Originally Posted by Number 3
Huge long answer required if you want to go beyond Camaro. Maybe not enough space on all the servers that support Camaro5 and 6. LOL.
The question you have asked was discussed over several thousand coffees between myself and my trusted friends when I worked there.
As for customers being unwilling accomplices? No, that isn't really possible any longer. Used to be you bought whatever was introduced. Now there are just too many good choices in almost every segment that if you don't satisfy a customer with your product, they will simply go elsewhere. If you aren't great, you'll quickly be relegated to niche status.
But on a bigger level, a lot of GM's problem is deeply rooted within it's own history and some of it is simply how GM still operates to this very day.
Historically, GM was so big at one point that the government actually tried to break it up. They were that dominant that the U.S. Government considered them a monopoly. What you won't ever see written, oddly enough but it is my observation, is that when the government tried to break them up from having such great products, GM basically went the mode of just making money. The early 70s was wrought with quality problems (think Vega and Chevette among many others), but it was those wonderful 80s that was the beginning of the lonnnnggggggg slowwwwwww decline. J-cars, including a Cadillac version(Cavalier, Skyhawk, Firenza, J2000, Cimaron.....) . A-cars for everyone but Cadillac (6000, Celbrity). The Riviera and Toronado were downsized so badly you couldn't tell if it was an N-car (Grand Am, Alero). GM helped coin the term "cookie cutter cars". And much of this was done in a declining market where Americans were (justifiably) buying Japanese cars more and more. Not they those were of any real quality, but they were much better than what GM and Ford could muster. All the way to the bankruptcy GM tried to the be the mama bird feeding multiple brands with products. And in all that mess was Saturn that also got product development and product $$$$. It was a death spiral of inferior product after inferior product. GM was it's greatest when it competed with itself. GM had multiple small block and multiple big block V8s...........at the same time. Unique engines so much so that when GM actually first tried to put corporate engines in cars...........THEY GOT SUED! Look up the Chevy-mobile fiasco. I bought an Oldsmobile damn it, I want an Oldsmobile engine.
When I worked for Nissan in the early 90s, we had two types of benchmarking activities. One was for product features and performance and the other was for cost reduction. GM products were NEVER in the product focused activities, only the cost reduction ones because of how cheap the GM cars were then.
Now to the last 10 years or so, look at the products where GM did still dominate. Where GM currently has the biggest presence in the market and that is Full Size Pickups and SUVs. Yes, Ford F150 is still number 1, but all in with Silverado, Sierra, Tahoe, Yukon, Suburban and oh yeah, Escalade, GM has a juggernaut of vehicles that almost all sell for more than $40,000. I bet if you looked at the total numbers, Chevrolet sells more $50,000 plus vehicles than BMW, MB or Audi in the US. If not it's awful close. This success, from my point of view and what I saw and experienced, was due to the fundamental knowledge of who your customer was and who your competition is.............and the important part was knowing your customer. Yes, that was helped a lot by only having to worry about Ford, Dodge, Toyota and Nissan, a small bunch of competitors to be sure compared to compact, small and mid-size cars where you add Mazda, VW, Hyundai/Kia, among others that offer competitive if not outstanding cars.
If you study why GM went bankrupt, it was simply that when the price of gas spiked in the late 2000's GM lost so many sales of profitable truck sales that they could no longer pay their bills. HUGE bills of legacy costs of pensions and retirement benefits for over 1,000,000 people.
So as I've said many time on my career, when I started GM had mid 40% market share. When I left 4 1/2 years ago it was 16%. I still have my lapel pin with the number 29 on it. GM had drawn the line at 29% market share and would not go below it.................until the very next year.
Now for today, GM still has 4 brands to feed. I say 4 but as of today it still has a unique brand in China (forget the name), Opel, Vauxhall, and Holden. We see a Holden product here (SS) but there are a lot of Opel/Vauxhall products we either don't see or that get badged Buicks for the U.S. and China. Verano is one of those, Regal another. And of course there is a Regal Wagon and Hatchback that don't even come here that many claim they would love to have. But in the US, 4 is more than anyone else. Ford has Ford and Lincoln. Toyota, with the demise of Scion, now has Toyota and Lexus. Honda has Honda and Acura. So how do you make your very best cars when you need to have space for 4 brands.
So a shout out to the fallen brothers in the past 10 years: Oldsmobile, Pontiac, Saturn and Hummer.
As I outlined before, putting the 2.0t in the Cruze fights against the Verano that does get the 2.0t as it's option. The Traxx? You can't get leather seats. You need to move up the Buick Encore if you want those. Same thing with the engine. The Encore now gets a larger turbo engine than the Traxx. Want the good chassis in the Impala? Nope, you have to move up to the Lacrosse where it's optional or the XTS where it's standard. Want AWD in a Malibu? Nope have to get the Buick Regal for that. Don't mind that the Fusion does have AWD. On and on and on. GM still has the problem of competing with itself, but no longer in the good way it was in the 50s and 60s. GMC? Yes, it gives the Buick dealer a truck to sell, but it is, with the exception of Denali, the same truck you can get at the Chevy dealer. And now not only do you have the Chevy dealer having to compete with an offer from Ford or Dodge, he or she has to compete with the GMC dealer up the road selling the same product. But Buick needs to exist if nothing more than to have China Buicks. And we will get the first Chinese made Buick imported soon along with the CT6 hybrid.
And by the way the above is a very shortened version. Very.
So how do you fix this? Much harder to answer that than what is wrong. First, GM is a very poor global company. Yes, China sales are robust and now exceed even the U.S. but for the most part, it's tough to sell a Chevy anywhere but the U.S. And if you took truck sales of the total, Chevrolet cars is a small player in the Global Market. Why? Tough question, but in Europe, it frankly has been a car good enough to compete with VW or even Opel. But Europe is a tough nut to crack. Toyota and Lexus for example don't do particularly well there either.
But the answer is to try and follow the truck model. GM still owns this segment and it does so with vehicles that define the market or at the very least are hugely competitive across the entire competitive set.
When is the last time GM had Chevrolet mid-size car that defined the segment? A small car? A full size car? I can't recall one. Yes, there were COTY awards, but sales never followed.
As Lutz used to always say, the answer is in great products. But GM is somewhat stuck here with Buick as the tweener. What happens when Cadillac needs a smaller SUV than the new XT5? BMW has the X1, Audi has the Q3 and threatening with a Q1. Lexus has the new NX. All of these are starting in the mid $30,000 range. About what a well appointed Equinox and Terrain go for. And with the new Buick Envision coming next year. It will only get worse for GM to try and have unique products that don't just compete, but set the bar. Cadillac has to go down market to maintain sales and profitability with the other luxury brands. Chevy has to be able to be better still and not limited by the space Buick needs.
I mean seriously, if you could get AWD and the hiper strut/linked h-arm suspension in and Impala would there be any need for a Lacrosse and development and tooling money that car requires? I don't think so. And that money could go to a broader Cadillac lineup. Have you ever compared Cadillacs line up of cars and SUVs to MB? Audi? BMW? Far fewer choices.
Now in the next year, we'll have a good idea of where Chevrolet stands. Within a years time, Chevrolet will have introduced a new Camaro, Volt, Cruze, Malibu and Spark. 5 brand new cars on the showroom floor. I don't know of any other brand that will have that. Not refreshes, but ALL NEW models.
And for the Camaro? All I wanted was a truly great coupe that exceeded every possible comparator against any comer. Yes, we got a truly outstanding car, but take the SS off the table. V6 only. GM could have made the car in ways that nothing competed with it. Price honestly isn't bad for a V6. But for usability, the car gave up many things for the sake of styling. They could have even added AWD, a huge advantage over the Mustang, but chose not too even though Alpha enables it. And that IMO, makes it less appealing to a broader audience than it could have been. GM should have tried to make the best coupe ever, not the best Camaro ever. A car that would have even fewer tradeoffs than the Gen5. A car that at $50,000 stood up against anything. But today, the car wins BIG TIME if you bring the SS back in and let performance be the decision maker. I'm sure the SS will in the upcoming M4 comparison handle itself quite well. I don't think it wins, but it will get big points for what it does for $30,000 LESS.
So to my point, GM could stand a Camaro with a smaller trunk, less rear seat room and better visibility IF they had another choice. But that other choice is counter to everything I've been saying. GM no longer has the sales volumes to have multiple coupes. Everyone wants a GN or GNX from Buick. But all that would do is cannibalize Camaro sales. GM just can't afford that business model anymore.
But to be clear, the Gen6 Camaro is a really great Camaro. I hope they sell a $hit ton of them. But for me it is a screaming example of the old GM, not a forward thinking visionary company that defines automobiles. As I said, GM only does that in trucks. It seems to me that GM is now simply accepting that after the bankruptcy, being profitable on lower volumes is just fine. Being the world leader that defines the technology of personal transportation just doesn't seem to be there anymore. And as 3rd generation GM guy (my grandfather worked in Flint during the sit down strike that lead the UAW) that is what hurts the most. And that is why I'm pickier than most on GM's products. I know the people that are there and I know what they are capable of doing. And being the best in the world is still well within their grasp. And THAT is what I hope for. THAT is what I want to see.
I am probably one of the biggest GM fans on this website. Not just because of the fact I have a pension riding on it, but because it's a huge part of who I am, who my friends are, where I grew up, even where I went to school (GMI with an Automotive Engineering Cognate, btw). And I already posted years ago what Camaro means to me and why even though I don't own one, it remains important to me and my passion for cars. I want the same things for the company that I did when I was there, to regain dominance and define the market in every segment they compete in.
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