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Originally Posted by jamesqf
Maybe after a Rube Goldbergish sort of fashion. But GM & Chrysler are bankrupt and sucking up my tax money, and I STILL can't find a decent new car - unless I shell out $100K for a Tesla.
"And now GM is going to have to refocus themselves. GM didn't have the chance to do that because they were cut short by the OTHER market collapse."
Oh, crap. GM had fifty effing years to "refocus" themselves, but never bothered.
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50 years ago, GM was the biggest thing around. Why would they have re focused themselves? And the decline in market share was inevitible as more viable car manufacturers started selling cars in North America. And GM did start refocusing. They have offered the Cobalt for sale since 2005. It has a bullet proof engine, and has always had very good highway fuel efficiency at a low price point in the market. Lots and lots of people bought them. They had plans to launch the Cruze, which will do better in the city and the highway before the market fallout. Ford had this whole water-cooled turbo lineup of engines called eco-boost before the market fallout although it was called something else...
If you want to point a finger at someone, point it at Chrysler. Gas prices go sky high. And they launch??? A Hemi - V8 in virtually their entire lineup. WTG guys.
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If 20% of all sales were SUVs, basic arithmetic says 80% of sales were NOT SUVs, no? So if you want to run a large & successful car company, do you ignore the 80% in order to cater to the 20%, like the formerly-Big 3 did? And then, when gas prices take a long-predicted jump, watch your 20% shrink to 10%?
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50% of passenger vehicle sales are light trucks. SUV's are an important part of that. I remain firm on the fact that you can't blame them for selling a vehicle the market liked. Most especially, you can't blame GM for that, when everyone was doing it.
I'm not letting GM off the proverbial hook. I think the missed the boat on having a vehicle with a halo-effect like the Prius did. Even selling the EV1 for $50000 (at a loss) would have been good advertising. And the Volt when it gets here, will be amazing. Most people will never burn gas.
-Steve