hi,

i am doing this presentation on GM's situation in the european market, i know they are definitely not doin so well over there, so i'd like to know some sales data of the recent months, with your guys' knowledge on auto industry, please advice me as which website will have this sort of information. also what do u guys think is the major issue with gm at this moment.

thanks a lot.

GM has many problems. First of all they have all these brand names that have the same products. Like GMC and Chevorelet. All that does is create competition in their own market. They also have too many crappy franchises such as Chevrolet, Pontiac, Buick, Cadillac, GMC, Oldsmobile, Saturn, HUMMER, Saab, Holden, Opel, and Vauxhall. No "right thinking" person is going to purchase a GM franchise if they have to sell Saabs and Saturns. Those cars don't sell. GM also makes it where dealers can't make any money off their product by providing sales incentives such as Employee pricing. Therefore GM also doesnt make any money off their own products. This is all started because of crappy products. If GM made better products they wouldnt have to put huge incentives on their cars to sell them and in turn would make more money off of them. Because they dont make good products (excuse the corvette and the GTO) their cost may be lower but their cars are not selling. It all boils down to quality of product and consumer satisfaction.

Sorry I don't have any links for you because I'm kind of short on time, but here are my theories.

1. GM are in deep trouble at home. Truck and SUV sales going way down, so they can't really fight 2 battles at the same time.

2. Perception of American car brands outside the US is not good. Now let's just be honest, neither GM or Caddy or GMC has anything going for them outside of the US. On top of that, I'm sure their network is not too good outside either. I'm guessing because they aren't viewed as building good reliable cars.

3. I'm totally clueless on this but you might want to look around. What factories do GM have outside the States? Is there one in Asia? South America? If not that can also be one of the reasons. If that is the case, it might just be better to buy a Renault or Peugeot instead of buying a Neon because it might end up being cheaper and maybe also better.

P.S. Tine can probably help you out with the stats... he's our regular provider

Unfortunately I don't know any good website which I can give you but I can share some of my opions and knowledge.
Unlike Americans, Europeans are very careful and critical comsumers in the sense that we are very careful with what we buy are usually compare and plan our expenditures. In order words we don't do a lot of impluse shopping and buy anything that comes our way and when it comes to expensive products we are even more careful. Many people here in Europe concider price value, functionality, quality build, mantainence cost and fuel consumption when they buy a car and if you objectiverly compare american cars with european ones, the europeans are in 98% of the cases more practical/functional, have better build quality, better exterior looks and lower fuel consumption.

The whole thing isn't really that complicated, the European automtive market is very competitive and if you want to successed you have to produce equally as good or even better cars than whats availible and in this case GM hasn't done that. One might argue that East Asian cars aren't as good as the German ones but they have done well in Europe. The difference between American and East Asian is that the Asians cars are signifigantly cheaper, reliable and have low fuel consumption.

True. But in the luxury segment, the Japanese are no where as successful as the Germans in Europe for the above reasons that you mentioned. IN that case, there's no reason why GM would be outdoing the Japanese, if that makes sense.

i have just found this interesting article on gm's current situation in europe from businessweek. " - ONLY REGISTERED AND ACTIVATED USERS CAN SEE ALL LINKS - CLICK HERE TO REGISTER" it says gm is finally not losing money in its european market (probably not profitting).
i'd also like to know what european car maker you consider as gm's primary competitor, vw or renault?

thanks for all the inputs by the way.

Yeah Japanese cars have done so well in the luxury segment but the nitch of Asian cars is producing affordable cars and unlike MB, BMW and Audi they are successful at producing good affordable cars.

that's also an interesting phenomenoni noticed, and i have always wondered what makes european buyers different from american buyers?

Here's my take.
There's much more brand royalty in Europe than in the States. A German is more likely to be buying a german car because it is made in Germany. It is just in the culture. I'm saying this because I've been hanging around a lot of Germans (BMW). It's a generalization and correct me if I'm wrong.

The other thing is that it's just not practical to own an American car in Europe. How many Cadillac dealers would you find in Denmark?