Greg, do you have any sources for your claim that production is not growing like they are saying?
I didn't say growing, I said screwing with the numbers.
I recently was looking at new cars and used cars and I have to tell you, I am really impressed with what GM has put out there. They are finally putting a product out there that people want and are buying. I have a friend who is car salesman at a Buick-GMC dealership. The new Regal, Lucerne and Enclave are selling quite well. Along with Chevy's new line of vehicles, GM is is doing quite well from what my friend tells me. Just take a look around while driving, I see more American built cars on the road than foreign cars which hasn't been the case in a loooong time.
I just don't agree with the idea this is what people want, I think a lot of people want to change and GM offers a change for them. Like Ford who has been targeting Honda and Toyota owners, GM has used their "we're back" call to their advantage but nevertheless, they are still the same old arrogant company that caused them to run it into the ground in the first place.
The mainstay of their product line that are in the showrooms now were in the design phase (face lift phase if you really want to know) before they were in bankruptcy. There is really nothing new or exciting when you look at them and do a side by side comparison to other vehicles. Without debt and using the money from the tax payers, they accelerated the process to bring these revised vehicles to the market. Whether or not you are seeing more American made products on the road is not the issue, the issue is that they, GM through their press corp, are claiming that they will regain market share and become stronger than they have been.
Any sources on that? The one thing my friend, the salesman says, is that they have a lot of customers wanting to buy but the banks aren't lending. Which I am glad to see, for obvious reasons, but it is frustrating for him
Er... let me see ... GM ... again. GM's efforts to purchase a lender who deals in sub-prime loans is a known fact, talked about even on Bloomberg, and the fact that they have been very open in how they want to approach getting market share - through any means possible.
See the one thing that many miss is that sales are divided up into two groups - one is leasing which is not a sale, and the other is a sale where the person actually owns the car (this was discussed in great detail when these domestic companies were begging for taxpayer money). The former is where the problem actually is because the vehicle is in the hands of the consumer for less than 2 years and it is returned to the market while it holds its resale value but is less expensive compared to the new version of it. This is where the three got into trouble because when they were trying to market cars, they ran into competition with their own products within the life cycle of the car. The loyalty of the consumer wasn't a factor in the longterm, and unlike their competition, they counted on the their luck that their product will sustain them for a while. Why should I buy a 2010 Chevy Cobalt when I can get a 2008 that looks the same, with a good warranty and a huge savings?
The other part that people miss is that production does not equate to sales and sales doesn't always mean that the public likes your product. We are in an odd cycle (source conversations with U of M economists) where the people are tired and are driven by the need to consume. Nothing new is really coming out of Detroit, they are modifications of older vehicles but they are something different than what people may be driving right now.
I gotta to tell ya, I am about sick of people whinning about this Volt. The car isn't even available yet. What I think is controversial is the price tag.
Actually I have driven one of the pre-production test cars a week ago and yes they are available and being delivered to real customers starting this week. Whining isn't really the right term, complaining is. They, GM, has taken tax payer money and used it to build another Hybrid which they are claiming that is an electric vehicle, just like they claimed the range will be great, and that GM is on the cutting edge of electric vehicle production when they didn't even have the thing off the drawing board. Even California said NO to the idea that it is an electric car and will not allow the electric vehicle tax credit to be used for a Volt Purchase. The other side of the coin is the pricing, it is priced with the Federal tax credit in mind, using again tax payer money to fund something that they need to be competitive and realistic about, AGAIN GM failed to understand the market and again depends on something from outside to bail their arrogance out.
As for the car itself, I wasn't impressed as others were, it was OK by GM standards, which is lower than what should be. The fit and finish was not as what I would call great and the range was rather limited. I think that the Tesla that I drove shows a lot more promise and a lot more initiative and more or less something that indicates they are looking at the market the right way.
That will be argued until the end of time, what's done is done.
True but it is something that should have never happened but people seem to don't get that a company like GM won't just go away, it will be bought up and workers will continue to work. The doom and gloom scenario used to convince us that it was the right thing to do should next time be considered as much of a fallacy as the loch nest monster.
I would like to know your sources on the claims above though, because I am hearing and seeing a totally different story and I'd like to see what other's have to say.
You will always hear different things, the problem is a serious effort to make it look like the company is a success is underway and has been since that first day when these companies asked for help. All of this is rooted in the media and in those who either have a financial stake in it or those who lied to us and gave them all the money. It seems the same can be said for the fact that there is a information war going on against those who see the market as it truly is, a multinational one. GM and Ford are equal to Toyota, Honda and Kia (to name a few) who ALL produce American built cars for the American market. It seems many refuse to consider that US employment by foreign owned companies as part of the overall equation and even when Chrysler was owned by Daimler (a German company) it was still considered an American company even though it wasn't.
By the way Highway, the range of the Volt (42 miles on a full charge) was a third of the Tesla's range and got 33 mpg, which was about 14 mpg less than the VW jetta I borrowed a few weeks ago and about a little less than half of the mpg I got from a Diesel Fiesta (60 mpg). SO what I call it is an overrated overpriced hybrid.
