GM moves nearly 2,000 hybrids in September

FYI,
Toyota (including Lexus) sold 15,399 hybrids in September and 200,450 in nine months.
Toyota/Lexus/Scion Pressroom: Toyota Reports September Sales

Ken@Japan

 

GM will sell its one millionth hybrid in about 74 months.
That is, provided the Volt doesn't steal sales from the hybrid GM car market.
The Champagne to be used to celebrate the one millionth GM hybrid will be bottled about 62 months from now.

 

The ad that GM is running in our area for the Escalade hybrid is so annoying it makes me want to throw something at the TV when it airs. I can't read the super fine print, but I think they are giving an estimate of 19 mpg city/ 21mpg hwy.

 

Why? The 20/21mpg (from the EPA website) for the hybrid is a huge improvement over the 12/19 of the std Escalade or something like the Lexus RX 570 barge that gets 12/18.

 

Its not the mileage claim, but the condescending jerk driving the Escalade that is offensive. Something about all of the other hybrids being small horrible cars.

 

Actually, I have to give Cadillac's marketing department credit for getting it right by using such a jerk in that ad. The vehicle is targeted for that very market segment. Makes perfect sense to me!

 

GM confirmed that when gas prices go down sales of large vehicles goes up. People haven't learned. How long will it be before truck & SUV sales recover in the South? All those people who "needed" their large vehicles aggravated the situation when the pipes ran dry. My cousin from Charlotte told me people parked in line at the gas station overnight so they could buy after the morning delivery.

Since GM sells 2000 hybrids a month the question is how many do they make? Are they special orders?

 

I agree. I don't like the guy in the ad either, but its actually good marketing. He is implying that they have one upped the other guys both with their small hybrids and the others in their non hybrid luxury vehicles. He is a snotty nice person type and saying "look what I got!".

This is America and that WILL SELL CARS.

 

I think the ball has already been set in motion. Even as gas prices have come back down from $4.50 to $3.49 (here in SoCal), I still see more and more hybrids and small cars on the road everyday, and I can't even recall the last time I saw a brand new (dealer plates) full-size SUV.

In fact, I drove over to the Irvine Auto Center earlier today (since I opted to skip the autoshow - this year is a "lame duck;" the 2009 autoshow will be worth going to) and looked at the new Mazda6 and Hyundai Genesis. Nice cars! But as I was leaving, I noticed something depressing ... the Chevrolet dealer - that has been there the entire 20 years since I moved to California - only had about 50% of normal inventory (half of the lot was empty; in 20 years, I'd never seen this before), and there were no customers on the lot. It fascinated me to see how far Hyundai had come with the Genesis (I looked at the top of the line Genesis, for $39K (I only looked), and it was IMPRESSIVE!).
I just wonder if the American Automobile dealers will be able to survive over the next twelve months. Our Chyrsler dealer already sold half of it's lot to Hyundai ... and now I see this today with the Chevy dealer. The Ford dealer seems to be doing just fine though. Connecting back to your comment, GM might be half right, but if they don't have any "ma and pa" dealers left, they aren't going to be able to sell any Suburbans anyway.

 

That snotty guy commercial airs here as well. If he goes down to Charlotte, NC he might as well install the toilet & live in the Caddy because he won't be able to find enough gas to buy to get the thing home.

GM doesn't want "ma & pa" dealers. They want huge superstores. The Chevy dealer in Burlington has an empty lot that used to contain trucks of one sort or another. Three GM dealers in the area closed within the last year. The owners of Cherry Hill Toyota sold to Holman (who seems to sell just about every make).

Salesmen seem to outnumber customers even at the Toyota dealers when I went for the 2009 Prius booklet.

 

Here's a link to the Escalade Hybrid commercial on the GM website:
http://www.cadillac.com/cadillacjsp/footer/downloads.jsp


I just found this to support my previous post:
Economy forcing more car dealers to close

 

And do you know the reason why there was a gas shortage down in the SE? They took a chemical out of the fuel therfore it took awhile for them to replenish the stock on top of what happened when the refineries shut down when Gustav hit.

Thats ok though. I predicted on this forum 4 months ago that gas would drop $0.50 per gallon by fall and it has dropped $0.94. We're down to $3.16 here.

 

Interesting how now we are glad at $3.15 gas. Gas has been at $4 before and it will get there again.

Part of me does wonder if GM is just trying to bid time, hoping for a switch back to large vehicles. Especially with the frequent H3 ads they are running.

 

The trouble with the GM hybrids is there isn't enough gas mileage benefit for what you pay. That's because they are almost all larger vehicles with terrible mileage. Ford has done a better job with the Escape/Mariner hybrid. The best hybrids are the passenger size cars which get 40+mpg--led by the Prius.

In the next Congress, look for more taxes on gas guzzlers and credits for hybrids. There will be a shift towards conservation after a three decades of consumption--especially during the SUV era.

Notice how the oil futures price has plummeted, driving gas prices down. Somebody has tweaked the oil futures market. That figured to happen. When the price drops 30% in a month or so, you know the problem has been speculation. I'm guessing some big financial institutions lost some money in the price drop.

 

Wow going out on a limb with that prediction. The price always starts declining shortly after Labor day (barring major hurricanes making landfall). This is a yearly cycle and demand is much lower in the Fall and Winter. It will stay "low" until Easter then gradually begin to raise. Then comes Memorial day and then the price starts to spike due to "unexplained unforseen reasons".

 

I love the GM commercial where they say the "some" manufacturer is forcing one type of hybrid car on everyone and how GM is making many different types of hybrids. Never mind the fact that "some" manufacturer actually sell 6 totally different hybrids in the US.

 

The other major problem with GM is that only the Tahoe/Escalade/Silverado can be considered true "Hybrids". GM's other "Hybrids" are nothing more than VW had in the late 1980's which just shut the engine down when the car was not in motion. So they only really have one "Hybrid" with different trim levels and still some of the worst gas mileage around.