Chevy, Hummer On The Rise In Europe; Early Frost Reported In Hell.
Auto Motor und Sport has some stunning news out of Europe, where the Chevrolet brand is *gasp* kicking ass. That's right folks, GM has sold 318k fewer vehicles on the year in America, but in Europe the General's sales are actually up by 375k units on the year. And no, those numbers are not coming from the newly "upmarket" Opel (-1.7 percent), or established SAAB (-13 percent) brands either. Rebadged Daewoos sold as Chevrolets are what's been (sort of) saving GM's bacon on the continent that invented the car, up a staggering 23.7 percent on the year. Most of those sales come from Eastern Europe and Russia, where people realize that the American brand's connotations of obesity, pollution and warmongering were properly earned in the Cold War. And speaking of brand connotations, Chevrolet isn't even the fastest-growing GM brand in Europe. Sales of the real "America's Brand" HUMMER are up a staggering 29 percent on the year so far. Of course, that's a not-so staggering total of 1,325 HUMMERs sold. But still, who'd have thunk it? In summary, the former Evil Empire is crazy for Chevrolets, Europe still loves it some HUMMER and we're tracking a cold front moving through Hell this weekend. Details at Eleven.
More by Edward Niedermeyer
Comments
Join the conversation
This just suggests we view GM and Ford in their totality instead of just focusing on their NA woes.
Romanian automakers? Bad news! What? The Dacia Sandero! It's been delayed! Oh no! Sorry, couldn't help it ...
Here be your global economy and weak dollars tilting the playing field.
According to this article from Businessweek Russia has overtaken Germany as Europe's largest car market: http://tinyurl.com/6p47eq 23% Growth from Daewoo/Chevy is impressive but Russia is booming (41% Growth) and I wonder is GM even maintaining market share there? Also this growth is coming at the lowest end of the market. I bet BMW and Benz are cleaning up in Russia but GM just isn't competing at that end of the market. Maybe they can send some Buicks from China?