GM: Time to Consolidate

[d43m05]

Brand Identity is at the heart of GM's US dilema. Take the Soltice a success by any measure only to suffer competition from a stablemate in the saturn sky. What justification can GM possibly have for making a clone of this car whose task was to restore some real performance credentials to the pontiac brand. Why duplicate the car? it doesn't make sense, now look at the lambda quartet headed for the same road. 2 lambda copies were more than enough and I see the same happening for the theta platform.

GM has finally understood that badge engineering doesn't pay, the sky and solstice look very different. The lambda's were also well differentiated. But, Underneath the sheetmetal they are pretty-much the same car. Same driving dynamics, sans Buick Enclave, but same every where else. The Sky could've been crafted into an excellent 350Z competitor while the solstice chased the miata. SKY could've used a variation of the quadcam v6 and would've been brilliant. That would've made for good differentiation between those products.

If GM can re-establish the identities of these ailing brands and truly provides them with unique products they can survive. However, I don't think they have the money or time to do it everywhere. But they could definitely choose their spinoffs more carefully as with the solstice-sky twins.

Sadly, there is no room for the best example of uniqueness in GM, HUMMER. Which GM got right from the start but couldn't anticipate $4+ gasoline.

[t-rex]

Anyone know what happened to MonaroSS's interesting piece that was posted early this morning? It's not coming on search. Was it deleted? I wanted to save it for reference.

[steve333]

I agree with all you said, but I also think Saturn should just be changed to Opel, with more dealers needed.

[lam]

Originally Posted by ChevroletRevived

Yes, it did at one time rake in a lot of money. But will Hummer help what GM is trying to do going forward? I don't think so. Also, I see any profits that do/did exist ceasing to do so because of declining sales and prices, bringing down residuals, dealers, etc. We'll see though what GM does with them. I wonder what GM could sell it for?

GM won't sell Hummer. Chevrolet , Cadillac , Hummer are GM's global growth brands. For Hummer ,the biggest growth in sales will be outside of the U.S , and with smaller models like the H4.

[paul8488]

Originally Posted by nsap

This coming from a Pontiac fan and owner that doesn't particularly care for GMC.

I feel your pain man! I am also a Pontiac fan that can't see a future for the brand if GM absolutely insists on keeping Saturn.

Can Saab really be sold? What is there to sell? Aren't they now fully integrated into GM? What would someone be buying... the name?

Hummer? Hmmm... tough call. There will always be SUV buyers, and the more extreme ones (like Jeep, Land Rover, and Hummer) might very well have an easier go of it in the future than non-descript SUVs and trucks from larger brands (like CHevrolet, Ford, and Toyota) as they'll have the rough, tough image that true 4x4 owners have traditionally loved and that soccer moms and dads don't care for (which explains why the Suburban looks like a big, unoffensive station wagon and why the Lambdas are a huge success). Still, it's certainly not a cotre brand, and an infusion of cash AND the remo val of another drain on resources and talent at GM might help the other brands.

[nailhead425]

One can make a compelling argument for cutting Saab and even Hummer. The best method would be to reduce the overlap, reduce the models, but no cutting brands. Especially traditional domestic brands.

[lam]

Originally Posted by paul8488

I feel your pain man! I am also a Pontiac fan that can't see a future for the brand if GM absolutely insists on keeping Saturn.

Can Saab really be sold? What is there to sell? Aren't they now fully integrated into GM? What would someone be buying... the name?

Hummer? Hmmm... tough call. There will always be SUV buyers, and the more extreme ones (like Jeep, Land Rover, and Hummer) might very well have an easier go of it in the future than non-descript SUVs and trucks from larger brands (like CHevrolet, Ford, and Toyota) as they'll have the rough, tough image that true 4x4 owners have traditionally loved and that soccer moms and dads don't care for (which explains why the Suburban looks like a big, unoffensive station wagon and why the Lambdas are a huge success). Still, it's certainly not a cotre brand, and an infusion of cash AND the remo val of another drain on resources and talent at GM might help the other brands.

Hummer and Saab are nothing more than brand names , they are full integrated into GM. As for Hummer , GM has already spent money for another round of Hummer's , the first is the new H4 , and Hummer will have big growth outside of the U.S, just read below.

Originally Posted by lam

GM won't sell Hummer. Chevrolet , Cadillac , Hummer are GM's global growth brands. For Hummer ,the biggest growth in sales will be outside of the U.S , and with smaller models like the H4.

[member12]

I'd kill off Pontiac and Buick and merge the North American dealerships in this manner:

Saturn GMC
Chevrolet
Cadillac Hummer
Saab

Saturn has kind of taken the place of Buick and Pontiac.
____________________________________________
GM would have to immediately eliminate redundant models between these lines, like one of the GMC Acadia/Saturn Outlook cars. The Vue and the new GMC minivan/crossover thing can't share a dealership either.

Chevrolet must be the worldwide brand, replacing the Daewoo name altogether. It's okay to have market specific products, but cars like the Cobalt, Malibu, Aura, Hummer H3, Colorado, Trailblazer, and Aveo must be on a world chassis for two reasons: share investment cost and increase demand.

Cadillac should have one lineup- and sell that exact lineup all over the world. The Escalade needs grow it's worldwide appeal by earning some off road credentials....Range Rover style.
Hummer should have no more than two products, as it's paired up with Cadillac dealerships- like Jeep and Land Rover were at one point. H3 4 door, and a Defender-90 style 2 door SUV should be all it needs. Hummer needs to move away from bling and more towards practical off road vehicles that wouldn't be out of place anywhere.

Saturn and Opel can have the exact same products.

The Holden name can stay, but GM has to align it's world Chevrolet cars with Holdens. Holden dealerships can sell the Chevrolet trucks and SUVs that GM must design for the world market (a new Colorado, Trailblazer, and possibly a mini-truck...with an assortment of diesel and gas engines). Toyota does something similar to this with their Tacoma/land rover/4runner.

I really don't know if Saab is worth keeping. If they can simply do their own thing and be run as a seperate company instead of a GM brand, but can have the benefit of GM's parts bin and pocketbook in exchange for GM raiding Saab's technology when it needs it....

[member12]

Originally Posted by lam

GM won't sell Hummer. Chevrolet , Cadillac , Hummer are GM's global growth brands. For Hummer ,the biggest growth in sales will be outside of the U.S , and with smaller models like the H4.

I'd have to agree with you there. Hummer is off road. Cadillac is high end. Chevrolet is mainstream trucks and cars. The North American and German market might have overlap between the Chevrolet brand and the Saturn/Opel brand, but they can be designed to appeal to a different market than Chevrolet....maybe the sporty high end type of car like Acura somehow manages to be, although I'd hope Saturn would make better products.

I can see the only world overlap being between a world market mid sized truck/SUV from Chevrolet and the Hummer H3....but the H3 should be designed to live out of if you are hard core enough. I think Hummer needs to actually revert back to old-school tech and sell Defender 90 style trucks. They may not sell in large numbers, but they will have steady sales and should be the go-to truck for real adventures. People in America would buy them just because there is nothing like that here anymore.

[b4z]

My thought was that the Olds products of 1999-2001 were the most intersting of all the bad engineered cars. Especially the Wbody Intirgue, which was easily the best looking of that family.
There was talk of renaming Oldsmobile and calling it the Aurora division.
I think an Aurora division could have supplanted Buick and Pontiac.

Saturn needs to go and all of it's resources should go to Chevrolet.

Or perhaps, Saturn, Buick and Ponitac could become an Aurora division.

Hummer could be part of GMC or just disappear. There could be 1 specialized Hummer type vehicle called the GMC Hummer.

Pontiac and Buick are a much harder decision. I do think a G8 Sportwagon would sell better than GM thinks. But with Cadillac having less expensive versions, is Buick really necessary.

If more assets were given to Chevrolet, making them nicer, slightly more upscale vehicles(and more upscale looking) are Pontiac and Buick really necessary in the US.

[Caleb02]

Originally Posted by nsap

GM: Time to Consolidate
A Commentary By: NSAP
May 21, 2008



I have been on the record many times over here at GMI as one that has been against killing off any of the brands GM has here in North America. I have, for the longest time been very vocal about having a comprehensive strategy to keep all of GM's brands. All of GM's brands have meaning and killing any of them would be a big mistake. Well, call me a Democratic Super-delegate, but I have deflected to the other side. I can no longer justify that argument. There are too many forces working against it; market conditions, lack of funding, dealerships, and most of all...the competition. I am now a firm believer that GM needs to weed through its North American bands now or they will never be able to fully compete with their new big rivals.

The ideal solution to this problem would be to simply to a complete "hold" on a couple of GM's brands until the funding is there to supply everyone with what they need to fully play their role in the GM family. However, we all know that the ideal solution is one that simply cannot happen. You just can't kill off a brand for a couple years then bring it back to life. That brings me to the very big reason the multi-brand strategy needs to go at GM: finances. GM just does not have the money to give every division what it needs. Where GM only has hit and miss global brands, companies like Toyota have fully-global brands that can share product all over. While even Toyota does not have the same lineup of vehicles in every country, they can tailor their products to each market because they have far fewer to develop in the first place! GM needs to start focusing on the global aspect of their divisions...they need a Camry. They need that car that everyone in the world knows about because it is a strong seller globally.

My plan to reduce the amount of divisions in North America calls for the selling of the Saab and Hummer divisions and the killing of Pontiac. I'd say sell off Saab for the simple fact that it has not made GM any money since they bought it. On top of that, GM and Saab management has proved time and time again that they can't make the brand work under the GM umbrella. Saab has become infamous for being a brand of heavy incentives and poor residual values. Even with the heavy incentives, the brand has not taken off sales-wise either. By all accounts the current generation 9-3 "should" have been a decent seller without $4,000 on the hood. I'd sell Saab before killing it. I think a Chinese or Indian firm would pay a decent amount for it in no time. GM could use the extra cash. Plus, since Saab isn't lighting any fires in the U.S., by selling them to a foreign firm...GM would not be giving them big in-roads to the U.S. Market. For the longest time I personally did not like Saab, but the current 9-3 changed my mind; I really do like the brand and think it does have potential, but it is just not worth dealing with for GM at the moment.

The next selloff would be Hummer, the brand GM created. Back in the day Hummer was a good idea, but that was in the day of cheap gasoline and when everyone conveniently forgot that we do not have an endless supply of oil to fuel the world. Hummer, like Saab probably can survive in the future if taken in a direction that I know GM is not willing to take them; mainly because the direction Hummer is ultimately going to have to go will either be far too expensive or just way off of the original Hummer theme. GM will not want to do either with the brand. For the first time, I truly think that GM wants to gain a “green” image as a company; they are quickly proving that with the Volt actually. Selling off Hummer to a foreign firm would be an interesting stunt for them in the face of the environmentalists. I’ve always loved the Hummer brand, I think it was the first brand that GM did “right” in regards to the infrastructure the brand has. Unfortunately it just adds to the crowded GM umbrella a dying market segment and the [PROPER] fix for Hummer is too costly for GM at the moment. The proper fix, of course, being to build off-road vehicles that are really environmental.

My last division axing was the most difficult for me. I am a Pontiac owner. By no means would I get a thrill out of seeing GM kill Pontiac, but I’m almost to the point that it needs to happen sooner rather than later. Pontiac is causing more unnecessary overlap with Chevrolet and Saturn. The division NEEDS to be a true, hard-core performance niche brand, however there are two issues with that now. The first issue being that GM doesn’t have the funding to give Pontiac the unique performance it needs to be different, and the fact that strict CAFÉ legislation is going to kill off a lot of performance vehicles not only because companies will be paying more to develop alternative propulsion, but also because the end user isn’t going to want to buy them (not in the volumes needed to sustain a brand). The recently launched G8 sedan shows promise for Pontiac. I personally had it high on my list as a potential next vehicle (a loaded black G8 GT mind you), but with gas at $4.00 a gallon, forget it. I don’t want a vehicle that gets 15 MPG in the city. I’ve successfully marked the G8 off my buying list, and that pains me very much. However I know if I of all people, am writing the G8 off because of economical reasons…then there is no doubt others are as well. That just gives us a snapshot of what is going to hurt Pontiac. GM needs to kill Pontiac; the writing is on the wall. I say kill it rather than sell it, because a Chinese or Indian firm would buy them in a heartbeat to get in roads into the U.S. market, something that GM should not encourage by any means.

After ridding themselves of Saab, Hummer and Pontiac, GM should then work on the infrastructure of the rest of the divisions. Saturn is the poster child of dealership infrastructures at GM and they need to enforce that idea on the rest of the brands. GM should make all Chevrolet stores standalone. In addition, Cadillac stores in metro areas should be standalone and have all-new showrooms that match the brand’s new identity. GMC and Buick stores can be combined and Saturn can stay off by themselves as well. GM is eventually going to have to mandate that their dealerships build new showrooms (like they did with Hummer and Saturn). Some of the stores are getting so drab that it is ridiculous. The dealership is the front line to the customer and should be topnotch to reflect a “changed” GM. I would go so far as to design the new showrooms with environmentally-friendly materials; bamboo floors, skylights for lighting, solar-panels. Oh, and be sure to have plug-in stations (powered by the Sun!!!) in the customer parking for those future E-Flex vehicles.

Why do you need Saturn? They are an entry level car/cuv type of company. Its not a step up from Chevy, they share platforms with chevy and opel. I would say GM only needs these divisons below and kill the rest or sell them

Chevy - Entry level (no trucks/cuv/suv etc) cars only
Buick - Mid level luxuary a step up from Chevy
GMC - Professional trucks comerical sales, have them only sell to the genral public suv/cuv and a 4 cyl truck using an Ford Echotech engine.
Caddy - Cars only nothing else no suv cuv trucks

Also because of Cafe and it seems the 35mpg will be much higher now then 35 mog from what i just read on google news. So gm should kill off all engines above a 6 cylender. 'i would do something that ford is doing with there ecotech family, turbo and super charge the thing, direct injection, cyl deactivation to just 1 cyl on crusing power, no ac to save mpg, make the engine out of plastic parts 100 percent of it.. and have it run off of water and use no oil products to make the cars or the machines that make the car and the machines that make the machines to make the cars.

[dindak]

All I have to say is killing brands kills market share. Oldsmobile killed off 2 points +.

I disagree will killing brands unless you advocate that GM should shrink.

[FierySolstice]

If GM kills Pontiac, then that is the day that I go to Toyota!

What GM needs to do is sell Saab and Hummer and keep Buick-Pontiac-GMC on the low volume. If anything, and I hate to say this, Saturn should go the way of Oldsmobile. If Chevy contiues to get more refined, ie the Malibu, then there is no point of having Saturn.

Pontiac does not need a full line up, plus they are sharing cars from Holden so the costs are low. All they need is a hot hatch, a small RWD sedan, and the G8. If they could transform the Torrent into something like the X6, that would be great. They certainly don't need that G8 ST. They don't need a full range. And those cars would not compete with any in GM's fold. I don't understand why people can't see that Pontiac can't be the great performance brand it once was.

[nicgolato]

I think consolidation of dealers, such as Pontiac - Buick - GMC is a better idea than brand elimination but your idea of putting brands in a holding pattern is interesting. One idea would be to use Pontiac as a performance badge similar to the denali line of GMC Trucks. Another option would be to keep a single vehicle as a pontiac or other Brand, then similar to toyotas Prius, in the right market it could expand to a line of cars again. I could see selling off Saab although I would rather see it combined with Saturn since they need more stores anyway. Hummer should stay as true off road vehicles. GM just needs to make them fuel efficient and environmentally friendly. Outdoorsmen, women and families should not have to give up adventure to be green. Combine Hummer and Cadilaac at the high end and redefine luxury as being much more diverse than it is today.

Originally Posted by nsap

GM: Time to Consolidate
A Commentary By: NSAP
May 21, 2008



I have been on the record many times over here at GMI as one that has been against killing off any of the brands GM has here in North America. I have, for the longest time been very vocal about having a comprehensive strategy to keep all of GM's brands. All of GM's brands have meaning and killing any of them would be a big mistake. Well, call me a Democratic Super-delegate, but I have deflected to the other side. I can no longer justify that argument. There are too many forces working against it; market conditions, lack of funding, dealerships, and most of all...the competition. I am now a firm believer that GM needs to weed through its North American bands now or they will never be able to fully compete with their new big rivals.

The ideal solution to this problem would be to simply to a complete "hold" on a couple of GM's brands until the funding is there to supply everyone with what they need to fully play their role in the GM family. However, we all know that the ideal solution is one that simply cannot happen. You just can't kill off a brand for a couple years then bring it back to life. That brings me to the very big reason the multi-brand strategy needs to go at GM: finances. GM just does not have the money to give every division what it needs. Where GM only has hit and miss global brands, companies like Toyota have fully-global brands that can share product all over. While even Toyota does not have the same lineup of vehicles in every country, they can tailor their products to each market because they have far fewer to develop in the first place! GM needs to start focusing on the global aspect of their divisions...they need a Camry. They need that car that everyone in the world knows about because it is a strong seller globally.

My plan to reduce the amount of divisions in North America calls for the selling of the Saab and Hummer divisions and the killing of Pontiac. I'd say sell off Saab for the simple fact that it has not made GM any money since they bought it. On top of that, GM and Saab management has proved time and time again that they can't make the brand work under the GM umbrella. Saab has become infamous for being a brand of heavy incentives and poor residual values. Even with the heavy incentives, the brand has not taken off sales-wise either. By all accounts the current generation 9-3 "should" have been a decent seller without $4,000 on the hood. I'd sell Saab before killing it. I think a Chinese or Indian firm would pay a decent amount for it in no time. GM could use the extra cash. Plus, since Saab isn't lighting any fires in the U.S., by selling them to a foreign firm...GM would not be giving them big in-roads to the U.S. Market. For the longest time I personally did not like Saab, but the current 9-3 changed my mind; I really do like the brand and think it does have potential, but it is just not worth dealing with for GM at the moment.

The next selloff would be Hummer, the brand GM created. Back in the day Hummer was a good idea, but that was in the day of cheap gasoline and when everyone conveniently forgot that we do not have an endless supply of oil to fuel the world. Hummer, like Saab probably can survive in the future if taken in a direction that I know GM is not willing to take them; mainly because the direction Hummer is ultimately going to have to go will either be far too expensive or just way off of the original Hummer theme. GM will not want to do either with the brand. For the first time, I truly think that GM wants to gain a “green” image as a company; they are quickly proving that with the Volt actually. Selling off Hummer to a foreign firm would be an interesting stunt for them in the face of the environmentalists. I’ve always loved the Hummer brand, I think it was the first brand that GM did “right” in regards to the infrastructure the brand has. Unfortunately it just adds to the crowded GM umbrella a dying market segment and the [PROPER] fix for Hummer is too costly for GM at the moment. The proper fix, of course, being to build off-road vehicles that are really environmental.

My last division axing was the most difficult for me. I am a Pontiac owner. By no means would I get a thrill out of seeing GM kill Pontiac, but I’m almost to the point that it needs to happen sooner rather than later. Pontiac is causing more unnecessary overlap with Chevrolet and Saturn. The division NEEDS to be a true, hard-core performance niche brand, however there are two issues with that now. The first issue being that GM doesn’t have the funding to give Pontiac the unique performance it needs to be different, and the fact that strict CAFÉ legislation is going to kill off a lot of performance vehicles not only because companies will be paying more to develop alternative propulsion, but also because the end user isn’t going to want to buy them (not in the volumes needed to sustain a brand). The recently launched G8 sedan shows promise for Pontiac. I personally had it high on my list as a potential next vehicle (a loaded black G8 GT mind you), but with gas at $4.00 a gallon, forget it. I don’t want a vehicle that gets 15 MPG in the city. I’ve successfully marked the G8 off my buying list, and that pains me very much. However I know if I of all people, am writing the G8 off because of economical reasons…then there is no doubt others are as well. That just gives us a snapshot of what is going to hurt Pontiac. GM needs to kill Pontiac; the writing is on the wall. I say kill it rather than sell it, because a Chinese or Indian firm would buy them in a heartbeat to get in roads into the U.S. market, something that GM should not encourage by any means.

After ridding themselves of Saab, Hummer and Pontiac, GM should then work on the infrastructure of the rest of the divisions. Saturn is the poster child of dealership infrastructures at GM and they need to enforce that idea on the rest of the brands. GM should make all Chevrolet stores standalone. In addition, Cadillac stores in metro areas should be standalone and have all-new showrooms that match the brand’s new identity. GMC and Buick stores can be combined and Saturn can stay off by themselves as well. GM is eventually going to have to mandate that their dealerships build new showrooms (like they did with Hummer and Saturn). Some of the stores are getting so drab that it is ridiculous. The dealership is the front line to the customer and should be topnotch to reflect a “changed” GM. I would go so far as to design the new showrooms with environmentally-friendly materials; bamboo floors, skylights for lighting, solar-panels. Oh, and be sure to have plug-in stations (powered by the Sun!!!) in the customer parking for those future E-Flex vehicles.

[Maetrix66]

Articles like this really piss me off.

I'm sorry NSAP, I know your heart is in the right place, but I think you are cutting off your nose to spite your face.

Kill Pontiac. But keep GMC?

Let's see. Pontiac is a CAR brand.
GMC is a Chevy truck rebadge factory.

People aren't moving from cars to trucks, it's the other way around. I agree with Saab and Hummer. I understand the global implications behind keeping Buick.

If Pontiac had gotten the funding it needed (instead of the golden child Saturn) then the obvious answer would be to kill Saturn. Their dealer network is almost completely seperate. I actually still think that it is a better idea to give Pontiac a reskinned Astra, reskinned Aura AWD, and the Volt variant.

But I still think that GMC should be reduced to what it should have been all along, a trim level on Chevy trucks. Truck sales are going to start plummeting, not car sales. If GM can sink an entire new lineup into Saturn, they can do the same for Pontiac.

I don't mind GM wringing every last GMC truck sale they can before dumping it, but come on. Do you really see GMC as being a better candidate to remain profitable in the future than Pontiac?? The cache' that GMC trucks hold over Chevy is equivalent to owning a SS vehicle over the base model.

In my town, we have a GMC dealership accross the street from our Chevy one. You can literally see people crossing the street both ways if they don't like the others trade figure. The difference is so miniscule between the two brands. If GM kills GMC, MOST of the GMC drivers will buy a Chevy, especially since with the GMT900's the similarities have returned.

If they kill Pontiac, they will lose far more sales, and the buyers won't come back to GM. They'll go to Mitsu or Subaru or BMW or Dodge.

Close GMC, and CONSOLIDATE the flagging truck market. Do it now, or pay the price.