Chevy's Brand Manager Stops Making Sense
Reuters reports that Chevrolet brand manager Ed Peper waxed downright Lutzian at the Chicago Auto Show. Peper said retail sales for Chevy's new Malibu rose 200 percent in January compared to the old model. WTF? Automotive News' data center [AN, sub] says Chevy sold 14,541 Malibus last month vs. 9,209 of the old model in January of last year. That's a 57.9 percent increase, not 200 percent. But it gets even more interesting. Peper denied that the new 'Bu had any effect on Impala sales. He attributed lower Impala sales in January to fleet sale reductions. In fact, he said Impala retail sales were up 44 percent. Uh, AN shows Impala sales were down 30.6 percent in January. If retail sales were up as much as Peper claims, and overall sales were nowhere near those levels, they must have been dumping one helluva lot of cars into fleets, as we suspected all along. If so, the trend could explain last month's huge surge in LaCrosse and Cobalt sales. [Thanks to starlightmica for the link]
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I agree with both of you.
I agree with skooter 100%.I also agree with reality 1500+ LaCrosse/Alure and Impala rolling down the line every day.No down time scheduled and Sat O.T. Those numbers suggest to me its a great product made by great {and honest landcrusher} people.
I think the math makes sense when computing retail sales. There weren't many retail sales of the old one. I'm also baffled by how long it's taking GM to meet demand for the car. Keeping supplies a little short can have big benefits. But supplies seem very short. The Accord might be down for two reasons: --changeover crimped production --the old Accord had a lot of dealer bonus cash on it
Accords are plentiful on dealer lots, so I don't think supply problems are an issue. Accord pricing might be a little firmer this year than last, but I suspect that Accords problems are: 1) Industry sales are down. 2) The new Accord is LESS fuel efficient than the old one. 3) The new Accord is big and rather ugly, sort of like an imitation BMW.