Why can't Chevy make 7th gen Camaro? [CLOSED DUE TO POLITICS]
 

why cant chevy make a 7th generation camaro? GM doesnt "HAVE" to be full electric until 2035? thats 12 years? cant they try? fix the belt line, create just a little more trunk and back seat space, add some more colors, etc...cant they just try? i mean take a little inspiration from the 5th and 6th and 2nd generation camaro and go for it where are the engineers? they have billions in reserve and they know it...no matter what you read about the industry and the UAW GM has golden parachutes forever.......I dont get the failure attitude...sad...thats my two cents...

2035 is just an imaginary goal post they can move at will. The real goal is 'right now'. From a corporate perspective, it plainly doesn't make sense to continue investing R&D into ICE vehicles knowing full well they will be phased out. From an enthusiast standpoint like the Camaro and Corvette it makes alittle more sense but GM is more in love with their flagship car and will not give the Camaro the proper advertising it needs to properly sell as it would compete too fairly with the Corvette if they did, which is a problem that existed long before the EV stigma was pushed into auto manufacturers. As it stands, with Camaro sales being low, and the EV making a primary entrance into the auto-market, they would do best by switching platforms and investing the bulk of their dollars into a platform they can actually sell rather than continue to invest into a platform that they will have to decommission after a decade. That way they will be able to compete with other manufacturers and hopefully have a car that can travel atleast 400 miles on a full charge by 2035.

Also keep in mind that even though we are enthusiast, we make up a minority of GM's auto buyers. They sell globally, and have to contend with other countries standards and laws, so it is best to start conforming to the majority right here and now, rather than later.

Personally, I really hate this. I do not think EV's are going to impede climate change by as much as people think for multiple reasons:

1. The energy grid of which EV's use to charge in the U.S. is only 30% efficient meaning 70% of energy generated is lost in transmission, that is relative to the same energy loss from a ICE vehicle. Meaning we are still spewing a substantial amount of Co2 to fuel EV's, which will increase as more EV's reliant on the energy grid make their way into consumer garages, just in different areas. Currently there is only one state in the U.S. that has at least 25% of its energy produced by renewables, it's not California, it's not Washington state, you know what state it is? its Texas... ...ironically a state that often gets slammed by the media for having an independent grid (which helped to fund the renewables) and still invests in Natural Gas and Oil... meaning these loons do not truly care about clean energy to begin with, its about power (no pun intended) not the environment.

2. It is true that EV's use energy more efficiently than ICE vehicles, but not so much more efficient to overcome by a substantial amount of the sum of Co2 generated by energy production of a mostly fossil fuel power energy grid as well as Co2 generated by lithium production and refining for EV batteries, meaning EV's will still produce ALOT of Co2 if every American owned one, and there won't nearly be the reduction necessary to reverse climate change.

3. The likelihood of our energy grid going mostly green or clean energy over the next 3 decades is non-existent unless everyone was content with inconsistent power or unpredictable brownouts. To truly overcome the advantages of fossil fuels, you must overproduce clean energy, to meet current demand AND to also store reserve demand in batteries (requires lithium / produces Co2 hint hint), the reserve demand fuels the grid when there is not enough power production from clean energy sources and there must be enough in reserve to carry the grid for a long time. To do this you would need to WAY overbuild infrastructure which means you are going to be paying alot more for electricity if you want a reliable grid. I'm not kidding by this. I have $80k worth of Solar Panels and batteries installed in my home and they still cannot carry me more than 16 hours during a power outage. There isn't a true replacement for Fossil Fuels yet from a cost vs production perspective.

4. We are WAY too far into climate change, which I do think is real.. ..but we addressed it far too late and we are going to pay dearly as climate change is not progressive, it is exponential, meaning each level gets substantially worse instead of progressively worse. The right time to have done this was back when we were changing refrigerants to eliminate CFC's from the ozone layer. The smarter thing to do now would be instead to 'trap' excessive Co2 as we cannot live in a functional society without Co2 production. Invest in Co2 filters along roadways and large filters at or near plants and random other POPs scattered about the country.

5. It's more political than it is environmental IMHO. Government and mainstream media is constantly reiterating how dirty ICE vehicles are but never advertises how much Co2 is produced when building a lithium battery, nor do they advertise the toxic sludge production generated from Lithium Mining or how it impacts poor countries and their inhabits by destroying their agriculture and exposing their inhabitants to toxic, cancerous pollutants.. and despite this there is no serious financial effort to make any other energy source cleaner, or reducing Co2 emitted from Gasoline, or deep pocket investment into making Hydrogen a productive and safe method of supplying energy.. ..it HAS to be about EV's.. and something is very off about that. It's no different than the Covid-19 vaccine that they tried to mandate while failing to address how natural immunity (which the vaccine supposedly assists) is just as effective, if not more effective at combatting the virus.

Essentially the CT4 and CT5 are on the last generation of the Alpha architecture and their replacement(s) are slated to be EVs which would leave the Camaro as an orphan in one GM’s most expensive architectures.

That and the coupe market is simply dying. GM would be investing money they need to putt into EVs into something that simply would not make them money.

Sorr6 but it’s pretty straightforward. No money to be made on a shrinking market.

But mostly it’s the Cadillacs abandoning Alpha that makes it so impractical.

Uptake of cars, 2 and 4 doors, is less and less each year. Unless they want to showcase it as a halo car, it just doesn't make any sense. Look at how over the last 30 years everyone has to own an SUV or truck. The volume just isn't there for it to make sense. While Chevy was pretty good about having multiple sports cars for years...it's just not sustainable in the long run...for profits.

At the moment profit isn't really a problem for a highly "milkable", parts bin car built on a 9-year old platform, unless they're grossly inefficient. However, they believe they can use the manufacturing capacity to rake in even higher profits with a different set of vehicles.

Also, it was an executive decision to stop the Camaro now, most likely because as James pointed out, the Alpha platform is being sunset, and migrating the Camaro to its successor requires investment that GM isn't willing to expend. Just look at all the embarrassing "updates" they have made to this car after 2018, the introduction of the ZL1 1LE... they have been phoning it in ever since.

IMO, I think that even if the whole EV thing never took off, the Camaro still would have been phased out. I agree with James and the others in that cars are becoming less savory to a lot of buyers, let alone coupes.

To me, the 5th gen had a lot more passion behind it, because you had a better team working on it. Don't get me wrong, the 6th gen is far superior, but as time goes on they could care less about it.

Not sure where you get to claim there was a better team work
King on the Gen5. Holden started the program and let’s just there were reason it had to be pulled back to the US to finish it.

I didn't necessarily mean in terms of development, but over the life of the chassis. Once Oppenheiser left, so did the innovation. He was on board when the 6th gen came out, and we got a masterpiece. Then after 2018, nothing else has been introduced. He would have been our best chance for a Z/28, especially before the pandemic really flipped things upside down.

gm can't fail Failure Attitude
 

Because gm has had a 'can't fail' failure problem for far too many years. It's hierarchy got lazy, is still way too top heavy, and has mis-marketed it's products for many, many years!

I worked at a gm plant that built Pontiacs, Buicks, and Oldsmobile's all on the same line. We built the Aurora, 88, 98, Park Avenue, and Bonneville. The Aurora came out hot but was marketed to the wrong division, Olds. Sales declined because younger buyers just don't want an 'Olds' sport sedan. Duh! So what does gm do before killing the Aurora? Rather then improve upon it, they made the 2nd gen. look like every other car they made, effectively killing it. Workers would often shake their heads about the bad decisions the hierarchy at gm was making. 'Car guys' no longer run the operations at gm, the 'bean counters' like Jack Smith took gm over and it's been in a death spiral ever since!
Then along comes the G6...gm stops building the Grand Am and the Bonneville and instead decides to put all of Pontiac's future on the back of the higher priced G6, expecting it to fill the void it created when it canceled the high volume, lower priced, Grand Am's. gm's 'too big to fail' attitude resulted in product runs that didn't change for 10 years.
Once new products were finally introduced, they were half a$$ attempts that ended up being new exterior designs with the models old interior. With a newly designed interiors to come 3 to 5 years later. The Silverado is one example of this. gm just can never seem to get it's act together when they introduce new designs inside and out.
After getting my 23', V-8, M6, RS after waiting 5 months my first thought was 'how is gm not selling the crap out of these?' Then it all came back to me...no inventory, empty dealer lots, no advertising whatsoever, and an allocation process that discourages buyers.
But rather than fixing all of these problems gm would rather kill it's makes, and models and spend it's time changing it's logo from GM to gm. I'm guessing this was done because thanks to so many bad decisions GM is now a much smaller gm.
The death of the Camaro is another example of what happens when the wrong people are in charge...that's my two cents.

Reminds me of my company. Completely different industry, still union led. As much as I support unions for my livelihood I can definitely see the correlation between them and a piss poor management structure

This is the #truth, very confusing and sometimes disturbing top level decisions for years and years. (By the way I loved my 2000 Grand Am, the one and only Pontiac I ever had.)

No consistent product and marketing vision, zero customer orientation, software reeking of "minimum viable product" attitude, not much if any innovation. The company's sheer mass and the resulting inertia, coupled with hard work at the lowest and underappreciated employee tiers is keeping them going, but its future is a risky bet.

Given how expensive literally everything they make has become, from sedans through SUVs and trucks to the Corvette, their only real play now is to try and break into new(ish) markets that have some brand recognition, aren't yet aware of their antics and thus they can more easily milk. China and later India. It's no surprise that this is what they're doing.

GM already has a hot selling 2 seat sport car, the C8.

This will insure their not so hot selling (essentially 2 seat sport car) Camaro wont come back as we know it...if at all.

Capitalism.

Man the Grand Am was really a great car, especially in it's class. When the G6 came along to replace it I found it odd, ugly, and underwhelming.

There was quite a bit of name recognition and brand equity built up in the Grand Am name by the early 2000s as well. Pretty stupid decision to flush that down the drain.

GM, Ford, Dodge (or whatever the F they are called) haven't got a clue what people want. And they are being dictated to by the current gubment a-holes as to what to make.

Full electric?! Never going to happen.