General Motors Closes Car Plants

[The Fed]

Following Ford's Business Plan? Is your next Golf going to be a...CUV?

https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/com...ely-plant-closures/ar-BBQ9pw3?ocid=spartandhp

 

[PRRGG1]

Now if they'd just find a new ad agency …..

 

[Charlotte.:R]

So much for that multi billion dollar bailout back in '08.

 

[imthanick_a]

Now if they'd just find a new ad agency …..

This guy makes the best videos about Chevy ads

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9-M5xg2Uyxw

 

[Hoon]

It's not Ford's business plan, it's market demand. Why bother making cars that don't sell, and have little profit margin? Waste of time.

Almost all of my coworkers drive small SUVs. They're everywhere. They suck...none of the fun of a car and none of the utility of a real SUV. Towing? Off road? Carrying anything large? These 4 banger SUVs are useless.

 

[southpawboston]

It's not Ford's business plan, it's market demand. Why bother making cars that don't sell, and have little profit margin? Waste of time.

Almost all of my coworkers drive small SUVs. They're everywhere. They suck...none of the fun of a car and none of the utility of a real SUV. Towing? Off road? Carrying anything large? These 4 banger SUVs are useless.

I'm not sure I agree 100% with all decisions being driven by market demand. Sometimes I believe that manufacturers "engineer" demand for a particular model segment by only making the items that are the most profitable, and dropping the models that they *claim* are not selling. It's easy to engineer demand-- if you stop making what people want, and only offer what they don't want, they'll buy it. Then it's easy to say, "Hey, look, everyone wants SUVs", because that's all there is to buy.

I bought a Golf because VW does not offer in the US the car I really want (which is a Touran). So my data point contributes to the notion that people will buy what the manufacturers give them.

 

[TheWombat]

Well, the cars that those factories made were largely large or full-size sedans that no one is buying, and the older EV they had. So it's not like it's something unexpected.

 

[oddspyke]

I would argue that people are at least partly flocking to cuv's because they told car makers they wanted sleek and coupe-like sedans, which aren't very practical; the car makers made those, but no one bought them because they're impractical. So they bought SUVs / CUVs instead. Most modern CUVs are about as practical as a golf, they just suck to drive, but that's nothing new; the Camry has sucked to drive for a long time, but it didn't stop it from selling like crazy for a long time (until recently that is).

 

[Hoon]

I'm not sure I agree 100% with all decisions being driven by market demand. Sometimes I believe that manufacturers "engineer" demand for a particular model segment by only making the items that are the most profitable, and dropping the models that they *claim* are not selling. It's easy to engineer demand-- if you stop making what people want, and only offer what they don't want, they'll buy it. Then it's easy to say, "Hey, look, everyone wants SUVs", because that's all there is to buy.

I bought a Golf because VW does not offer in the US the car I really want (which is a Touran). So my data point contributes to the notion that people will buy what the manufacturers give them.

You had options from other automakers that would have been a closer fit than the Golf was...although most of them are very dull in that segment.

The supply side can only drive the market if it has total control. GM and Ford do not. If your theory was true, people would flock to the remaining automakers and the sales of their sedans would increase substantially.

It's not going to happen. The non-sport, not much utility vehicles are taking over for the foreseeable future.

 

[Tsi7]

You had options from other automakers that would have been a closer fit than the Golf was...although most of them are very dull in that segment.

The supply side can only drive the market if it has total control. GM and Ford do not. If your theory was true, people would flock to the remaining automakers and the sales of their sedans would increase substantially.

It's not going to happen. The non-sport, not much utility vehicles are taking over for the foreseeable future.

Pretty much sums it up....

Has anyone seen the T-roc and the T-cross? What the hell are those? There are so many variations of different SUV/CUVS, I can't keep up with the trends anymore...

Just take a look at BMW. X1, X2, X3, X4, X5, X6, X7... then you have the 2 series active tourer and gran tourer (In europe and the rest of the world at least). Those are 9 variations of different types of SUVs/CUVs, with more on the way probably...

 

[TheWombat]

I would argue that people are at least partly flocking to cuv's because they told car makers they wanted sleek and coupe-like sedans, which aren't very practical; the car makers made those, but no one bought them because they're impractical. So they bought SUVs / CUVs instead. Most modern CUVs are about as practical as a golf, they just suck to drive, but that's nothing new; the Camry has sucked to drive for a long time, but it didn't stop it from selling like crazy for a long time (until recently that is).

Well, the only caveat here is that sleek, coupe-like sedans can sell well if they are stratospherically priced and German. Which sort of limits the market a bit, yeah.

 

[MonkeyMD]

Crazy they're eliminating the Cruze as a failure. I see those things EVERYWHERE ALL DAY EVERYDAY. And what I see is a direct correlation to sales numbers of course.

Edit : actually looked up sales numbers and they dropped from a peak of 273k in 2014 to a trend of 140k this year with most years being above 200k.

 

[Tsi7]

Crazy they're eliminating the Cruze as a failure. I see those things EVERYWHERE ALL DAY EVERYDAY. And what I see is a direct correlation to sales numbers of course.

Edit : actually looked up sales numbers and they dropped from a peak of 273k in 2014 to a trend of 140k this year with most years being above 200k.

With more and more people being brainwashed by this CUV crap those numbers are sad but not surprising... like I said, have you seen the T-roc and T-cross? Those will soon replace the golf and golf wagon, and the jetta, and whatever other crap CUV they can think of will replace everything else that's not a CUV

 

[MonkeyMD]

I think as SUV's become lower and more car like, Golf will still be a Golf, but will be categorized as an SUV. That's the hope anyway. It'll just become semantics.

 

[Tsi7]

I think as SUV's become lower and more car like, Golf will still be a Golf, but will be categorized as an SUV. That's the hope anyway. It'll just become semantics.

Hopefully you're right and yea unfortunately it seems that words and marketing have a very powerful impact on our society these days and people can't think on their own anymore (think "liquid retina display" )