Joey D
Premium
- 47,538
- Lakes of the North, MI
- GTP_Joey
- GTP Joey
GM- A Year In Review 2005
Source: www.gminsidenews.com
Editorial by GMinsidenews Admin nsap
Last year the primary focus of my annual editorial was the seven-million recalls GM performed- and we thought that was bad! This past year has without a doubt been one of their worst, from a business standpoint. We’ve heard about multi-billion dollar losses, poor sales, rebates for the record books and now bankruptcy. Product-wise we’ve seen some great new entries from the General in just about every division and slowly more and more positive reviews from the critics, but not enough to turn the giant around this year.
This year GM finally deciding that something must be done to counter the four-billion GM has lost this year- they announced a massive restructuring for their North American operations. The plan called for the closing of nine North American facilities and the cut of around 30,000 employees. Some "analysts" say that the restructuring isn’t enough and that more needs to be done, but those same analysts said GM would remain number one until around 2010. Supposedly this plan will save GM seven-billion by the end of 2006.
Probably the most defining point this year was the ‘Employee Discount For Everyone’ campaign GM started this summer. Its been considered good and bad. Good in the sense that it moved a hell of a lot of vehicles at cheap prices, bad in that most of the vehicles were sold with little or no profit to GM. That promotion is starting to bite back at GM right now, with sales on a steady decline. That, along with products- according to critics, that no one wants has really caused GM to take a beating this year.
Marketing
In the past marketing has always been a lackluster sector of GM. With the arrival of Mark LeNeve as GM marketing czar, things have changed in 2005. Pontiac commercials have easily been some of the best commercials on the tube. Showcasing the product, comparing and most importantly, in a setting that appeals to Pontiac's target audience. Chevrolet has really found its niche in advertising (at least in commercials) as well. Their commercials tend to give their cars personality, and it all started with the SSR "Soap" commercial that debuted during this year’s SuperBowl and continued with the awesome Cobalt commercials that gave the Cobalt this rebel "Corvette’s little brother" image. The Chevrolet trend is still continuing with a new commercial about the HHR and Impala- where a bunch of rappers rap about the two new products for a minute, while some very neat views of the vehicles are showed. Finally, they know how to market their products! That's half the battle in today's market.
Divisional Reviews
GM’s bread-and-butter division- Chevrolet, has had (in some sense) a good year. They’ve had increases throughout the world and have become the number-one selling passenger car brand in America. Taking the title from Ford. Chevrolet had several important product launches in 2005, everything from the $16,000 HHR to the $65,000 Corvette ZO6. The HHR and ZO6 both represent GM’s ‘Value Promise’ best and obviously the public feels that way as well, but great price aside- I could speak hours about the new ZO6 and how it is truly America’s exotic car. One that can take on the best from Europe and its own American counterparts- all of which can’t even come CLOSE to the base price. Along with the HHR and ZO6 have came a revised Malibu, new Impala and Trailblazer SS. All five of those new or revised models have gotten good reviews with the Impala being considered on par or ahead of the competition and the Trailblazer SS being raved as the RWD performance "sedan" Chevrolet hasn’t had in awhile.
Poor Pontiac was called a ‘damaged brand’ this year by Bob Lutz, but Pontiac did have one REALLY bright spot. The Solstice made its way to dealerships this past year. Making its national sales debut on The Apprentice, the first 1,000 Solstice’s were sold in 41 minutes. If that doesn’t speak volumes about the car, I don’t know what will. Solstice proves to us that GM can turn a concept into production with less than a few millimeters of changes and that, most importantly, they can use the corporate parts bin effectively. Pontiac also brought us the Torrent in 2005. Sure, it’s a great product, but not for Pontiac. The money spent on the Torrent should have been spent to refresh the Equinox to keep it competitive.
Cadillac just continues to get better every year. 2005 brought us the new DTS full-sizer and, as I write this, the STS-V. To many people’s surprise, the DTS has received some inviting reviews from the critics and members here on GMI. Of course a lot of people would have liked to of seen a totally new product to replace the DeVille, the DTS does the job and caters to DeVille loyalists. I am considering the STS-V as one of Cadillac’s ground-breaker products. Why? Because it is taking its German counterparts by the throat and actually beating the Mercedes CLS55 AMG in comparison tests. Probably the most impressive asset to the STS-V is its 469 HP 4.4L Supercharged V8. Not only is it a Northstar, but it sports an industry first- an integrated supercharger that mutes that infamous supercharger squeal as well as make the engine run Lexus-like smooth, but don’t let that smoothness fool you; when you hit the start button the display on the instrument panel says "Are you ready for STS-V?." A perfect sign you’re still in a Caddy.
After reading some of the comments that followed my Buick- Will It Survive article, and most recently BigAl’s call for Buick’s death, I think it’s safe to say that there are many people who still have a soft spot for Buick. GM must as well, considering they have reportedly invested five-billion in the "damaged" division. So far that five-billion has brought us the LaCrosse, Terraza and the just-arrived Lucerne. Only the Lucerne has been welcomed to positive reviews. The other two have had lackluster reviews from critics. If GM wants to continue to call Buick a division they are going to have to give us more than three lukewarm products. Buick has the potential to be GM’s Lexus fighter, especially in terms of quality, it’s just going to take the right products. Possibly the upcoming Lambda crossover will show Buick’s true potential.
Hummer has had a great year in 2005. The arrival of the new H3 has caused Hummer to become the fastest growing brand in the U.S. As of the end of November Hummer had moved 27,205 H3’s, over 70% of those being conquest sales, keep in mind that GM initially expected to sell 25,000 H3’s a year… needless to say, that number was slightly understated. Hopefully the H3’s success is an indication that the world has a fetish for small, more fuel efficient Hummers.
There really isn’t much to say about GMC for 2005. They always seem to be the quiet division in General Motors. 2005 hasn’t brought them any new product, so I guess we can discuss the future of GMC. Some people believe that GMC is a "useless" division that consists of only Chevrolet rebadges. That may be the case right now, but GMC is the second-most profitable division in General Motors (why wouldn’t they be with nothing but trucks) and profit means a lot to the General right now. Of course GMC is getting nearly an all new line up in the next couple of years, starting with the 2007 Yukon line, 2008 Sierra line and the Acadia (or Envoy if they choose to call it that) crossover will all arrive between 2006-2007 calendar years. After that GMC looks to be getting a Lambda-based minivan (shared with Chevrolet) as well as the Pontiac Torrent. Yay! No more Pontiac crossovers and minivans!
Ah, now for Saturn. In 2005 we received a new Vue from Saturn and that is about the extent of product changes at the "different" brand. Surprisingly what little changes did take place on the new Vue- made positive impacts. Vue sales are up just over 3-percent for the year while Saturn as a whole is about broke even in terms of sales. But who wants to hear about the current Saturn when the future looks so bright? In about 79 days the new Sky Kappa-based roadster will be hitting the market. The Sky represents a new Saturn- one with all of its rings. With beautiful European designs, benchmarking interiors and Saturn’s "people" reputation its just no hard to figure out that Saturn is going to be one hot division in the future. After the Sky we’ll get the Vue Green Line Hybrid, Aura sedan, Outlook crossover and finally a new Ion (or Evok) compact.
Personally I have mixed emotions about our Swedish brand at GM. I think they have what it takes to be something really great in the auto market, but something just isn’t all there. This year we got the GMT-360-based 9-7x SUV. Just by looking at it it’s certainly not hard to tell what family it belongs to (Trailblazer offspring), but to many people’s surprise the 9-7x has gotten positive reviews overall. Most claim that it is in fact "all Saab," even if it does have two Vortec powertrains under the hood. Possibly future Saab models (the crossovers) will get me more enthused about the division.
2006 Preview
Chances are, 2006 will not be a picture-perfect year for GM. One can only hope that the launch of tons of new product, including the new Saturns, the 900’s, new Aveo and believe it or not, a certain concept car being unveiled in 2006. That’s right, I am talking about the Chevrolet concept car that is being unveiled at NAIAS, the one that reaches to Chevy’s past. That concept will likely cause a LOT of positive buzz for GM in 2006 and could help boost them a little bit.
Without a doubt the most important thing for GM in 2006 is the launch of the 2007 GMT-900 SUV’s. Not only are they important, but they will likely indicate how GM will fair throughout 2006 financially and sales-wise. The 2007 Tahoe, Yukon and Escalade arrive no earlier than the first half of January. Since production of the new SUV’s is already underway, the January sales numbers of the new SUV’s will give us a good indication about how well they will take off. Their popularity is something that no one can predict with 100% accuracy with the condition the market is currently in, however I feel that the SUV’s will sell better than they are currently- with no incentives. Why? Because gas prices have finally stabilized (somewhat) and putting it bluntly, some people just love their SUV’s. On top of that- the new GMT-900’s are world-class and superior to any competition they currently have.
I think GM will have some winning products in 2006. The GMT-900’s will of course boost GM’s pocket and sales charts, but the new 2007 Chevrolet Aveo (arriving this Summer) really has what it takes to make a lot of headway in the market. It’s a great little sub-compact and instead of being behind the new competition, its on par with them, with better looks. Having standard thorax airbags, audio input jack and an interior that is arguably better than the Cobalt… I feel this little car will have big impacts on 2006. We shouldn’t forget about current products that will continue to gain momentum in 2006 as well. Such as the G6 (convertible coming!!), HHR, H3 and of course the Solstice.
What Needs To Be Done
One restructuring that I feel needs to take place right now is the combining of Pontiac, Buick and GMC dealerships into one store. In order for those brands to have a clear image and non-rebadged products, this is a must. GM continues to say that this needs to take place, but no action is ever taken. If they can force Hummer dealerships to build multi-million dollar showrooms or they don’t get any new products, then they can force Pontiac, Buick and GMC dealers to combine. GM, work on this in 2006... Please!
Obviously something is still not right about GM’s products or else they would be selling slightly better than they are. Personally I feel there are two problems with GM products and its not something like the lack of 6-speed transmissions or the lack of gauges that "look like they float." Problem one is that they have too many flavors of the similar products. The CSV’s are a prime example of having way too many vehicles that are alike. With new, more flexible platforms its very possible for GM to make two totally different products that are similar under the limelight. GM has shown they are capable of this with the Sigma-based Cadillac Products.
Problem number two with GM product is that a vast majority of them are designed with only the short-term in mind. The product hit’s the market and is considered best-in-class, then a year or so later the competition redesigns their product and the GM counterpart becomes inferior. Until GM realizes this they are just going to have to live with rebates. I think that the upcoming Lambda-based crossovers will change this. Everything that I’ve seen/heard about the new products suggest that they will be well ahead of the competition the first time. If that’s the case, you can expect those crossovers to be in future year review articles talking about how well they sold without rebates.
All of GM’s problems this year have brought up discussions about GM cutting one of their divisions. Personally I feel all of GM’s brands can live in together in peace- with the right moves taken. Every division needs a clear demographic and personally. Buick needs to be the brand that caters to those who want understated luxury cars for reasonable prices, and Pontiac needs to be the hardcore performance division that they‘ve claimed to be for so long. GM has the resources, platforms and infrastructure to allow each division its own personality. If they can figure that out, all the brands can live in profitability. If not, it may be time to put someone on the block.
Passing Down the Moniker
Generally I don’t like to bring up "political" topics in my Editorials, however I feel that the following topic is one that needs to be brought up. That topic being GM losing its 70-some year run as the world’s largest automaker. It’s quite evident now that GM will not be the world’s largest auto maker within the next year (if not before), but rather Toyota will be. This is something many GM fans don’t like to see (me included), but when you think about it… it may not be that bad after all. The only good thing to come out of being the world’s largest automaker is the title itself, just about everything else that comes with that title is negative. People expect more out of the largest automaker, that includes higher pay rates and the best products. Its certainly going to be interesting to see how Toyota handles the moniker when it is passed on to them. As they say, good things don‘t last forever. Toyota’s day is coming and with a 100% increase in recalls- they’re already showing signs of being the largest automaker.
Source: www.gminsidenews.com
Editorial by GMinsidenews Admin nsap
Last year the primary focus of my annual editorial was the seven-million recalls GM performed- and we thought that was bad! This past year has without a doubt been one of their worst, from a business standpoint. We’ve heard about multi-billion dollar losses, poor sales, rebates for the record books and now bankruptcy. Product-wise we’ve seen some great new entries from the General in just about every division and slowly more and more positive reviews from the critics, but not enough to turn the giant around this year.
This year GM finally deciding that something must be done to counter the four-billion GM has lost this year- they announced a massive restructuring for their North American operations. The plan called for the closing of nine North American facilities and the cut of around 30,000 employees. Some "analysts" say that the restructuring isn’t enough and that more needs to be done, but those same analysts said GM would remain number one until around 2010. Supposedly this plan will save GM seven-billion by the end of 2006.
Probably the most defining point this year was the ‘Employee Discount For Everyone’ campaign GM started this summer. Its been considered good and bad. Good in the sense that it moved a hell of a lot of vehicles at cheap prices, bad in that most of the vehicles were sold with little or no profit to GM. That promotion is starting to bite back at GM right now, with sales on a steady decline. That, along with products- according to critics, that no one wants has really caused GM to take a beating this year.
Marketing
In the past marketing has always been a lackluster sector of GM. With the arrival of Mark LeNeve as GM marketing czar, things have changed in 2005. Pontiac commercials have easily been some of the best commercials on the tube. Showcasing the product, comparing and most importantly, in a setting that appeals to Pontiac's target audience. Chevrolet has really found its niche in advertising (at least in commercials) as well. Their commercials tend to give their cars personality, and it all started with the SSR "Soap" commercial that debuted during this year’s SuperBowl and continued with the awesome Cobalt commercials that gave the Cobalt this rebel "Corvette’s little brother" image. The Chevrolet trend is still continuing with a new commercial about the HHR and Impala- where a bunch of rappers rap about the two new products for a minute, while some very neat views of the vehicles are showed. Finally, they know how to market their products! That's half the battle in today's market.
Divisional Reviews
GM’s bread-and-butter division- Chevrolet, has had (in some sense) a good year. They’ve had increases throughout the world and have become the number-one selling passenger car brand in America. Taking the title from Ford. Chevrolet had several important product launches in 2005, everything from the $16,000 HHR to the $65,000 Corvette ZO6. The HHR and ZO6 both represent GM’s ‘Value Promise’ best and obviously the public feels that way as well, but great price aside- I could speak hours about the new ZO6 and how it is truly America’s exotic car. One that can take on the best from Europe and its own American counterparts- all of which can’t even come CLOSE to the base price. Along with the HHR and ZO6 have came a revised Malibu, new Impala and Trailblazer SS. All five of those new or revised models have gotten good reviews with the Impala being considered on par or ahead of the competition and the Trailblazer SS being raved as the RWD performance "sedan" Chevrolet hasn’t had in awhile.
Poor Pontiac was called a ‘damaged brand’ this year by Bob Lutz, but Pontiac did have one REALLY bright spot. The Solstice made its way to dealerships this past year. Making its national sales debut on The Apprentice, the first 1,000 Solstice’s were sold in 41 minutes. If that doesn’t speak volumes about the car, I don’t know what will. Solstice proves to us that GM can turn a concept into production with less than a few millimeters of changes and that, most importantly, they can use the corporate parts bin effectively. Pontiac also brought us the Torrent in 2005. Sure, it’s a great product, but not for Pontiac. The money spent on the Torrent should have been spent to refresh the Equinox to keep it competitive.
Cadillac just continues to get better every year. 2005 brought us the new DTS full-sizer and, as I write this, the STS-V. To many people’s surprise, the DTS has received some inviting reviews from the critics and members here on GMI. Of course a lot of people would have liked to of seen a totally new product to replace the DeVille, the DTS does the job and caters to DeVille loyalists. I am considering the STS-V as one of Cadillac’s ground-breaker products. Why? Because it is taking its German counterparts by the throat and actually beating the Mercedes CLS55 AMG in comparison tests. Probably the most impressive asset to the STS-V is its 469 HP 4.4L Supercharged V8. Not only is it a Northstar, but it sports an industry first- an integrated supercharger that mutes that infamous supercharger squeal as well as make the engine run Lexus-like smooth, but don’t let that smoothness fool you; when you hit the start button the display on the instrument panel says "Are you ready for STS-V?." A perfect sign you’re still in a Caddy.
After reading some of the comments that followed my Buick- Will It Survive article, and most recently BigAl’s call for Buick’s death, I think it’s safe to say that there are many people who still have a soft spot for Buick. GM must as well, considering they have reportedly invested five-billion in the "damaged" division. So far that five-billion has brought us the LaCrosse, Terraza and the just-arrived Lucerne. Only the Lucerne has been welcomed to positive reviews. The other two have had lackluster reviews from critics. If GM wants to continue to call Buick a division they are going to have to give us more than three lukewarm products. Buick has the potential to be GM’s Lexus fighter, especially in terms of quality, it’s just going to take the right products. Possibly the upcoming Lambda crossover will show Buick’s true potential.
Hummer has had a great year in 2005. The arrival of the new H3 has caused Hummer to become the fastest growing brand in the U.S. As of the end of November Hummer had moved 27,205 H3’s, over 70% of those being conquest sales, keep in mind that GM initially expected to sell 25,000 H3’s a year… needless to say, that number was slightly understated. Hopefully the H3’s success is an indication that the world has a fetish for small, more fuel efficient Hummers.
There really isn’t much to say about GMC for 2005. They always seem to be the quiet division in General Motors. 2005 hasn’t brought them any new product, so I guess we can discuss the future of GMC. Some people believe that GMC is a "useless" division that consists of only Chevrolet rebadges. That may be the case right now, but GMC is the second-most profitable division in General Motors (why wouldn’t they be with nothing but trucks) and profit means a lot to the General right now. Of course GMC is getting nearly an all new line up in the next couple of years, starting with the 2007 Yukon line, 2008 Sierra line and the Acadia (or Envoy if they choose to call it that) crossover will all arrive between 2006-2007 calendar years. After that GMC looks to be getting a Lambda-based minivan (shared with Chevrolet) as well as the Pontiac Torrent. Yay! No more Pontiac crossovers and minivans!
Ah, now for Saturn. In 2005 we received a new Vue from Saturn and that is about the extent of product changes at the "different" brand. Surprisingly what little changes did take place on the new Vue- made positive impacts. Vue sales are up just over 3-percent for the year while Saturn as a whole is about broke even in terms of sales. But who wants to hear about the current Saturn when the future looks so bright? In about 79 days the new Sky Kappa-based roadster will be hitting the market. The Sky represents a new Saturn- one with all of its rings. With beautiful European designs, benchmarking interiors and Saturn’s "people" reputation its just no hard to figure out that Saturn is going to be one hot division in the future. After the Sky we’ll get the Vue Green Line Hybrid, Aura sedan, Outlook crossover and finally a new Ion (or Evok) compact.
Personally I have mixed emotions about our Swedish brand at GM. I think they have what it takes to be something really great in the auto market, but something just isn’t all there. This year we got the GMT-360-based 9-7x SUV. Just by looking at it it’s certainly not hard to tell what family it belongs to (Trailblazer offspring), but to many people’s surprise the 9-7x has gotten positive reviews overall. Most claim that it is in fact "all Saab," even if it does have two Vortec powertrains under the hood. Possibly future Saab models (the crossovers) will get me more enthused about the division.
2006 Preview
Chances are, 2006 will not be a picture-perfect year for GM. One can only hope that the launch of tons of new product, including the new Saturns, the 900’s, new Aveo and believe it or not, a certain concept car being unveiled in 2006. That’s right, I am talking about the Chevrolet concept car that is being unveiled at NAIAS, the one that reaches to Chevy’s past. That concept will likely cause a LOT of positive buzz for GM in 2006 and could help boost them a little bit.
Without a doubt the most important thing for GM in 2006 is the launch of the 2007 GMT-900 SUV’s. Not only are they important, but they will likely indicate how GM will fair throughout 2006 financially and sales-wise. The 2007 Tahoe, Yukon and Escalade arrive no earlier than the first half of January. Since production of the new SUV’s is already underway, the January sales numbers of the new SUV’s will give us a good indication about how well they will take off. Their popularity is something that no one can predict with 100% accuracy with the condition the market is currently in, however I feel that the SUV’s will sell better than they are currently- with no incentives. Why? Because gas prices have finally stabilized (somewhat) and putting it bluntly, some people just love their SUV’s. On top of that- the new GMT-900’s are world-class and superior to any competition they currently have.
I think GM will have some winning products in 2006. The GMT-900’s will of course boost GM’s pocket and sales charts, but the new 2007 Chevrolet Aveo (arriving this Summer) really has what it takes to make a lot of headway in the market. It’s a great little sub-compact and instead of being behind the new competition, its on par with them, with better looks. Having standard thorax airbags, audio input jack and an interior that is arguably better than the Cobalt… I feel this little car will have big impacts on 2006. We shouldn’t forget about current products that will continue to gain momentum in 2006 as well. Such as the G6 (convertible coming!!), HHR, H3 and of course the Solstice.
What Needs To Be Done
One restructuring that I feel needs to take place right now is the combining of Pontiac, Buick and GMC dealerships into one store. In order for those brands to have a clear image and non-rebadged products, this is a must. GM continues to say that this needs to take place, but no action is ever taken. If they can force Hummer dealerships to build multi-million dollar showrooms or they don’t get any new products, then they can force Pontiac, Buick and GMC dealers to combine. GM, work on this in 2006... Please!
Obviously something is still not right about GM’s products or else they would be selling slightly better than they are. Personally I feel there are two problems with GM products and its not something like the lack of 6-speed transmissions or the lack of gauges that "look like they float." Problem one is that they have too many flavors of the similar products. The CSV’s are a prime example of having way too many vehicles that are alike. With new, more flexible platforms its very possible for GM to make two totally different products that are similar under the limelight. GM has shown they are capable of this with the Sigma-based Cadillac Products.
Problem number two with GM product is that a vast majority of them are designed with only the short-term in mind. The product hit’s the market and is considered best-in-class, then a year or so later the competition redesigns their product and the GM counterpart becomes inferior. Until GM realizes this they are just going to have to live with rebates. I think that the upcoming Lambda-based crossovers will change this. Everything that I’ve seen/heard about the new products suggest that they will be well ahead of the competition the first time. If that’s the case, you can expect those crossovers to be in future year review articles talking about how well they sold without rebates.
All of GM’s problems this year have brought up discussions about GM cutting one of their divisions. Personally I feel all of GM’s brands can live in together in peace- with the right moves taken. Every division needs a clear demographic and personally. Buick needs to be the brand that caters to those who want understated luxury cars for reasonable prices, and Pontiac needs to be the hardcore performance division that they‘ve claimed to be for so long. GM has the resources, platforms and infrastructure to allow each division its own personality. If they can figure that out, all the brands can live in profitability. If not, it may be time to put someone on the block.
Passing Down the Moniker
Generally I don’t like to bring up "political" topics in my Editorials, however I feel that the following topic is one that needs to be brought up. That topic being GM losing its 70-some year run as the world’s largest automaker. It’s quite evident now that GM will not be the world’s largest auto maker within the next year (if not before), but rather Toyota will be. This is something many GM fans don’t like to see (me included), but when you think about it… it may not be that bad after all. The only good thing to come out of being the world’s largest automaker is the title itself, just about everything else that comes with that title is negative. People expect more out of the largest automaker, that includes higher pay rates and the best products. Its certainly going to be interesting to see how Toyota handles the moniker when it is passed on to them. As they say, good things don‘t last forever. Toyota’s day is coming and with a 100% increase in recalls- they’re already showing signs of being the largest automaker.
