent Caddy sales.
Docherty blames the ill-informed European customer. Docherty said that European customers know Chevrolet only for its Corvette and Camaro. “What they don’t know is the Spark and Aveo and Cruze and Orlando, and the newest one we’re about to launch, the Trax,” Docherty told WardsAuto. “Not only are we trying to raise the opinion of Chevrolet and Cadillac, we’ve got to increase the overall awareness.” Again, another laser-sharp Dochertanian observation.
Right on, says Kfz Betrieb: “German Opel and Chevrolet dealers have demanded more advertising for years. Chevrolet Germany however only wants to spend more for advertising when the dealers have moved more cars.” While chicken waits for egg and egg waits for chicken, Chevrolet’s sales dropped 40 percent in January in Europe.
While dealers are waiting for ads and GM is waiting for dealers to make them some money, there is plenty money to sponsor Manchester United. Says Kfz-Betrieb: “This deal did cost GM half a billion Euro, but it will hardly significantly raise the awareness of the brand and its specific products throughout Europe.”
Perhaps Europeans are too well informed – Europeans might just like to buy their Korean cars from the better Korean companies rather than rebadges through Chevrolet. At least the Vette and Camaro are authentic Chevrolets.
sorry thornmark, it only looks like a camaro it is a rebodied holden commodore, why do you think the current camaro is so huge?
“Please leave Susan alone!”
She didn’t mention the Volt.
Thankfully, she didn’t mention the war either.
Can I still use LOL if I really did?
Sure.
;-)
The Volt is sold in Europe as the Opel/Vauxhall Ampera.
It is instances such as this that give credence to Buickman’s charges that GM has a huge problem with their marketing program. Their market segmentation, product differentiation and product promotion in Europe seems very muddled (Chevrolet vs. Opel) and not based on any factual marketing research. I’m still scratching my head on the Cadillac-Europe-China thing from yesterday.
Someone needs to take Marketing 101 (again?) to develop come clarity around what they are trying to do.
“Someone needs to take Marketing 101 (again?) to develop come clarity around what they are trying to do.”
If only it were that easy! Auto advertising is as specialized as it gets, and having marketing that’s completely in tune with the industry, the products, and the desires of the customers is an art. It just isn’t taught in marketing courses.
The important people are not the honchos like Susan Docherty, but the advertising agency principal owners who do the hiring and the people they hire who have a feel for the market and actually do the work. Much of that work can be negated by honchos who exercise their authority over slogans and campaigns through meetings, presentations and focus group studies that water down the concepts, or miss them entirely.
“Marketing” “Advertising”
Marketing, done properly, is the whole product “food chain.” You start by asking yourself what product you need to address what market you intend to address, how much your product should cost to compete, what the capabilities must be, this gets merged with what engineering can develop and manufacturing can build. You probably want an advertising strategy up front but the ads themselves aren’t anywhere near the whole story.
If you don’t have a compelling product at a good price point, you end up flirting with the tail end of marketing, which is “how big must the incentives be?” and “how can we persuade rental car companies to take more of these off our hands?”
@Lorenzo
I’m talking about a bit more than just advertising, specifically the entire marketing mix: Price, Product, Promotion and Product Distribution (the 4 P’s).
I agree with you on the promotion part but I was focused more on the product and the segmentation of that product; note Marcelo’s comments below.
Yeah rpol, the competing Opel and Chevy lines make no sense. They share engines, part bin, styling, pricing. Does GM think the names are enough to make a buyer choose one over the other?
I mean, back when they were going to sell Opel, it made sense as GM needed a Euro presence. Now? Or they move Opel upmarket (easier said than done and where would the Adam fit?) or shut down the Opel line completely. Of course, what they’re doing is using Chevy as a threat against Opel and everyone involved (workers, German state).
This nonsense should just stop.
It is possible for differentiation to work – VW, Skoda and SEAT are examples of that. Is it working, not fantastically but given time and importantly commitment and consistency then it could be made to work. GM did try for Vauxhall and Opel to move a little upmarket to compete with VW – more soft touch interiors, better styling etc. This leaves some room below for companies like Dacia. Maybe Chevy could fill that role.
VW has the same issue, they moved SEAT and Skoda upmarket (from where they used to be when VW bought them) and now they have no budget brand to compete with Dacia.
True but that means discipline. Both Opel and Chevy lines are all over the place, from entry level to executive sallons. I know GM has been busy with bailouts, changing Daewoos into Cevies and more, but they need to get a move on about this ASAP.
Completely agree Marcelo, you need discipline to ensure the consistency needed. Market positioning takes a lot of time and energy to get right and if you don`t have it then you are in a no-mans land – which most manufacturers are.
@mike978
That was the original idea. Opel and Vauxhall would go slightly upmarket, similar to where Pontiac and Oldsmobile used to be in the US, while Chevrolet would be the value-priced brand, similar to how it’s traditionally been positioned here. Just like with Olds and Pontiac in their latter years, it hasn’t worked out too well in practice.
Opel/Vauxhall still sell a lot of cheap, entry level products that reach down into Chevy’s alleged territory, and Chevy has a number of nicer models and trim levels that reach upward into alleged Opel/Vauxhall territory.
It makes more sense when you consider that Chevrolet was launched as a direct replacement for Daewoo, and Daewoo’s positioning was clearly downmarket (even below where Chevy traditionally sits/sat in the States).
“It is instances such as this that give credence to Buickman’s charges that GM has a huge problem with their marketing program.”
Well, to be honest, it’s not like you can swing a cat around GM and not hit a major problem.
There were people here that defended the soccer sponsorship. Half a billion Euros is real money. It’s about 650 million dollars, which is more than many Obama bundlers received from the Department of Energy. Spending that kind of money under the pretense of convincing Europeans to buy rebadged Daewoos was absurd. The UK market isn’t big enough to justify that kind of spend on ‘value priced’ car advertising. The message to car buyers in general is what? Are people supposed to associate the cars with the athletes? What a joke. Thanks to idiots like GM management showering them with cash, none of the players will ever drive a car that sells in the kind of numbers to justify hundreds of millions in advertising.
$650 million probably would have gotten a Chevy bow tie on the cowl of winning Formula 1 car. That may not have been worth it either, considering Honda slapped the Europeans around for a few years without becoming a significant car company in the crumbling continent. Maybe they should have spent the money on product instead.
Man U has a huge fan base in Asia as well as Europe.
I guess you don’t understand Manchester United’s reach. It wasn’t just about Europe…its primarily about China and Asia.
If its such a stupid idea, why is a Thai branch of Honda a sponsor of an English soccer club?
http://bangkokpost.newspaperdirect.com/epaper/viewer.aspx
Here’s a list of all their sponsors to help you understand:
http://www.manutd.com/en/Club/Sponsors.aspx
If anyone else involved ponied up $650 million dollars, then you aren’t impotently wasting your time.
Its a 7 year deal…so its not $650 million per year. You do understand that right?
Its also a shirt logo deal after year 1 or so…which does cost more.
Do you think Mister Potato has the type of revenue that Chevy does worldwide and should be paying the same to be the offical ‘snack’
Nike/man U rumored to be talking about a $1.6 billion dollar deal.
http://www.brandchannel.com/home/post/2012/10/24/Nike-Man-U-102412.aspx
Am I still wasting my time?
Mister Potato will see a greater return on their investment. Nike sells lots of shoes to soccer players. Daewoo?
Brillant as usual CJ. You get how advertising works.
Here’s a few more tips. I doubt Michael Jordan wears Hanes everyday. This might shock you–but I’m guessing Lebron James doesn’t eat McDonalds very often either.
You started this by stating how stupid it was for Chevy to pay a ton of money to market Chevy’s in Europe…I was just showing you how it really wasn’t about Europe.
Then, you were ‘shocked’ at the money..and I showed you that it takes big $$ to be a big sponsor of a team with worldwide exposure.
Now, you claim to know that Mister Potato will have better ROI on bags of chips than Chevy might get with exposure in emerging markets like China/Thailand etc…not to mention the coverage in South America and other markets that get exposed to Man U.
When you run out of ideas..you just type ‘Daowoo’
Whatever.
You want soccer players driving the cars?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XB9IA29IsP4&list=PLCBtJWKd3vCSWAt1iSEq56_QIrWvzSDyu&index=1
http://media.chevrolet.com/media/us/en/chevrolet/news.detail.html/content/Pages/news/us/en/2013/Feb/0212_manchester-utd.html
Is that good enough for you?
Commercials are real? Wow! The players publicly accepted the free cars that were what they had to take to get the millions they wanted? OMG!!! Brilliant! Maybe GM do Korea can succeed where Vauxhall and Opel failed. Right.
Hey, the German article called TTAC US-based! Are you going to take it lying down? Call them Nazis or something…
Isn’t TTAC owned by a Canadian company? Managed by a German guy in Asia and with news, articles and comments coming from all corners of the globe? Are you competing with GM to see who is less US-based?
As for Susan, still looking like a Dilbert manager.
We never “got” soccer. But look what we did with rugby. Is soccer a class thing in Europe?
As my English father puts it: “Football [soccer] is a gentleman’s sport played by hooligans. Rugby is a hooligan’s sport played by gentlemen.”
For the English, it definitely it is a class thing. For everyone else, soccer is just better.
your father knows of what he speaks!
I hope he doesn’t know too well, as he also is confident we (Tottenham Hotspur fans) will lose Gareth Bale come the end of the season, and I really don’t want that to happen, since at this point, he IS the team…
sadly for you he’s gone. He’s the new golden boy, kinda like Beckham. Let’s just hope his talent is, how can i put this?, ahem, more constant than David’s.
@juicy sushi
The winning strike yesterday was amazing!
Yeah, he’s too good, but I hold out hope. If we make the Champion’s League and get a decent striker, he MIGHT stay. But, as a Spurs fan, I dwell in perpetual heartbreak.
I understand the feeling JuicySushi. My favorite soccer team is Atlético in Brasil. We are brothers in our perpetual sorry. Though yesterday we licked in Argentinian team, in Argentina by 5-2 in the Libertadores Championship. The greatest wash out by a Brazilian team on Argentine soil. But don’t worry fans of other teams, we won’t win. Sigh!
No, not really. Probably slightly more popular in poorer areas of the different countries but not much besides that.
“the crumbling continent”
+1
They’re going down the tubes faster than we are.
In today’s world, that’s a win.
Yes we are, but faster then the US? The Debt-GDP ratio and the rate of debt expansion puts the US ahead in the race to bankruptcy, but the tensions are easier to spot in the EU due to it being made up of independent countries. I for one am eagerly awaiting the British exit, in trade terms it would be like Texas seceding from the Union, not due to some dislike of the British – they did manage to sink a ship with a Carl Gustav after all – but as some kind of economic experiment.
I’m uncomfortable with your portrayal of Docherty. Yes, maybe she is full of shit but you should be a little more respectful. I don’t see you calling a male executive “ditzy” or whatever the male equivalent is. And even if you did use the same or similar terms for a male executive, it is still unprofessional. Question their leadership skills or decisions, sure. But you don’t need to attack them as a person. I think I might go back to Jalopnik if these “stupid bitch said…” posts don’t stop soon.
OK, so maybe “ditzy” is misogynistic. In the future, please make use of only unisex adjectives for Ms. Docherty, of which there are numerous, such as pinhead, a$$hat, failure-to-be,…
there are myriad equivalents that are used on this site near daily. Language like this should not surprise anyone. I also sense that Bertel is no longer too interested in maintaining a facade of professionalism; like him or not, he has little left to prove.
Maybe Bertel can do all of us a favor and ban himself for uncivil conduct?
TTAC Law
Ironically, after the “no blonde jokes please” plea yesterday.
Seconded
Corntrollio, I’m still waiting for you to tell me if you’re enjoying the “new normal”. And do remember to tell the truth, because, as the song says, it is a sin to tell a lie.
I don’t know what you’re talking about with this “new normal” nonsense. Again, I solely pointed out that it’s silly for an “old, fat, and rich” guy to complain about declining standard of living for peasants on the internet and then you made weird assumptions about my politics that aren’t true.
See the original thread:
https://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/2013/02/susan-docherty-has-a-great-idea-how-to-kill-cadillac/#comment-2011686
Why should Bertel (or anyone for that matter) be respectful of Susan? If Docherty was doing a good job, she would have nothing to worry about and people would be throwing accolades at her feet a la Alan Mulally.
But she’s not. Not only is she doing a terrible job, she’s saying incredibly stupid things and making what is already a mess at GM that much worse.
If she did her job piss poorly but kept her mouth shut, we could all wonder just how incompetent she is. It’s quite another for her to blather on regarding topics she’s clearly uninformed on and create another problem for GM.
First rule of marketing: Never blame the customer!
Instead of just slapping a bowtie on the Man U jerseys (kits? shifts? jumpers? WHATEVER they call them), they should build a Chevrolet that famous footballers want to buy. I’m thinking a re-badged Continental GT with pink leather seats.
Guess this further “proof” of my assertion yesterday that this lady knows what she’s doing, namely, the corporate game. She’s toeing the company line. Of course, it won’t help much with sales and growth for GM, but it shows her grasp of company’s ins and outs and she’ll son be calling bigger shots back in America.
Meanwhile, GM is burning cash and trying to raise executive privileges, I mean, pay. Yes Mr Ackerson, I’m sure yu’ve earned it.
“and she’ll son be calling bigger shots back in America.”
Unlikely, she already did that and it didn’t go so well. Europe was a way to ditch her from the Ren Center in Detroit.
These things are called lateral promotions. She set out from Detroit with orders. If she fulfills those orders, she’ll be back in Detroit with more power than ever.
Anyways, you could be right. This euro assignment is a tricky one. Maybe it’s designed to make her fail.
This is all part of a huge stake corporate game the details of which we are not privy to. Damn the peasents below. We can only watch and try to read the message in the clouds.
Docherty was once GM’s Vice President for U.S. Marketing. That was the high point of her career. In 2010 she was demoted and sent to China to manage GM’s Asian marketing. From there she made her move to Europe.
In terms of visibility the move to Europe is a step up from China, but Docherty is still a long way from her former position at the Ren. Cen.
Professional executive infighters are survivors. All it’ll take is somebody else screwing up, or a new internal alliance forming, or a new boardroom patron, and she’ll be moving up and around in the organization. The fact that this is still going on after a planned bankruptcy and under the noses of federal monitors shows nothing fundamental has changed at the top at GM.
A simple question: Why is an American, in this case Susan Docherty who has been parachuted in, handling the Chevrolet brand in Europe – rather than a European?
With regards to the Chevy brand – buying a Asian designed Chevy indicates number one that’s all the buyer could afford.
When I got my MBA in International Business, the first lesson was “Always try to hire a local to run your branch.” Americans do not get the Euro mentality for a variety of cultural and history reasons. I was stupid to put her there.
@OldandSlow
Some reasons:
– Power;
– Display of power;
– Concentration of power in people who benefit from the power of Detroit.
Power.
GM managed to tarnish one of its most famous and recognized nameplates in Europe by slapping the Chevrolet badge on second-rate Daewoos a few years ago. Now it’s paying the price for it.
They did the same thing here. In their defense, Daewoos may not have been good enough to measure up to Hyundais and Suzuki badged Daewoos may not have been good enough to measure up to Mitsubishis, but people coming out of real Chevrolets think the new Chevy badged Daewoos are an improvement.
“people coming out of real Chevrolets think the new Chevy badged Daewoos are an improvement.”
Please expand on that a bit because I have quite the opposite opinion.
I’m basing that on what I’ve seen here and on other car forums in defense of the Lacetti. If you think the Cobalt and Cavalier were better, I agree with you right up until the point where I say something neutral on the subject and have to hear a list of what’s gone wrong with a two year old Cobalt.
Blame the customer – always a winning strategy.
Ok, I’m watching Top Gear UK last night and Jeremy is going on about how good this Vauxhall car is and that it doesn’t have the status as a Mondeo (Ford) but it’s better. So I goggle Vauxhall and it’s owned
by GM, interesting – good car, but lacks street cred with the folks that care about that stuff. Maybe a favorable review on Top Gear is better than all the corny commercials.
Vauxhall (and Opel) make on the whole good cars in Europe. The problem is that one the one hand Ford makes “sporty handling” cars and Volkswagen make “premium quality” cars. Whether this is true or not is not the point, it is the perception. So where does Vauxhall (or for that matter PSA, Renault, FIAT etc) fit?
The same market position problem is seen with Mercedes. You have BMW making “sporty cars” and Audi making “luxurious cars”. Again whether they are really sporty or not is irrelevant. The perception is that, so what does Mercedes do? Same goes for Acura, Infiniti, Lexus etc and it shows by the limited success those brands have enjoyed outside the US.
It just goes to show you need to have some unique market position – style, quality, driving dynamics etc.
I wouldn’t put to much stock on a top gear review. It was a Focus and not a mondeo btw.
Herr Schmitt, Do you agree with Docherty’s assertion that for Cadillac to be successful in China it must first succeed in Europe? I’d think they might do better to sell it as what it is, a step up from a Buick. Could that work?
I was thinking the same. Sell Cadillacs next to Buicks. Or is this the type of common sense GM finds absurd?
Without agreeing or disagreeing with her statements…I think her point is that Audi, for example, is moving 400,000 plus units a year in China/Hong Kong and Cadillac is shooting for 100,000 units by 2015.
To attempt to catch up to the ‘brand’ that helps Audi sell so many cars, she is saying that having a European reputation would help.
There is no doubt Cadillac is going to increase sales in China beginning this year as XTS and ATS production starts up in China. The point is to try to get closer to Audi/BMW who are light years ahead.
Buick already sells 700,000 units a year there. Chevy is at 630,000 ish units a year. I’m sure they want to continue the Chevy/Buick growth and add Cadillac to the mix at higher margins.
She is just stating what she thinks it will take to get Cadillac up and going closer to the German luxury brands…she’s also a bit selfish in that she’s reponsible for Chevy/Cadillac in Europe and also wants some $$ into product (diesels etc) to help carve out a small share there.
@sunridge place: Stop reading the Ms. Docherty’s comments without the proper sarcasm and derision intended by the OP. We all know that all of GM worldwide is so totally incompetent that the whole organization will collapse upon itself at any moment. 4, 3, 2, 1… (end sarcasm)
Sheesh. I can’t believe this thread has gone 70+ comments on something like this. Like someone else further up said, if a man had said these things (or for that matter, any other person, male or female), it would hardly be worth noticing.
The thing is, Buick has a long, favorable reputation in China. The last emperor owned one, and Buick sent a team of engineers to teach the emperor’s mechanics how to maintain it. Others in the imperial court followed suit. Then the revolution came, but Sun Yat Sen owned a Buick too, and the officers in the new republic followed suit. Buick was seen as a premium car, but Cadillac has no such reputation there.
“What they don’t know is the Spark and Aveo and Cruze and Orlando, and the newest one we’re about to launch, the Trax,”
How delicious I caught here referencing a discontinued model!
http://www.chevrolet.com/discontinued-vehicle/aveo.html
Also I can’t imagine being European and being remotely interested in any of those save Orlando, but again I’m not so I dunno. Will a diesel be offered?
The Sonic is called the Aveo in Europe
The Europeans will likely be interested in the Spark and Sonic/Aveo, too. The Cruze is the one that’ll spark the least interest. As to the Orlando, I don’t know but I think the Opel Mokka is the same thing and has been doing well. If that’s the case and the Orlando is priced way below the Mokka, they might look at the Orlando too.
Marcelo, Mokka does not have anything to do with Orlando. Mokka twin will be the Trax, to be launched in Europe in May -June, sharing platformm with Mokka and Buick Encore. Orlando actually does not have an Opel equivalent, perhaps Zafira could be considered as such but Zafira is a far more refined product
Thanks for clarification Analoca!
The Cruze* is available with a diesel, as a 5/4 door hatchback and as a station wagon, the Aveo has a diesel option as does the orland, the captiva, the malibu and probably the future trax.
*The consensus in the reviews seems to be “meh!”, not bad but nothing special either at a decent price.
Well, just look at how closely the US auto industry is working with the rest of the world. It’s very insular considering its design regs, emission regs, CAFE regs. Mmmm, very socialist or are the Europeans socialist?
People don’t see this?
The US doesn’t have the influence it used to. What about vehicle quality?
We have US built BMWs in Australia and the percieved quality from Korean Hyundais is on par.
GM and Ford have been trying to rule their empire from Detroit for many years and don’t take into consideration other markets well enough.
The United States was the first to country enact safety and emission standards for vehicles, so you instead need to ask why Europe and Japan simply didn’t adopt the U.S. standards, too. (Particularly since European and Japanese manufacturers were already selling cars in the United States, and had demonstrated the capability of meeting the American standards.)
If there are great variations in quality among a manufacturer’s vehicles depending on where it is built, that is the result of a management problem, not the local workforce. Which suggests that BMW hasn’t figured out how to successfully manufacture vehicles outside of Germany. Honda, Hyundai, Nissan and Toyota have had no problems getting their American factories to produce high-quality vehicles. U.S.-built Hyundais, Nissans, Hondas and Toyotas are equal to anything built in Japan or South Korea.
“If there are great variations in quality among a manufacturer’s vehicles depending on where it is built, that is the result of a management problem, not the local workforce. Which suggests that BMW hasn’t figured out how to successfully manufacture vehicles outside of Germany.”
As far as I can tell, their South Carolina plant has been just fine — Big Al is just trolling here. And let’s remember BMW built Z3s, the 1st gen Z4s, X5s (1st/2nd), X6 (current), and X3 (current) here in the US, and also I believe a few 3-Series models specifically for the US in the mid-90s.
I believe Mercedes’ issues with the M-Class in Alabama was more notable than any BMW growing pains with BMW US Manufacturing in South Carolina.
@corntrollio
I’m not trolling. I do go to the States (Asia/Europe) very frequently. For both work and family.
Even the Euro vehicles built in the US are of a general lower quality than what their parents in Germany are producing.
My mother bought a Focus (US) last year. The quality of the finish and the interior is worse than any vehicle I know of. She might have bought it for $16 000, but it wouldn’t even sell in Australia.
My brother bought a US manufacturered Kia and the all round quality is better, but its still not as good as a Korean vehicle.
In Australia we recieve many Thai sourced vehicles and the quality of them is better than a NA manufactured import let alone a Big 3 vehicle.
As for the protectionist measures and follow the US’s lead? They put those measures in place to stiffle imports. Plus all of the trade barriers stiffle competition.
Those trade barriers worked for 30 years or so. Now they are hindering the US, the US is now importing technology.
Read up on the global harmonisation of vehicles. And then seriously look at what is going on in the NA market.
I will say over the past 10 years significant inroads have been made in the NA market concerning build quality, but you still have a number of years to go before you catch up to the Asians and some Europeans (Germans/Swedes etc).
Leadership of the Asian car companies has specifically stated that there is no difference in the build quality between vehicles assembled in the United States and those assembled in their home markets.
U.S emissions and safety standards have been in effect since the late 1960s. The first federal vehicle safety standards, for example, went into effect for the 1967 model year.
The government didn’t put them in to “stifle” imports. If it did, the move failed miserably, as the imports’ share of the American market was less than 10 percent in 1967, and had doubled that figure by the early 1980s.
At any rate, Europeans and Japanese were quite free to adopt our standards, seeing as how we were ahead of them in addressing pollution and safety issues with motor vehicles.
The United States auto market is doing quite well. You do realize, for example, that profits from their North American operations have played a large part in maintaining the health of Toyota and Honda?
You only believe that Thai made vehicles are better than North American-made vehicles because you’ve largely experienced/suffered with Australian-made vehicles. They have long been inferior to their North American counterparts for reliability and build quality. (Ford hasn’t imported the Australian-made Falcon, for example, because its quality would not be acceptable to Americans.)
Contrary to your belief, stated in prior threads, there is no burning desire in the United States to replace F-150s and Silverados with diesel-powered Thai pickups. Those vehicles simply do not offer the flexibility, comfort and reliability that Americans expect from their trucks.
As as quality goes Japanese/ Hyundai/Kia have the highest ranking in Australia. Next are Australian built models(built to local conditions use Asian sourced parts where US/European parts problematic) then a tie between US/European sourced vehicles in this case US is Chrysler.
The Ford Taurus, Explorer and Suburban were horrible vehicles that had a very short shelf life in Australia.
As far as diesel powered Pickups go. Ram is introducing a full size model. GM will have the Colorado midsize diesel.
Euro V is basically the general Global default pollution standard. US Diesels cannot be imported by companies using Euro V or even Euro IV. The Japanese use their own system and US diesels do not meet their criteria either.
The Chevrolet SS if you are aware is the new Holden VF with a Chevrolet badge.
@geeber
I have never stated that, show me where. That’s almost trolling, are you a troll?
I have stated there is an uneven playing field regarding the protectionist measures aiding the Big 3 with full size pickups.
Remove the barriers and let mid sizers compete on a level playing field.
But don’t “Americanise” them, use the ones we have. They will be competitive against a full size. But this will not occur, because it will cost jobs.
A lot of you NA types look at your midsizers and think thats what the world uses. We don’t, you’re midsizers are verging on anitquity. Because there is no sense investing into these vehicles due to the protection a full size recieves.
Leave the US and look around the world, look at what goes on. The US isn’t the centre of the universe, not for the past decade, anyway.
Oh, by the way I’m from the States.
The “EU” standard is the global standard, the US should adopt the global standard instead of having a set of norms unique too them. This would make life easier for all parties involved but somebody surly has some clout and something to gain by preventing that.
Noooo! If we start down that road, we’ll be stuck with the Metternich system too. The language will be ruined: “Give them 25.4 millimeters and they’ll take 1.609 kilometers”; “28.375 grams of prevention is worth 454 grams of cure”, etc. Do we really want to go there?
In for a 1/12 of a shilling in for 20 shilling.
I agree it would make things a lot simpler.US engine displacement was in Cubic inches now it is Litres. Change is happening but at a snails pace.
this truly is a woman without a clue and a perfect example of what is wrong at GM. she is as incompetent as they come and as abysmal of a failure if ever there was one. she has no business pretending to be anything more than a glorified secretary and should be immediately downgraded to exactly that.
You think it’s a good use of GM’s money to have her on the payroll in ANY capacity?
Seems like she’s proven time and again that her incompetence has no limitations.
Now I know what her logic reminds me of…
“If we beat the Russians the English will give up.”
Just about as likely, too.
“They’re going down the tubes faster than we are.
In today’s world, that’s a win.”
Yes not too many happy campers around.
Doesn’t it suck to be on the dying end of a magnificent society?
Crap.
Susan, I’m going to help you. What I am going to tell you came from my BFF, Gerald. I know I can believe Gerald because I met him the way men meet all the important friends that we keep for life: we were attempting to tap a fresh keg at a frat party after having consumed WAY too many mugs from the previous keg.
Gerald, before he became a leading Oriental fertility doctor, founded and ran a successful graphic design business. One day I asked him, given that work on a project began months before it is seen, how they kept it fresh – how did they predict the future. Gerald told me that at least four times a year he and his wife traveled to London to see what was trending with the more avant garde gay community. He stated that’s where trends began. He then went on to tell me how trends worked their way through the more progressive straight crowd, etc, etc. The upshot was that by the time a trend reached mainstream America, it had basically been dead for two years.
Susan, hang out with the gay crowd and put them into Cadillacs. This probably won’t help you in Europe (you should probably give up on that anyway) but, get your dealers in Omaha ready. In two years they’ll be selling Cadillacs faster than they can unload them off the transporters.
Instead of trying to sell Cadillacs to those who will never buy them (no one buyed the Cadillac BLS wagon! diesel! stick! aka Saab 9-3 – it was an answer to a question no one ever asked) – build a new halo car for Europe, just for car shows, the press and showrooms.
Opel Diplomat “4 dr Coupé” based on the Cadillac XTS, baroque, curvy and plenty of headroom in the backseat.
I6 triturbo diesel shopped at BMW.
Rolf Benz leather.
Elm wood trim.
Glashütte dash clock.
T+A sound system.
Handbuilt in the Bochum plant.
Limited to 150 units, half of them armoured.
Plus 50 convertibles.
Why all the effort?
Just to sell an XTS based high volume Opel Admiral.
And an rebageded ATS based Opel Kapitän.
You are really going beyond the truth here. What she said is that the customer is uniformed about the products. She didn’t say it was the customers fault that they don’t know about the products. She is saying that GM hasn’t informed them. When consumers don’t know about the products, it is a marketing failure. In this case, it is also a product failure because of the lack of diesel options, including what Caddy is doing.
I get it, you don’t like Docherty, but be honest with the criticism.