U.S. Government: Owns GM, Buys Ford
It’s the policy of many automakers that you can’t get through the factory gate unless you drive something made by that company. If recent trends continue, GM’s largest stockholder will have to park outside and walk.
The U.S. government, now owning 33 percent after a pre-IPO 61 percent of GM, bought most of its cars from the competition. Bloomberg had to file a Freedom of Information request with the GSA until they handed over the data. This is what they received:
More Fords than GMs!
There had been concerns that the government would buy GM and Chrysler to help itself. There are two theories why it did not:
“There was a paranoia that the government was going to buy GM and Chrysler models to help them out because they had a foot in the door,” said Rebecca Lindland, an analyst at IHS Automotive. Counter-psychology, aha. At TTAC, we don’t have much faith in IHS analyses. Another rationale makes more sense:
As mentioned by Ed a few days ago, the GSA has gone on a hybrid binge, snapping up almost a quarter of Detroit’s hybrids. The trouble is, GM doesn’t have too many hybrids. Ford sold at least 11,066 hybrids to the U.S. government in the past two years, compared with 3,316 for GM, which discontinued sales of its highest volume hybrid, the Chevrolet Malibu, last year.
Even if there would have been a conspiracy to buy mostly from Government Motors, the disjointed government bureaucracy would not have been able to pull it off, says government contract law specialist Jeff Green: “The government is so disaggregated that it would be hard to favor one company over another. I would have been really surprised if someone were able to game the system.”
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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And people actually believe that Ford has changed for the better. This report is proof that Ford is still the same old Ford we saw 20 years ago...one that STILL uses fleet sales (after they said they wouldn't) to prop up the mediocre monthly sales reports. To quote Cinderella: "The more things change, the more they stay the same" Let me know when there is some actual change at Ford...not all of this smoke and mirrors garbage.
I think the Ford Escape Hybrid is the wheels-of-choice for many politicos these days, which would help explain the reason Ford comes out on top. And let's face it, nobody in the market does a better job of fleet sales than FoMoCo, particularly the types that Geeber identifies.
450 and 550 level cab and chassis trucks are another area where GM loses because they don't have an entry. The Silverado 3500 C&C tops out at 13,600lbs GVWR while the F-550 goes to 19,500lbs. Drive by any USFS facility and you'll see the impact that deficit has on sales.
The government installation where I worked went from owning all its own vehicles to using GSA cars - the exact mechanism - buying, leasing, or what is unknown to me. These vehicles seemed to me to be getting changed out every couple of years, rather than driven into the ground.