Buick’s LaCrosse is dropping its little-loved 3.0 V6 base engine in favor GM’s direct-injected 2.4 liter four-banger, probably so it can use the magic term “3o MPG highway” in forthcoming marketing. The downsides? You mean, besides having to move over 4,000 lbs with a 182 hp, 172 lb-ft engine (compared to the 3.0’s 255 hp, 217 lb-ft)? (Read More…)
With rumors of another GM executive shakeup flying thick and fast, we expected a downright miserable sales performance from The General in February. By the year-over-year numbers [full release here, sales numbers in PDF format here], there’s no such flow of red tape, as GM’s four “core brands” gained 32 percent and total sales (including Hummer, Pontiac, Saab and Saturn) were up 11.5 percent. But that’s in comparison to February of 2009, when GM’s sales were down 53 percent from the year earlier. In short, GM appears to have hit bottom in terms of volume, but it still has yet to recover to anything close to 2008 volume.
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Corporate fleet sales were back with a vengeance last month, as GM admitted that these lower-profit fleet sales made up a full 29 percent of its total sales in January. Those total sales, including the winding-down Pontiac, Saturn, Saab and HUMMER brands were up only 13.6 percent. Core brand sales were up 30 percent in total, but again, most of those gains were in fleet sales, as core brand retail sales gained only 3 percent over GM’s moribund performance in January 2009. Zoinks! Full release in PDF format here, details after the jump.
Grand news for owners of 1999 model year and later Pontiacs! Buick-GMC GM Brian Sweeney tells Automotive News [sub] that “one of our most important tasks is keeping [Pontiac owners] in the database and keeping them as service customers until such a time that the Buick portfolio has developed fully.” The plan: send owners of 1999 model-year and later Pontiacs coupons for free tire rotations and oil changes. GM sales boss Susan Docherty has spoken about the importance of these “free agents,” or GM buyers orphaned by the cutting of their brands. As well she should: it’s more cost effective for any business to keep existing buyers than win over new ones. But is it free oil change easy? If GM thinks it can make Buick believers out of the jilted Pontiac faithful, what does it say about the cynicism with which it approaches branding? Once again, GM’s need to build lost Pontiac volume for the Buick-GMC dealer net leads to the willful suspension of common sense.
Buick has announced that it’s bringing a high(er)-performance GS version of its Opel Insignia-based Buick Regal to the Detroit Auto Show, and later, to the US market. And for once we’re left wishing we were getting a rebadge. After all, for the first several years of US sales, Insignias will be imported from Germany, meaning GM could easily have brought the thoroughly mad Insignia VXR/OPC as a quick-and-dirty (if not cheap) rebadge. After all, the point of the Regal (and especially the GS) is that “we’re trying to rebuild the performance credentials that Buick once held,” as GM reps put it. The European OPC/VXR version gets a 325 HP version of the turbocharged V6 found in the SRX and Saab TurboX, while the GS gets only a 255 hp version of the 2.0 Turbo found in the Solstice GXP. That engine can reportedly be tuned to an easy 310 hp and 300 lb-ft of torque, making the “base” Regal CXL with the 220 hp 2.0T engine a much smarter buy. Unless the idea of tuning a Buick is simply more cognitive dissonance than you can handle. Otherwise, the only thing the GS really brings to the table is AWD and a bodykit with more front-end venting than the United States Senate. Still, if you’re young enough to not get a discount at Denny’s and you have to own a Buick, the Regal is the way to go… especially once an enterprising tuner starts offering Opel badging and grilles in the US market.
Speaking to Bloomberg yesterday, GM Sales Boss Susan Docherty called December’s sales results “very encouraging.” Her argument: heavy fleet sales in December 2008 explain why December 09 results look worse by comparison. But spinning sales results as the product of conscious fleet percentage reductions is just one longstanding GM tradition that Docherty indulged in: talking points touting falling incentives and improved inventory weren’t far behind. None of which is necessarily indicative of a satisfactory performance. In fact, if you dissect the spin, it’s clear that what lies beneath is not nearly as attractive as the PR would have you believe.
GM’s December sales release shows a scenario that is reflected across the industry: hefty sales declines on the year with some evening out in December. GM’s sales fell six percent last month, the result of a 54 percent decline in “non-core” brands and a 2.2 percent increase in core brand sales. Still, considering December 08 sales were down nearly by half compared to 2007, it’s clear that GM still has some climbing to do to return to something resembling normalcy. Of the four core brands, the three smaller saw modest gains, with Buick climbing 37 percent, Cadillac gaining 11.4 percent and GMC improving 4.8 percent. But those gains were offset by a 1.5 percent decline in Chevy sales. For the year, Buick dropped 25.4 percent to 102,306 units, Cadillac fell 32.3 percent to 109,092 units, GMC fell 31.1 percent to 259,779 and Chevrolet dropped 25 percent to 1,344,629 units. [Complete GM sales data in XLS (Excel) form available for download here]
The production version of the Opel Meriva has debuted, and as promised, the suicide doors made the cut. But will the Meriva come to America, re-grilled as a Buick? A Gamma II-based MPV is rumored for Buick’s 2012 lineup, and suicide doors might just be the gimmick that helps America understand the concept of “premium compact.” Even though, as the image after the jump shows, they are little more than a gimmick.
You’d have to be a fairly trusting GM dealer to participate in what The General calls its Essential Brand Elements program. After all, it’s just the kind of dealership re-branding exercise that HUMMER dealers were forced into shortly before the brand was consigned to the ash heap of history. And once again, GM is asking dealers to create ideal showcases for its brands while keeping compensation for the renovations on a highly trust-dependent basis. GM wants brand-specific dealership rebrandings complete within three years, but will only pay for them over the next five to ten years reports Automotive News [sub]. And the payments won’t be fixed either, but will rather be tied to the dealer’s annual vehicle shipments using “a seasonally adjusted formula that takes into account the price of the vehicles sold.” According to Chevy’s Sales Manager Kurt McNeil, those payments could “conceivably” cover the recommended changes over the ten-year period. Are you feeling the trust yet?
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Saabsunited ran a recent piece by Sweden’s Dagensindustrie through Google Translate, and came out with a possible (and very old-GM) outcome for the new Epsilon II-based Saab 9-5:
According to Dagens Industri’s sources, GM is planning to use the new Saab 9-5: an own model program, including a future Buick in the U.S.. GM is also in a letter to Saab’s sub-contractors have estimated the time of closure of Saab to five years.
There are sources in Saab Automobile in the Dagens Industri – DI – indicates that GM now see positive opportunities to closure of Saab. By making use of Saab’s technology, tools and production equipment for GM use the new 9-5: an – that would be launched in the spring – to a future Buick in the U.S..
In the GM is also talk of exploiting Saab technology for the production of a new premium car for Opel, “says DI’s sources. It would then be about the reopening of the closed trial with an Opel Senator in Europe.
GM announced today that Buick-GMC sales manager Brian Sweeney has been promoted to the top spot at Buick-GMC after his predecessor Michael Richards left the position after nine days on the job. According to the Detroit News, Sweeney began his GM career at GMC in 1990 and has served as vice president of sales at Saab Cars USA and sales manager of GM’s north-central region.
The blood is flowing like water at the RenCen, as brand-new Buick-GMC manager Michael Richards has left General Motors after nine days on the job. The Detroit News reports that Susan Docherty’s replacement left to “pursue other career opportunities.” Richards had been VP Sales and Marketing at Austin, Texas automotive firm Trilogy, and according to the DetN’s sources:
Trilogy made a strong counteroffer to keep Richards, and he was said to be considering that offer in light of Friday’s management shakeup engineered by Chairman and CEO Ed Whitacre
So much for hiring outsiders.
From here on out, GM’s success in the US market comes down to two people: Susan Docherty and Mark Reuss. The two fielded their first joint sales conference call last week, and it was clear that they were still settling into their roles. Listen to the whole hour of awkwardness here, or, for a quick summary check out the final questions of the session (from the WSJ’s John Stoll), and the prickly, defensive answers from Docherty and Reuss. When Stoll asks how Reuss and Docherty expect to change a culture when they’re a product of that culture, the tension is palpable. Then, when Stoll accuses Docherty’s sales organization of buying market share with incentives, the pair’s non-answer is “I guess that’s what you feel.” Meanwhile, Edmunds reports that GM has by far the highest incentives of any automaker, with a True Cost of Incentives of $4,270, over a thousand dollars more than number two Chrysler. Good thing we’re tackling those problems head-on then.
“Susan is more than capable of doing the job,” said Mark LaNeve, a mentor of Ms. Docherty’s who left GM in October and is now CMO at Allstate. The position “is a very big job and it’s a lot easier when the market is good than when the market is bad.”
From AdAge‘s paean to GM Sales and Marketing Diva Susan Docherty. Of course, what AdAge fails to mention is that LaNeve was ousted after overseeing years of declining sales, a detail that casts his judgment on the topic severely into question. No worries though. AdAge enthuses that Docherty is
described by insiders and former co-workers as a smart, hard-charging and pragmatic leader who will push responsibility down the food chain and vigorously defend ad managers who work for her — while being a champion of creative and holding them accountable for their decisions.
Uh huh. Too bad the primary evidence for this is the fact that Docherty “vigorously defended” the Buick ad seen above from none other than GM’s Bob Lutz. A former colleague of Docherty’s describes that bold stand as “good for the creative side,” and GM CEO Ed Whitacre must agree, seeing as he recently stripped Bob Lutz of his marketing title and gave it to Docherty. When MaxBob sounds like the only sane person in the building and ousted deadwood execs are endorsing their replacements, you know it’s time to get scared.
Apparently you’re not a real blog anymore unless you play some part in the giddy rush to strip Tiger Woods of any remaining shred of privacy… so as much as we’d prefer to not escalade the situation, here goes. USA Today reports that the Cadillac Escalade Tiger allegedly drove into a fire hydrant doesn’t belong to him, but is actually owned by General Motors. Huh? Didn’t GM and Tiger part ways just over a year ago? Woods’ contract with GM was originally supposed to expire this year, so perhaps Tiger was due a few perks post-contract because of its early demise. Or, maybe the Escalade was just an old-fashioned celeb loaner. Either way, maybe this will change the conventional wisdom that lending free cars to celebrities is a good decision branding-wise. Especially for firms that are going to have to use taxpayer money to pay someone to buff out those 9-iron marks.
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