Maybe that is what GM needs to do then. Bring them here and take them “upscale”. Maybe that is what they are trying to do with Saturn now – I don’t know.

My point is I will pay for quality b/c quality means I don’t have to buy cars as often. Were the German prices you quoted also including German taxes? I know Italian taxes were huge – annual registration costs were several hundred dollars based on the class of car, type of fuel it consumed, etc. Sales tax was so high it would give ya altitude sickness… I think I heard 30% at one point.

I fully agree on the size-price correlation. That is why we get a beast of an Accord while other markets get the slimmer TSX twin.

However, I don’t think the price of a US/Canada/Mexico-built Astra would be significantly higher than that of a Cobalt/G5. With current exchange rates, a Euro-built Astra is a no-go but if built here, it would be priced like most other cars in its class. And, with oil prices heading north, the size-price correlation may become less of an issue.

I remembering visting Germany in the summer of 2004 and looking at a brand-new Opel Astra five-door sedan on the showroom floor. The sticker price converted to about $29,000 in the U.S.

GM would go broke even faster than it already is trying to sell an Astra five-door hatchback at that price in the U.S. The posters on this site may say “it’s worth it,” (or it would still be worth it at even, say, $23,000), but the posters on this site are not typical American car buyers. Most Americans, if given the choice between a Taurus or an Astra/Focus at the same price, are going to go with the Taurus.

Note that even Honda sells the smaller, less roomy European Accord here as the more focused Acura TSX. The number of TSXs it sells in the U.S. is about 1/10th the number of U.S-spec Accords it sells here.

We have a Gen-1 CR-V (153K miles I think) and my in-laws have a Gen-1 Vue. Both have four cylinders. The Vue has the CVT. Both have AWD. CR-V has a 5 speed.

I think the only real difference in the size of the vehicles is the Vue’s width. The Vue seems about four inches wider than the CR-V. Larger interior. I prefer the CR-Vs “leaner” look but the added heft of the Vue does make for a quieter and more comfortable ride on the interstate. I don’t think I would say the Vue is any bulkier in any other meaningful way.

Where the CR-V wins is it’s durability. It’s why we bought a Honda rather than a GM product. At 153K miles vs 80K miles the CR-V has been much less trouble and the Vue has a serious transmission problem on the horizon. The CVT is on it’s way out judging by the noisy chain inside. The web tells me that the CVT is hugely expensive to rebuild %($4300 was price) and it is unlikely that a person could find a good used one b/c GM quit building the CVT after two years b/c of the troubles they had with the design.

Why or why didn’t they get it right before they started selling them? Why oh why didn’t they keep developing the transmission instead of tossing it out the window and starting all over again?

At 153K miles my CR-V hasn’t even needed it’s first clutch. 2nd set of front brake pads. Needed a radiator (plastic tank to aluminum core seam started leaking). Front sway bar links need replacement.

I was offered the Vue to purchase but I politely declined b/c of the impending CVT failure.

If the Vue equals the CR-V in everyway, I’m still going to buy the CR-V despite wanting to support a domestic auto maker.

And this is part of the reason I don’t understand why they sell the cheap looking POS Cobalt. For the price of some details the car look to me hugely upscale compared the blah and meh Cobalt/G5 twins.

Why don’t they do that with the USA cars? Why don’t they give them style for the price of the creases and the details? Don’t want Americans to quit buying their trucks? Why not try to be best in ALL the classes?

Build the car you linked to and add in the quality necessary to make the windows and the a/c and the suspension (etc) work WELL for 150K miles. Sometimes it is only the difference in the materials – a better plastic or aluminum compared to a plastic.

Since I was 12, I haven’t been able to figure out why the Detroit 3 have been so slow to ‘globalize’ their products.

Actually don’t be too sure about that. It was only the other day it dawned on me that GM ARE globalising their brands and I didn’t realise it.

Chevrolet and Cadillac are active in pretty much all of the world and it is my guess that GM are (by salami tactics) trying to make Chevrolet and Cadillac their main 2 brands. What it seems they are trying to do is introduce those brands in all markets and let them cannibalise the other brands there (i.e Chevrolet is rising in Europe while Vauxhall/Opel is plummeting) until Chevrolet is dominant. Likewise, Cadillac is doing the same, but with slower results.

Unless, I’m imagining the whole thing, I think GM are starting to form something resembling a plan….

Point taken. We’re a quibbling bunch here.

TTAC has offered me a fabulous golden parachute when I’ve killed off GM.

I was purposely seperating Western Europe (commonly referred to as the original EU15 states) from Eastern Europe in my editorial.

Frankly, I feel like I’m being quibbled to death on this editorial. The whole issue about the Vue’s specs is taking one point (about it being overweight) out of proportion. Please take the time to read what I’m really saying about GM’s global problems. It’s not an editorial about the Vue vs. the CRV. Just sayin’.

Poor GM. I don’t feel sorry for the company, but I feel sorry for the workers whose livelihoods are jeoparidized by this colossus’s ineptitude.

Can we assume Honda maximizes it’s vehicle for EPA results then?

Here’s some more reality: a few weeks ago, on these boards, we had a discussion about how silly the old “naught to 60″ metric is. Normal people simply do not stomp the go pedal to see how fast they can get from dead to a mile a minute.

The CR-V will go 0-60 in 9.5 seconds, so it’s slightly quicker than the Vue. Will the average driver notice? No. They’ll notice 45-70 acceleration as they get on the freeway, and the difference here will be a fraction of a second.

Just to be picky, MT reports the 0-60 time for the 4 cyl. Vue as 10.6, (GM’s own data) so that’s just barely more than 1 second slower than the CR-V. In the real world of “normal” driving, this is absolutely meaningless.

For the record, my wife and I are long time Honda buyers. We love our CR-V and did not consider the Vue – but the decission had nothing to do with 0-60 times, nor the difference of 1 mpg. It’s just that the Honda was made by Honda.

It’s not hard to optimise a vehicle for maximum EPA results, especially in the gearing. Here’s the reality: the Vue 4 cyl takes some 11 seconds or more to get from 0-60. That’s slow, for today’s standards. And that’s why over half the Vues sold have the V6. The CRV doesn’t need a V6 for decent performance.

Folks buying so many V6 affects GM’s fleet CAFE negatively. I can assure you, that GM would prefer to be in Honda’s shoes: selling only 4 cylinders CUV’s, and selling LOTS of them.

The fact of the matter is, the Vue is a lard-ass. It’s 500lbs heavier than a Rav4, 500lbs heavier than an Escape and 500lbs heavier than a CR-V. The base vehicles all have similar size and power engines and all the others are significantly faster than the Vue because it’s a lard-ass.

In spite of the additional bulk and weight, the Vue doesn’t have more interior room and, in base trim, doesn’t tow more than the others or offer any significant advantage, except for “road hogging hugging weight.”

GM might have managed an EPA rating similar to the others by pumping up the tires to 175psi or something but when you get this lard-ass out on the road, it is going to get worse fuel economy under most circumstances than the other vehicles. You have to blow up more little drops of gasoline to move the extra 500lbs of dead weight. I’ll bet we find the Vue gets lousy brake life, too, as those pads work overtime to horse the lard-ass back down to a stop time after time.

Back in the day, say when one was buying a ‘61 Buick, the performance disadvantage of a lard-ass automobile could be offset, economically, by shoving a bigger engine or thirstier carb in and calling it good. No one gave a damn about fuel economy.

Times have changed. Performance still matters but you can’t just go to the head of your class in performance by burning more fuel. You have to engineer a car that’s as light and efficient as the competition. GM has either not figured out that they must do this or has tried and failed.

That’s actually an interesting find. If the carmakers’ stats are to be trusted, the mileage is very similar despite a difference of almost 200kg (equivalent of two large adult males). I admit I’m surprised that what I thought was a coarse and inefficient unit (the Ecotec) seems more efficient than a Honda.

The matter at hand is which vehicles are considered (by customers) more competitive on the global market. Compare CRVs’ sales numbers with the Vue’s, and then let’s get back to the matter at hand: GM’s problems.

It represents the inability of Daewoo to develop fully competitive products. Show me one Daewoo/Chevy that’s anywhere close to the segment leaders in any segment they compete in.

No one is arguing the VUE doesn’t have a weight problem. You’re running away from the matter at hand. The issue is that even WITH that weight problem, the VUE gets the virtually the same MPGs as the much lighter CR-V.

GM wouldn’t cannibalize itself just to continue paying dividends. Or would it?

GM used to pay $1 per share dividend. And yes, they would cannibalize themselves. Have done for decades, one way or another.

The Vue has a serious weight problem, under any light, or in pitch blackness.

It represents the inability of Daewoo to develop fully competitive products. Show me one Daewoo/Chevy that’s anywhere close to the segment leaders in any segment they compete in.

This for me checks as “the same”. Anyways, it’s not an honor point for me or you =). And both are fugly. I prefer the Astra.

Yes, externally they’re very similar, but the interior is another different story (see the pics in chevrolet.com and chevrolet.com.br) we usually get cars that don’t look so much “nice”. They also use Ecotec engines down here. But you don’t get the Flex engines, that can burn any mix from straight ethanol to gas.

Anyway, I REALLY hope the economy doesn’t tank. I personally don’t see the prices going down, competition will effectively move in (I see the chinese coming) but their prices are NOT cheap as you would expect. A Chery QQ goes very similar to a Chevy Spark.

The main thing here, is that we don’t have the market “freedom” you have in the US. Our governments puts restrictions and rules to both manufacturers and sellers. Example, here is the government that establishes how many cars can import each company, if your assembly volume is high, you get a high imports quota, if you’re only an importer, then you’re fu@#$%d, ’cause you get less cars.

Brazil has similar different conditions, a car to be sold there and being competitive, must have a certain percentage of local parts. That’s why plants are being opened in Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay (and Mercosur in general).

I agree with you on the seller’s market thing. Right now is the situation here. You’ve got car to sell, you sell, otherwise it’s another.

And, so? The V6 VUE is 1-2 seconds faster to 60 than the CR-V (Depending on which V6, check Car & Driver for verification). A acceleratory dissonance still exists, so your rationalization is bunk. You chose that setup to put the VUE in the worst light possible.

“DETROIT – General Motors Corp. (NYSE: GM) today announced a second-quarter dividend of $0.25 per share on GM common stock. The dividend is payable June 10, 2008, to holders of record as of May 16, 2008. The dividend is unchanged from the previous quarter.”

GM wouldn’t cannibalize itself just to continue paying dividends. Or would it?

Slightly; in that most new models usually have a bit of a bump, but not a dramatic one.