This has been said for years, and was certainly true at one time. But can we take this for granted any more? I think for the last 10 years or so, there has been little focus on increasing overall reliability and durability of automobiles. Seems to me the focus has shifted to cheaper manufacturing, and the elimination of over-engineering where possible.

If any car can last 150k miles, and I do personally beleive so, then what incentive is there for a manufacturer to make a car any more durable? The customer can’t tell the difference between 150k and 250k mile engineering when they buy the car, and for the most part they probably don’t care. Furthermore those that do care buy on reputation (i.e. Toyota) since there is no other easy way to tell.

I suspect that the main reasons people purchase new cars has little to do with the current automobile being completely used up.

However, Fritz has publicly stated several times since July (and it is publicly available in Viability Plan 4 as part of the BK records) that my employer’s breakeven point is 18% market share in a 10 million count vehicle market.

Another publicly available figure is GM sales in the US for September, 156,673. And it was indicated on this site that this was a pitiful sales month for GM in 2009.

What if GM sold a minimum of 156,673 cars, trucks and crossovers every month in 2010 regardless of total market or total market share? They would sell 1,880,076 vehicles.

IMO, the news will be compelling when GM’s sales drop below 150,000 units in a month.

And, different idiots will be elected. Unfortunately, I have little hope left in me; it’s been sucked out by the last 20 years of government boondoggles and lies.

You may as well hope that we don’t have a Civil War type conflict, too. We don’t have many factories making muskets, either. There’s a good reason for that.

You’re out of date – we don’t fight wars like that anymore. Today, a few missiles and bombers can accomplish more than 100 B-17s with fighter escorts could achieve 65 years ago. The technology of WWII was relatively primitive and required massive amounts of manpower to deploy, with high destruction and death rates to match. Today’s gear is much more costly, takes longer to build, requires more specialized skills to use, and is far less likely to get blown up.

If you tried to fight a war today without having most of your equipment built and ready before the fact, the war would be over before you’d even started. We don’t have years to prepare, and the oceans aren’t much of a buffer zone anymore.

One reason that the US is prepared is because it is no longer possible to gear up once the war has started. Defense contractors specializing in serving the military have already built most of what will be used in the next conflict, whatever that is.

Once I began viewing many aspects of the USA through the lens of class warfare, around 25 years ago…

Once you decided to see what you wanted to see, you started to see it. It’s no wonder that you’ve gotten some of this so badly wrong.

I should have made myself clearer. I was referring to the U.S. market. GM’s 1962 peak reflected over 50 percent of sales of all vehicles in the U.S. – both foreign and domestic.

In the late 1970s, GM claimed over 60 percent of all sales among the Big Four – GM, Ford, Chrysler and AMC – in the U.S.

Its share of the total U.S. market, however, was smaller, because the imports were a much bigger factor by that time.

So I wanted to know where I was to take my future service needs. They don’t know. To Chevrolet? Well, it seems the Chevy dealer is about to close due to dealer culls. To Buick? Well, it seems that the Buick brand was switched from the longtime dealer in town, to the old Pontiac dealer. To Cadillac? Well, yes possibly, but their service isn’t accustomed to servicing Saturns. Bottom line – in this city of 150,000 – I am left hanging.

For the past decade, we have been driving Saturns and having a very nice time with the Saturn dealers. But, now that they are closed, we are expected to take our business to someone else, not yet announced by GM. If it was bad enough to lose one of the plusses Saturn offered, their cars, we are losing another strong plus – their dealer and dealership experience.

Now, top it all off that we don’t even know who within this city will remain as a dealer for a GM brand – and you have complete chaos.

So, product isn’t all that is suffering here. The very connection between long time GM buyers is being cut. How can GM expect to remain in business without having their customers like me, return? If it wasn’t bad enough to not offer vehicles Americans are willing to buy, GM is unable to even choose a stable dealership network in this small city in Central US – their loyal base of buyers.

So all this talk about percentages is based on a number of stable factors – which are not existing. I cannot buy a GM vehicle even if I wanted to, because I don’t know from whom to buy it! We choose dealers, as well as cars, people! If the last GM dealer in town offers awesome products, I still don’t know who they even are, and will pass them by.

2009 will look pretty good two years from now. As current GM customers like me switch to Ford, GM will continue to lose business until it folds. As the last of the GM cars are cycled out of daily use, GM drivers will not be shopping at GM again.

They are toast!

In the late 1970s, GM had almost 60 percent of the domestic market, but a smaller share of the total market.”

I was thinking of GM US Sales.

Hope that no World War Two-type conflict does not break out since the conventional armaments can not be manufactured here or in not enough numbers to fight an “old style” war.

[citation needed]

It ain’t 1942 any more. The chances of a GM car plant being turned into a tank or fighter jet plant due to World War III is nil-a new plant would be built, specifically to build whatever was needed. The loss of GM and Chrysler would be of no particular value in terms of loss of potential domestic military manufacturing capacity.

That BW article ranks right up there with its early 80’s piece, “The Death of Equities” as signals for contrarians.

GM peaked in 1962, when it claimed over 50 percent of the total market (both foreign and domestic nameplates).

In the late 1970s, GM had almost 60 percent of the domestic market, but a smaller share of the total market.

You shouldn’t be. Live here in East Bubbaville for a decade plus and you’ll see why the Big 2.8 survive.

That being said, when I moved here 13+ years ago, I owned the only SUV (93 Explorer Sport) and foreeeeen car (85 Prelude) in the county. Now, everybody drives Hyundais, Hondas and Toyotas. Why? First, dealers moved into the general area making it easier for folks who distrust leaving their comfort area (think of it as a reverse Brigadoon effect) be able to see a car brand that’s not from the Big 2.8. Second, some people really did get fed up with the craptastic product lines of the last 15 years from the Big 2.8 when compared side by side with your standard Toyhondai. Third, moronically easy credit.

So yes, I’ve watched anectdotally GM’s market share decline but also see why it remains where it does.

You and your kinfolk seem to be masters of the obvious. Everyone knew the combination of skyrocketing housing prices, easy credit, and 140.00 a barrel oil would cause a meltdown.

Try not to break your arm patting yourself on the back.

As for GM’s situation, I’m surprised they have the market share they still do. I suspect fleet and other non-consumer sales are propping them up right now and will continue to do so. If they really had to satisfy customers only they would approach their customers differently.

They’ll never say it, but they’re closer to where Hyundai was in the eyes of the cusomter when they were entering the US, than they are to where GM itself was 15 years ago. They need to shrink, shrink, shrink, and prove themselves with a few offerings, intially sold on value (read: inexpensive compared to competitors) and then grow from there. Cadillac is not as tarnished, and will keep some margins, but even Caddy I think has lost most of the consumer ground they’ve gained since moving to the Art and Science designs. I’ve considered CTS’s, but if I were shopping now, a GM shop wouldn’t even be on my list. They haven’t shown that they’re accountable yet, and haven’t proven that they will be there down the road, when you need them.

Suppose GM could have a market share of 50 percent in a 100 million units per year and net $1 per car. GM would earn $50 million per year. (“I’m Mr. Roark and this is Tattoo.”)

Suppose Chrysler could have a market share of 5 percent and make $200 per car. Chrysler would earn $100 million per year. (“Jeannie, just grant me this one wish…”)

When they were The Big 3 in the 1990s and early 2000s, they kept their doors open with high margins on trucks, SUVs and minivans.

Once the competition heated up for minivans, GM and Ford bailed and put their resources back into trucks and SUVs.

So now things have changed, and the high margin sales of trucks and SUVs are rapidly diminishing. And this is forcing The Almost Big 2.24981 to compete in the sector of the market where, they’ve been telling us for 20 years, they can’t make money.

So the challenge, plain and simple, is that they have to make money building and selling cars. And at GM, it’s the same people in charge who have been telling us they can’t make money building and selling cars.

So, in an odd way, they actually need to LOSE market share. That way, they’ll lose money at a slower rate and will be able to hang around till the next election. But if they GAIN market share and continue lose money on every car they make, then they’re toast.

You can easily calculate a minimum for car sales by computing the “replacement demand”. In a market of 250,000,000 cars on the road today, and an average age of 15-30 until scrapped (15 in snowbelt, 30 in CA)? Assuming 25 years generously, that already gives us 10 million cars bought every year, rain or shine. (If you assume 12.5, you get 20 million!)

On top of the above replacement demand, you got the new demand, from new drivers (1% pop growth every year) and from people that just want a new car. (estimate?)

The market is too unpredictable right now, I think Car person’s forecasts for 09 and 10 are a bit on the low sude for both total sales and GM’s share, but longer term I see no promise in GM.

So, “viewing many aspects… through the lens of class warfare” means that you, still rich on a global scale, hate foreigners who are much poorer than you? Got it.

+1 Nicely put.

There is a real political side to this as well. With mid term elections coming up in 2010 Obama needs GM and Chrysler to be profitable and paying back loans or the Democrats are in deep DODO. GM has said they will make an IPO in 2010 well before the mid term elections. If that doesn’t go well I can’t even begin to predict what will happen both to the company and to the elected idiots.

I think a lot of this production planning is to make the government happy. Predict numbers that make Washington happy and worry about sales later. We all know that Uncle Sugar has plenty of money to give away.

That shortfall – if it materializes – can be tuned out with production slowdowns as the year unfolds. My guess is that the surviving brands may already have taken most of their beating, and will stabilize soon.

While I’d like to pile on, I can’t with these numbers. I think GM’s real numbers problem is a lack of profitability – regardless of volume – and still believe they will bite the dust in 2013 or 2014.

Once I began viewing many aspects of the USA through the lens of class warfare, around 25 years ago, I observed my predictions coming true.
…
Also, years ago, before the media covered it, I predicted future problems with illegal alien invasion and the effects upon the working-poor.

So, “viewing many aspects… through the lens of class warfare” means that you, still rich on a global scale, hate foreigners who are much poorer than you? Got it.

In addition to the size reduction, the low number of sales in the last two years has aged the fleet a little bit more… there should be somewhat increased demand for cars from that.

On the flip side, cars do last longer than they used to, so that trend somewhat decreases the demand for cars.

Hope that no World War Two-type conflict does not break out since the conventional armaments can not be manufactured here or in not enough numbers to fight an “old style” war.

Giggle. The US manufactures more than it ever has. It just takes far fewer workers to do so, which certainly has led to some problems. But your argument is like saying that that the US can’t possibly grow enough food to feed ourselves, since so many farming jobs have been “eliminated” from one hundred years ago, when half the working population were farmers. Most of our manufacturing is concentrated on high-end parts, but if you want to argue that retooling to produce conventional arms is difficult, it’s pretty dumb to bring up World War II. For example, US tanks were practically non-existent before WWII, and production ramped up like crazy.

In September, they were 9.6% of GMs’ sales. Their importance has already fallen off and GM’s share for September was about 20%, wasn’t it? Maybe the erosion won’t be so bad.

Perhaps. But even that 9.6% of GMs’ sales means that they do account for a 2% share of the overall market. GM still needs to make sure that they keep those customers in a company brand.

Has some of that already happened? In August, the dead brands were 16.1% of GM’s sales. In September, they were 9.6% of GMs’ sales. Their importance has already fallen off and GM’s share for September was about 20%, wasn’t it? Maybe the erosion won’t be so bad.

And maybe the overall market will increase somewhat. In addition to any economic rebound (maybe optimism should be a crime), C4C should still exert some pull. Vehicles were scrapped that were part of the road fleet (they were registered and insured… a waste of money for a lawn ornament). This fleet size reduction should increase demand slightly going forward, although it should have increased used prices and that hasn’t happened, so maybe this won’t work the way I expect. Perhaps these effects will only show up if there’s some economic recovery (maybe a recovery with jobs is a requirement).

In addition to the size reduction, the low number of sales in the last two years has aged the fleet a little bit more… there should be somewhat increased demand for cars from that.

On the other hand, perhaps hard times teach new lessons… maybe some people have discovered they don’t need N cars as a matter of routine, that they can get along OK on N-1 vehicles and save a wad of cash. Maybe they gave up the boat, gave up the old tow vehicle as a clunker, sold another vehicle for additional down payment and have shrunk from 3 vehicles, ages 3, 5 and 9 to 2 vehicles ages 0 and 3. Widespread behavior of that nature wouldn’t bode well for future sales, as people who did this would be out of the market for years.

There are a lot of boats on the market. I wonder how boat prices are, this year to last?