Updated - GM To Eliminate Some Car Models - Focus On EVs - Close Some Plants

[Formulabruce]

Most of Buicks.. made in CHINA now...

[KARNUT]

One of the most popular cars made was the 94-96 impala ss. GM discontinued the rear drive platform to convert the plant for trucks. Why? More profits in trucks and SUVS. People are willing to pay more for a higher seating position, less gas mileage, a worse ride, less performance than the full sized sedan they replaced. Then they’ll put a cap on the back to keep their groceries dry in the bed. A bed that’s shrinking to size of a large sedans trunk to give more cab room. I guess I’m a dying breed. I don’t get the fascination with a pickup as a family vehicle. I’ll take a large sedan any day.


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[paullgj]

GM has priced me out of the new vehicle market.  Looks like I stay with my low tech 2016 reg cab WT (paid for) forever.  Sure I’d like a new Tahoe Z71 but at $60,000-70,000 no way.!  FWIW I’m in the 70+ age group, never drove Buick’s (always Chevy trucks or Jeep Wranglers), and definitely don’t like the buggy instantly out-of-date infotainment systems.  In addition to the price, the new vehicles all seem to have computerized all wheel or 4wd systems.  Not so good when one of those modules goes south when you’re on a mountain slope rutted dirt track.  

 

My rant.  I see GM and others becoming highly specialized and over priced.

[BobHancock]

6 hours ago, pickmeup said:

Buick has nothing most modern car buyers want but it seems to have a audience of the 70 and older crowd . Youth and middle aged could give 2 shits about it.

Hey wait a minute.  At 72 I might resemble that remark, but don't thanks to Chevy trucks with 6.2L engines and Jeeps.  

[swathdiver]

Thirty plus years ago GM and the other American automakers dominated the markets with all of their offerings even while Motor Trend and Road & Track whined about how similar the Monte Carlo, Buick Regal and Pontiac Grand Prix were.  They were and made GM a fortune.  Somewhere along the line GM and others started listening to these fools and started building high revving low torque euro style cars that never did hold a candle comfort and ride wise to an American offering.

 

It seems to me that  folks looking for cars have a lot more choices at lower prices with the imports.

 

GM is in for a rude awakening if they think Americans are going to buy those electric cars; ask Musk how well that's working out for him now that the government is not subsidizing them anymore!

 

Buick has become a Chicom car company with a legacy in the USA that will likely end soon.

[PhantomSierra16]

All I gotta say is GM killed their long-standing American Sedan the Chevy Impala. They ****ed up by 1) Not Sprucing it up enough 2) FAILING TO MARKET IT 3)Horribly Designing it and not touching it since it’s current gen release 4) Failing to compete with the Dodge Charger and 300.

 

How is anyone okay with this? Instead of trying to Save the Impala, GM opted to sell the Holden Comedore (the SS), and not lend anything performance wise to the Impala. ???

[KARNUT]

I’ve had 10 rear drive impalas, last one was a 94 ss. We finally found a close match, 2011 Genesis. Probably a Stinger next. I was all for the Chevy ss, the wife didn’t want to part with the Genesis. She couldn’t warm up to the idea of buying a Chevy for 50K, when the Genesis cost us 30K. Even now 8 years later and 92K it still has bumper to bumper warranty.


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[Roscopcoletrain]

Quote

GM has confirmed the Oshawa plant news and added to its "Unallocated" list the Lordstown, Ohio and Detroit-Hamtramck Assembly plant in Detroit. In addition, GM is not planning any products for the Baltimore Operations in White Marsh, Maryland, and the Warren Transmission Operations in Warren, Michigan. 

so they close one plant in Canada and five in the US, but thats Liberals/Trudeau's fault? 

 

this is what I hate so much about politics. Folks so quick to just blame the other side for no reason other than it has to be their fault. 

[Jsdirt]

Roscoe, I know it's been a couple years, but remember obama's affinity for self-driving cars? Where he'd mention something like this, then suddenly Ford and GM released their plans for their self-driver's by 2021? Do you think, with obama's propensity for overstepping the Constitution via executive orders, that Ford and GM just decided to do this because they agreed with him?

 

Common sense tells me they were strong-armed into this. So now they tool up and prepare for little cars, EV's, and self-drivers .... and Trump wins. I can just hear the collective, "Oh sh!t" from automakers ....

 

So yeah, I agree the libs had a lot to do with this.

 

https://www.wired.com/2016/10/obama-feds-must-guarantee-self-driving-cars-work-everybody/

[diyer2]

15 hours ago, PMurray said:

I find your comments (doubly) offensive.

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Sorry

 

[sheepdawg]

17 hours ago, yogi89 said:

PMurray, If you'd rather have justin over Trump, then move north.  Amazing how our Canadian friends can understand the situation yet many of my fellow Americans continue to be hood winked by the leftest media.

The government wants to stick it's nose into everything and tell us how to live our lives. If I want a 64 oz. Coke, a wheel barrel full of salt or a gasoline eating vehicle I get it, the government and media be damned.

 

A big +1 to you.

[L86 All Terrain]

10 hours ago, Roscopcoletrain said:

so they close one plant in Canada and five in the US, but thats Liberals/Trudeau's fault? 

 

this is what I hate so much about politics. Folks so quick to just blame the other side for no reason other than it has to be their fault. 

The plants in the US are all related to the model lines being discontinued. One assembled cars like Oshawa, the others made powertrain parts for said cars. This is all to do with JT's politics, not the fact that GM had to restructure, it's the fact they are up and leaving because business in Ontario sucks. Oshawa also made Silverado and Sierra which the other US plants closing did not, that Oshawa plant had the tools to produce the pick up's for Canada and the Northern States drastically reducing transportation costs from Indiana and Mexico (which gets passed on to you for $1,500 on top of the MSRP). As a business owner I know full-well the types of things JT's gov't has pulled on businesses since election (increasing wages and taxes, increase fuel and energy costs, carbon tax, capital gains changes, family business changes etc.). They are very anti-business especially if you are in an industrial setting , more of a socialist/communist approach to business (gov't owns the businesses, you work for them, as Justin's father did with PetroCanada) If we had good policy and were a profitable place to do business, GM would not abandon Oshawa, they would restructure it. The reason he shot out a bunch of potential tax changes last week was a vain attempt to keep GM in Oshawa, but it wasn't enough. While GM will continue to expand it's Autonomous R&D in the USA, Canada is stuck looking to feed 1,400 people that now are out of work directly due to the previous Ontario Liberals and the current Federal Liberals policies. Not saying Liberals are bad people, most of my family are liberal, but JT's Liberals have the worst economic sense I have ever seen in my 35+ years of being in business. Harper's Cons had some bad policy too but I guarantee the story would differ. Politics is very important, it controls every aspect of our lives and all major business decisions and we should be free to discuss it as we feel fit, in a respectful and courteous manor without hating on each other. 

[Colossus]

15 hours ago, PhantomSierra16 said:

All I gotta say is GM killed their long-standing American Sedan the Chevy Impala. They ****ed up by 1) Not Sprucing it up enough 2) FAILING TO MARKET IT 3)Horribly Designing it and not touching it since it’s current gen release 4) Failing to compete with the Dodge Charger and 300.

 

How is anyone okay with this? Instead of trying to Save the Impala, GM opted to sell the Holden Comedore (the SS), and not lend anything performance wise to the Impala. ???

Long standing since 2000.. a whole whoppin 19 years.  Whoopdie doo. During which time they didn't sell worth a damn except to your favorite rental car fleet.  Why?  Because GM (and Ford with their Taurus) couldn't figure out how to or did not want to build something with the reliability and resale value that made Honda and Crapota sedans popular.   And while the current generation of Impala isn't all that bad (except for the ugly ass end) it was too little too late.  Too many people see GM sedans as tarnished, just like the Ford sedans.  (Which is why the Taurus is going bye bye, thank heavens) But no big surprise to see the Impala on the chopping block.  As for Buick I think GM screwed up when they did away with Hummer, Saturn, Olds, and Pontiac.. It should have been Olds, Pontiac, and Buick.  Saturn's still sold decently and there was promise there with them not being so closely aligned to the other brands vehicles like Olds, Buick, Pontiac, and Chevrolet.  I predict we'll see Chrysler fold and possibly Lincoln as well in due time.  Lincoln just like Buick doesn't sell here at all.  Hell we even saw Crapota do away with the Scion line so even they are not immune. 

[SILVER SLED]

3 hours ago, Colossus said:

Long standing since 2000.. a whole whoppin 19 years.  Whoopdie doo. 

The Impala has basically  been around since 1958. 

Edited November 28, 2018 by SILVER SLED

[SnakeEyeSS]

Que the 2019 or 2020 market downturn, when the INSANE debt most Americans have starts to fold in on itself(love how this is completely ignored/ brushed off just like the real estate bubble was) and Toyota and Honda will absolutely rule car market again, and US automakers will be caught with their pants down again. For all the yapping about looking to the future, there will still be a huge near term demand for gas powered cars.  If the debt problems trigger problems before there are car chargers everywhere(yeah, right).

 

Especially for those of us who sometimes like to drive  more than a few hundred miles at a time. I'm not saying gas will spike, I'm saying those who overextended themselves( a massive number of people) will desperately need a car they can actually afford.  And combine that with Amazon about to run the entire world and finally crush the remaining physical retail sector, the number of people needing jobs will go up too, and "Mom n' Pop" will be six feet under.

 

TL;DR trade in values will be fantastic!

Edited November 28, 2018 by SnakeEyeSS