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.”
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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- Theflyersfan The wheel and tire combo is tragic and the "M Stripe" has to go, but overall, this one is a keeper. Provided the mileage isn't 300,000 and the service records don't read like a horror novel, this could be one of the last (almost) unmodified E34s out there that isn't rotting in a barn. I can see this ad being taken down quickly due to someone taking the chance. Recently had some good finds here. Which means Monday, we'll see a 1999 Honda Civic with falling off body mods from Pep Boys, a rusted fart can, Honda Rot with bad paint, 400,000 miles, and a biohazard interior, all for the unrealistic price of $10,000.
- Theflyersfan Expect a press report about an expansion of VW's Mexican plant any day now. I'm all for worker's rights to get the best (and fair) wages and benefits possible, but didn't VW, and for that matter many of the Asian and European carmaker plants in the south, already have as good of, if not better wages already? This can drive a wedge in those plants and this might be a case of be careful what you wish for.
- Jkross22 When I think about products that I buy that are of the highest quality or are of great value, I have no idea if they are made as a whole or in parts by unionized employees. As a customer, that's really all I care about. When I think about services I receive from unionized and non-unionized employees, it varies from C- to F levels of service. Will unionizing make the cars better or worse?
- Namesakeone I think it's the age old conundrum: Every company (or industry) wants every other one to pay its workers well; well-paid workers make great customers. But nobody wants to pay their own workers well; that would eat into profits. So instead of what Henry Ford (the first) did over a century ago, we will have a lot of companies copying Nike in the 1980s: third-world employees (with a few highly-paid celebrity athlete endorsers) selling overpriced products to upper-middle-class Americans (with a few urban street youths willing to literally kill for that product), until there are no more upper-middle-class Americans left.
- ToolGuy I was challenged by Tim's incisive opinion, but thankfully Jeff's multiple vanilla truisms have set me straight. Or something. 😉
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Hopefully Buickman will do better than "Find New Roads." Oh wait, he would have to do better. John
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...