texas99alpha

So is this FCA's answer to the Mach E?

AWD is a great option that I wish Honda would take a hint from. AWD is so far superior to standard FWD in all situations. Makes the car more complete.

I have a lot of praise for Honda product - I just bought a new Accord Touring model. Hard to find - dealers tend to stock way too many base LX and Sport trims. Amazing car for the money and the features - light years ahead of GM and Ford. GM is seeing some weakness on SUVs. It seems to me a little early to cut sedans in favor of crossover SUVs like GM and Ford are doing. I don't mind variant trimming, but seems to me if you can share a platform between a crossover and a sedan, you can reduce development costs for the sedan and get away with lower sales - all the while maintaining model flexibility for changing consumer tastes. 

Just when you think you've figured out the consumer - you haven't. Tastes change on a dime - something the industry still doesn't understand. 

The trend of only pursuing the most profitable projects (by today's measure) to please wall st is a little rearward looking. Margins on those projects may be eroded once your purchasing power has declined due to the fact that you cut a bunch of other volume projects with lower margins. A very poor and short term way of looking at the business. GM share will continue to decline, but so will their scale and purchasing power. Margins on their formerly high margin products will be pressured. New buyers won't be coming into the fold because you offer nothing to "start" selling them on. Ride sharing services? That's the answer? Again, a myopic view that works in a highly urbanized environment, but not for "middle america". What I see is a strategy that's not very comprehensive and has a lot of holes that will threaten their future capital programs. 

1) 260k cars is still 260k cars - a lot - a lot more than Chevrolet sells of most of their SUVs.

2) Cost of development is marginal. Modern crossover SUVs are based on a sister car platform. The big winners will be the ones able to leverage both products off of a single platform of shared costs. 

3) GMs sedans have been neglected and not class leading in some time. They're also priced way too high. 

4) EVs aren't for everyone. Very myopic when you live and commute in a single urban environment but highly impractical for those who have longer commutes or travel a lot. Fast charge batteries haven't been proven out in severe conditions or duty either - so don't tell me those are just on the horizon.  EVs also have a high environmental cost. 

The 3 Series GT is a real head scratcher. This is a true "crossover" and a heck of a lot of fun to drive for the size that it is. BMW has done an abysmal job marketing it - just finding it on their website or on dealer inventory requires a PhD... Don't know why it's gotten so much neglect. It's a gem if you find one. 

Sometimes I feel that Fiat knows less about American market product than Daimler did. Daimler at least flooded the product pipeline and was very forward looking with crossovers and new concepts - maybe they were a little too early. Daimler's problem was that they thought American product ought to be done as cheaply as possible - damn styling and interior quality. Fiat on the other hand will put a lot of capital in just a few products - but their brand strategy is very confusing and diluted. In either scenario, I'm not sure the guys at Auburn Hills ever have much say. 93-99 was really the golden era and will never return.

Don't understand GM's obsession with super high belt lines and claustrophobic interiors where the center console is taking over the cockpit. Not particularly innovative. 

A few train of thoughts:

- Maybe it's all a ruse... Just like the ATS was supposed to go away with the CT5 replacing CTS and ATS... Then all of sudden, a surprise announcement for the CT4. (too similar to the CT5, but whatever...)

- GM is doing this to themselves. When they don't get the styling or quality right and sales sag - they blame the customers, and not themselves.  The belt line is ridiculous on this car - very hard to see out of and makes it not pleasant to drive on a daily basis.  The styling has gotten considerably more squinty and quite frankly ugly. They are doing the same thing with the Impala - they let it sit on the vine for years without updating it while the competition got tougher, and then blame sagging sales on customers wanting SUVs.

- Why then did they make such a big deal about the Blazer having "Camaro styling cues" - if the Camaro is so bad for sales, then I don't know why they would borrow cues from it and slap it on an SUV. And yeah, I wouldn't be surprised if it were re-born as yet another styling exercise 5 passenger SUV... *yawn* has the market been saturated with these enough already??

- As for EVs... Go ahead and do it - they will be surprised when they've dumped all this capital into these models and they only sell sub 100k quantities. This will be a disaster. This is America, and people like to drive without having to stop for 8 hours to charge up. For some reason, product planners at the auto companies (and investors) are thinking everyone lives in LA or NYC. 

it's already been said in this thread, but I'll reiterate it: these would make a good replacement for HHR. It's already successful, and has had lots of marketing support thrown into it, and has a quality image thanks to nice exterior trim and interior quality [for its class]; but it lacks versitality, fuel efficiency, and isn't appealing to it's intended market in terms of DESIGN. It's not a bad-looking car, but it's not exactly a car young people want to be seen in; it's also big-looking on the outside and small on the inside; a little more space and attention to comfort [since the idea is this is a people-mover] would go a long way. Fuel efficiency is a must; you can't sell a compact car based on efficiency and lower price-to-own if that isn't the reality. Call it HHR though, it has good image now.

I think the biggest problem with HHR is lack of AWD. This new platform that Lutz is talking about would appear to address that. Nobody wants an SUV-like vehicle without at least the option of AWD - especially in all states Oklahoma and north.