Quote:
Originally Posted by Jersey Mike
What car in the current GM line up is your favorite? How about the past?
Which competitor's car do you find most appealing?
How do you respond to those who say the rear of the C7 looks too Camaro-esque?
Why is Alex Villani spelling your name wrong?
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He loves them all, but obviously he loves to go fast. I asked him which of the two cars debuting today does he think will have a bigger impact, the Corvette or the ELR. "Corvette is always great and we have done a fantastic job at making sure that the new car has all the tools to take on the best the world has to offer, but the ELR has a very different approach to the EV market that no one has done yet, at least at the price point. Both cars will mean a lot to their respective brands, but if I had to pick one...ehhhahh...tough to say."
As for the spelling, i guess Autocorrect? Who knows.
Quote:
Originally Posted by 1320B4U
My question would be: How do you expect GM to position themselves ahead of the curve??? To me, gm isn't always the innovator, but rather it waits for the market to dictate what to make or watches market conditions rather than set a standard or define a market. Gm waiting a few good years before releasing the retro themed camaro to battle the retro themed mustang. Market share was grabbed up and ford made a boatload of $ while gm was still working on the camaro and its release. We still don't have a great hybrid seller (volt is great in theory but the general public still thinks its an electric=marketing). The hhr was a waited release to battle the pt cruiser, when market share was saturated already by this competitor vehicle. The 130r could be a great car to do battle w/the scion brand (small car/early 20 something niche)...whats the delay?
What i'm asking for is: How does gm position itself to offer a new age cult vehicle offering that will break the mold? aka, like what the 1938 beetle was, what the vette was in '53 or the jeep willys back in early 40's? A model that is an innovator to set the stage and make the competitor retool?
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Good question that has been asked in various forms over the years.
"Our cars are very innovative! Look at our Volt! No one on the market makes a car that is that technologicly advanced, and no one could do it at this price point. If you look at what Nissan and Ford are doing, the are offering EVs, a car we did in the mid-90s, at the price we are selling the Volt, but Volt has none of the draw backs of having to worry about charging."
"In the past, we took way too long to get to market with vehicles, and when it showed up, it was past due. We have worked on slimming down product development and to make sure we can get to making vehicles quicker."
I would say that you could say that about every single brand. Ford doesn't have a Corvette type car, Chrysler doesn't have a Volt, Toyota doesn't have a GTR, Honda doesn't have a full sized truck, Nissan doesn't have a proper hybrid system. You could go down the line with every brand, sans germans because they love to copy each other, and someone is always missing something that another brand has done.
The Camaro story is a complicated one that has been well documented elsewhere. HHR was born from the same two guys that made the PT over at Chrysler.
That said, there are some huge holes in GM's line up that they should fill, and they haven't.
There is no Cruze coupe. Why? Did GM forget that they used to make compact coupes? Stupid. They have now made a Cruze wagon and hatchbacks for every other region but the US, but we still don't have a coupe? To make it more drastic, we are going to get a DIESEL engine in the Cruze before a coupe.
Why is there no hybrid car? Why? Because in GM's world, they think that going hybrid on a car that gets decent gas mileage already is stupid, but putting it into a truck that gets ****** gas mileage is better. There was a "four mode" system in development, but I bet your ass it was eating too much money and going no where, so in the end they end up making a car that steals sales from Volt. You would think that they could take what they learned from Volt and make a hybrid car, but nooooo.
Malibu is a little off. It's a good car and will make whoever buys it very happy, but the competition stands out much more for various reasons, and Malibu doesn't. GM realizes this already, and they are going to revamp the car within a year.
GM isn't going to give up it's addiction to full-sized, BOF SUVs any time soon, but will continue to overlap the Traverse and Tahoe when they should make a platform that offers all the strength of the BOF Tahoe with the ride, comfort, and space of the Traverse. Unibody design would be a must, but offering both V6 and V8 options.
There is NO midsized SUV. GM will say the Lambda CUVs (Traverse, Enclave, Acadia) fill that void, but they are too big to fill that void. Equinox is too small to slot up, so there needs to be something there to hit that Pathfinder/Explorer/Pilot/Highlander market.
Cadillac is still lost. What is it? What is the mission? You have ATS which was executed almost flawlessly, but then you have XTS, which is not a bad car, but doesn't fit in with the performance-oriented nature of the brand. SRx is a giant pile of dog **** with a nice interior. It sells on low lease rate numbers and SUV packaging, that's it.
GMC is lost in the land of profitability. As long as they make slightly different, slightly higher level Chevy trucks, and pull in tons of cash doing so, they will always be that. It's time for GMC to become something and go global.
There is so much more to talk about, but my laptop has 30% life left and I gotta interview more people.