GM Hybrid Sales Suck
Commentator KixStart was kind enough to listen-in on GM's conference call on our behalf. He filed this report: "During the Q&A, Jeff Green of Bloomberg News asked if they could break out hybrid sales, 'now that you have some on the market?' According to NA Marketing Maven Mark LaNeve. GM sold "577 hybrids [in March], of that amount, let's see, about 450 were the new Tahoe and Yukons; we're just starting to get some some adequate inventory out… The Malibu and Aura hybrids are just getting into the market, just had a handful of deliveries, 30 between the two of them." LaNeve said there was 'lot of interest, lot of dealers taking orders' which they hope to fulfill in the coming months. Green asked if there were any sales earlier in the quarter, (i.e. January and February)? In February… '300 above that, 843 for the quarter.' No number at all mentioned for January. Zero hybrids in January more or less fits with 577 March plus 300 for February; roughly equal to 843. Their calculators do seem to be more than a bit casual. One way or another, though, the numbers are tiny. Does it really take this long to ramp-up these things? My understanding: GM had 1200 hybrids on the way to the dealers as of the end of last month. The red ink for GM on this technology must be horrendous."
More by Robert Farago
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[...] [Source: The Truth About Cars] [...]
[...] [Source: The Truth About Cars] [...]
I found toyotas prius sales for the us in its second year (first full) they were 15,500
jmlee0695, That's about 1.3K/month, which doesn't seem like all that much until we consider that the then-Prius was a) almost entirely new as a concept on the market b) gas was cheaper c) there was low market awareness and d) as I recall, it was pretty spendy, considering it was a lot like an Echo, which was pretty darned cheap and very good on gas. Your comment prompted me to go look back at Toyota's Prius I sales. Checking June sales for 2003 (source, TheAutoChannel.com), I found that in '03, Prius sales were about HALF that of the Echo, for June, 2003, year to date. In June, 2002, YTD, Prius sales were actually a larger fraction of Echo sales (a good pool eager early adopters, I suppose). In comparison, GM's hybrid sales are a nearly negligible fraction of Tahoe/Yukon/Escalade sales at 3%. Looking at the Aura/Malibu hybrid is even more depressing. The Aura hybrid has, allegedly, been on the market for over 4 months and, yet, sales of the hybrid were, at most, 1/2% of the total Aura sales in March. The time for GM to introduce a hybrid (or any vehicle, for that matter) that doesn't sell is long past. GM has had a few years of Toyota's hybrid experience to [s]envy[/s] scrutinize and having the evidence of how hybrids work in the marketplace before them, they should be able to do a workmanlike job of developing, manufacturing and marketing them in order to SELL them. GM needs some winners, not additional flops, no matter how whiz-bang they may be. If they can't build profitable hybrids at this point, they should invest in developing, refining and enhancing more profitable cars and let the hybrids wait.