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Despite strong profits, GM still fighting flat market share

Looking at the progress General Motors has made since it entered bankruptcy, it's easy to forget that the company still has a long way to go before it's the juggernaut it once was. A recent report from Reuters points out that, while GM is making money, it isn't making any gains in terms of US market share. Quite the opposite, really. Consider this factoid: In 1963, nearly half of the cars sold in the United States were from Chevrolet, Cadillac, Buick, GMC or Pontiac. Now, the company's US market share is stagnant at 17.9 percent. That same number is half of just Chevy's 1963 market share. This is all despite GM going on a binge replacing or updating its models. "Market share increases are not instantaneous," Mark Reuss told Reuters at the 2014 Detroit Auto Show. "We've got a lot of baggage. Don't underestimate what people though of us, or these brands, through these hardships and 30 years." The reasons for the stagnant market share are numerous. Reuters points out that retooling of factories and a focus on limiting incentives are both good things for profit, but not necessarily for market share. There's also the troubling turnover of the brand's marketing department. These issues don't change the fact that Chevrolet has lost 1.4 percent of its market share in two years, and that Cadillac - arguably GM's most improved brand overall - has lost 1.2 percent in the same period. Part of that can be blamed on GM's avoidance of fleet sales in favor of more profitable customer sales. "Our focus has really been on retail and that's where we've got the growth," said Alan Batey, GM's interim global marketing boss. "We want to grow GM and that means growing market share and profits, but it's not at all costs," Reuss said. News Source: ReutersImage Credit: paul bica - Flickr CC 2.0 Earnings/Financials Buick Cadillac GM GMC sales profits

Hot air balloons caught in high winds drag fullsize SUV

A sudden storm front whipped up enough wind to send some hot air balloons flying into the air in Wisconsin over the weekend. One ballon proved so energetic that it was able to drag a fullsize SUV across a field and into a stand of tents. The freak accident occurred at Balloonfest in Waterford, Wisconsin. Spectators were horrified as balloons dragged handlers to the ground and launched with terrified pilots clinging to their baskets. Organizers had started packing up the colorful balloons due to ominous storm clouds when the wind kicked up. "Happened just like that; it was crazy," Nathan Fricke, crew member, told Fox 6. Winds were clocked at 40 to 50 miles per hour. A balloon caught in the wind dragged a large SUV (we think a Suburban or Yukon XL) hundreds of feet and into a cluster of tents on the edge of the staging area where balloons were on display for festival goers. Considering that the SUV surely weighs well over 5,000 pounds, it's lucky that no one was injured in the incident. News Source: Fox6Now Weird Car News Chevrolet GM GMC SUV

GM updating fullsize pickups for 2015

As Ford prepares to hit the market with its x-factor, aluminum-intensive F-150 and Ram sales stand tall enough to meet General Motors truck sales eye-to-eye, GM is putting the word out that it's going to add more features to its trucks and do so more regularly. An executive engineer for pickups told reporters that "a whole array" of changes are on the way as soon as the 2015 model year and then would likely come "the year after that, the year after that, the year after that."
Only GM knows the way it plans to go with its fullsize trucks, with almost everyone else - including its dealers - griping about market share at the same time as they applaud profits and hope for clarity and growth. GM raised prices on the Chevrolet Silverado and GMC Sierra not long after launch even as it was losing market share and getting called "the least successful large pickup launch over the last 15 years," further upsetting dealers, then Ram outsold the Silverado in March of this year and led GM to increase incentives. But transaction prices rose with the premium; in the first quarter of this year more than 37 percent of the trucks costing more than $40,000 were the Silverado and Sierra, leading one dealer to say of the Sierra, "You can't sell a cheap one," and the analyst who made that "least successful launch" comment to opine, "GM may have made the right call to go for price over share."
We won't know for a few months what any of these updates will be, but the rumored changes for the Silverado and Sierra appear to cover all the bases, including appearance, capability and fuel economy. Rumors run to higher gear counts, stop-start technology and diesel engines before brand-new pickups come for the 2019 model year, those next-generation models supposedly to be engineered with a lot more aluminum.