GM Prepares A Barrage Of New Cars, Hopes To Right Sinking Market Share

by Bertel Schmitt

Published: April 30th, 2013

gm prepares a barrage of new cars hopes to right sinking market share

GM’s pickup truck changeover has received all the attention of TTAC’s commentariat, but GM knows it needs more than new trucks to make up for decades of deteriorating market share. All hopes are on a wave of new showroom offerings. “Seventy percent of the automaker’s U.S. portfolio will be refreshed between the start of 2012 and the end of 2013, and 89 percent will be refreshed by 2016,” writes the Detroit News.

According to the Detroit paper, GM “says its barrage of new products should help increase its market share over the next few years.”

Michelle Krebs of Edmunds.com is not so sure, saying that GM announced an impending turn-around of its market share since the 1980s, only to lose share ever year. Krebs points to the poorly received Malibu and the stiff competition from Ford and the Japanese automakers.

Alan Batey, GM’s vice president of U.S. sales and service, promised “a gradual increase.”

Morgan Stanley analyst Adam Jonas says to keep an eye on Japanese makers who could invest savings from a weakening yen into incentives, or better equipped cars.

#BertelSchmitt #GM #MarketShare

Bertel Schmitt

Bertel Schmitt comes back to journalism after taking a 35 year break in advertising and marketing. He ran and owned advertising agencies in Duesseldorf, Germany, and New York City. Volkswagen A.G. was Bertel's most important corporate account. Schmitt's advertising and marketing career touched many corners of the industry with a special focus on automotive products and services. Since 2004, he lives in Japan and China with his wife <a href="http://www.tomokoandbertel.com"> Tomoko </a>. Bertel Schmitt is a founding board member of the <a href="http://www.offshoresuperseries.com"> Offshore Super Series </a>, an American offshore powerboat racing organization. He is co-owner of the racing team Typhoon.

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JK43123 on Apr 30, 2013

Hopefully Buickman will do better than "Find New Roads." Oh wait, he would have to do better. John

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- APaGttH on Apr 30, 2013
  
  Yes, because, "Lets go places," or, "zoom, zoom," is so much better. Hypnotoad: Convinced that one thing you don't need when creating an auto company tag line - a brain
  
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- Danio3834 on May 01, 2013
  
  @APaGttH +1 All the glory to the Hypnotoad.
  
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Kyree on Apr 30, 2013

I like GM a lot, but I'll tell you what: the transaction prices on some of their cars are a lot lower than they should be...

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- Highdesertcat on May 01, 2013
  
  Not in my part of the country they're not. On trucks, yeah. All sorts of major discounts on fullsize GM trucks. Right now it is $10,500 in total savings off any 2013 GM fullsize truck in stock, but you have to finance, and you get two years of free maintenance. Just trying to move that metal since Ford is clearly the best seller in this region. But the rest of the GM fleet? Pretty pricey. Enclave, Acadia, Malibu, Cruze, Terrain -- pretty pricey. Lots of GM dealer ads in newspapers but what really sells, and sells well in this region are Toyota products, Honda, Nissan, Hyundai and Kia, and of course, Ford trucks. Things could be different in other regions. I wonder if regional sales data is easily accessible. I checked the WSJ, Automotive News and a few other sites and could not find anything on regional sales for GM.
  
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Recent Comments

Kjhkjlhkjhkljh kljhjkhjklhkjh A prelude is a bad idea. There is already Acura with all the weird sport trims. This will not make back it's R&D money.
Analoggrotto I don't see a red car here, how blazing stupid are you people?
Redapple2 Love the wheels
Redapple2 Good luck to them. They used to make great cars. 510. 240Z, Sentra SE-R. Maxima. Frontier.
Joe65688619 Under Ghosn they went through the same short-term bottom-line thinking that GM did in the 80s/90s, and they have not recovered say, to their heyday in the 50s and 60s in terms of market share and innovation. Poor design decisions (a CVT in their front-wheel drive "4-Door Sports Car", model overlap in a poorly performing segment (they never needed the Altima AND the Maxima...what they needed was one vehicle with different drivetrain, including hybrid, to compete with the Accord/Camry, and decontenting their vehicles: My 2012 QX56 (I know, not a Nissan, but the same holds for the Armada) had power rear windows in the cargo area that could vent, a glass hatch on the back door that could be opened separate from the whole liftgate (in such a tall vehicle, kinda essential if you have it in a garage and want to load the trunk without having to open the garage door to make room for the lift gate), a nice driver's side folding armrest, and a few other quality-of-life details absent from my 2018 QX80. In a competitive market this attention to detai is can be the differentiator that sell cars. Now they are caught in the middle of the market, competing more with Hyundai and Kia and selling discounted vehicles near the same price points, but losing money on them. They invested also invested a lot in niche platforms. The Leaf was one of the first full EVs, but never really evolved. They misjudged the market - luxury EVs are selling, small budget models not so much. Variable compression engines offering little in terms of real-world power or tech, let a lot of complexity that is leading to higher failure rates. Aside from the Z and GT-R (low volume models), not much forced induction (whether your a fan or not, look at what Honda did with the CR-V and Acura RDX - same chassis, slap a turbo on it, make it nicer inside, and now you can sell it as a semi-premium brand with higher markup). That said, I do believe they retain the technical and engineering capability to do far better. About time management realized they need to make smarter investments and understand their markets better.