Posts Tagged ‘chevrolet’
Chevy gaining ground in a plunging European market – but profits are another matter.
by Paul A. Eisenstein on Oct.02, 2012
Chevrolet's European chief Susan Docherty.
Despite growing calls for General Motors to abandon its increasingly troubled Opel brand, there are no plans to replace the German-based subsidiary with Chevrolet – one of the few brands actually gaining sales and market share despite the ongoing collapse of the European automotive market.
Nonetheless, Chevy appears to be the best opportunity GM has for regaining some momentum in Europe, said Susan Docherty, the veteran executive who took over Chevrolet’s European operations last January.
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From a peak of more than 17 million vehicles a year, Docherty said the European market could dip to somewhere between 14.0 million and 14.3 million in 2013, which she termed “very scary numbers.” Even so, her goal is to continue building the Chevy brand’s sales and market share. Relatively new to the European market, the bow-tie brand sold 206,000 vehicles in Europe last year and is on track for a 5% gain for all of 2012.
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Tags: 2012 paris motor show, Chevy, Susan Docherty, auto news, car news, chevrolet, chevrolet europe, chevrolet news, chevrolet opel, chevrolet trax, chevy europe sales, chevy opel, chevy paris, chevy trax, paul a. eisenstein, paul eisenstein, thedetroitbureau
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Insiders brace but many hope for the best.
by Paul A. Eisenstein on Aug.22, 2012
GM CEO Akerson tis expected to soon launch a major corporate reorganization.
General Motors appears to be heading towards a major reorganization, numerous sources indicate, one that Chairman and CEO Dan Akerson apparently hopes will shift the maker to a more global focus – and help it eliminate the sort of “fiefdoms” that have long stymied its efforts to become more efficient and competitive.
GM has been taking a number of baby steps towards this new vision in recent months, such as a realignment of its design operations meant to focus more on individual brands than specific global regions. But the strategy has also suffered some unexpected setbacks, notably including the sudden ouster of worldwide marketing chief Joel Ewanick last month.
A reorganization could yield huge benefits if it results in a leaner and more efficient GM. And CEO Akerson is clearly under pressure to improve things at a company that suffered a major drop in earnings during the second quarter – and which has seen its stock drop by as much as 40% since its November 2010 IPO.
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On the other hand, some observers caution that after years of turmoil, capped by the maker’s 2009 bankruptcy and subsequent federal bailout, GM’s leaders could trip the company into chaos if they’re not careful. The massive and largely dysfunctional 1984 reorganization is a clear example of what could go wrong.
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Tags: akerson gm reorg, auto news, car news, chevrolet, dan akerson, general motors news, general motors reorganization, girsky opel reorganization, gm news, gm opel, gm reorg, gm reorganization, gm shake-up, paul a. eisenstein, paul eisenstein, steve girsky, thedetroitbureau
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“It’s all about efficiencies,” says marketing czar Ewanick.
by Paul A. Eisenstein on May.31, 2012
"There are no sacred lines in the budget," says GM Marketing Czar Joel Ewanick.
Baseball, hot dogs, apple pie and Chevrolet? That may have been the automaker’s mantra in the 1950s and ‘60s, but with six of every 10 Chevys now being sold in markets as far afield as Berlin and Beijing more and more of the maker’s marketing effort is focused overseas.
The latest move links Chevrolet with what is generally considered the world’s most popular soccer team – football to most of the world – Manchester United. The five-year partnership comes only weeks after Chevy’s parent General Motors confirmed it is pulling its ads off the 2013 Super Bowl.
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Calling the tie-up with the British team a “natural synergy,” GM’s global marketing czar Joel Ewanick stressed that “Where they’re strong we want to grow. Where we’re strong they want to grow.”
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Tags: Chevy, chevrolet, chevrolet advertising, chevrolet facebook, chevrolet manchester united, chevrolet one world, chevrolet soccer, chevrolet super bowl, chevy facebook, chevy marketing, chevy soccer, chevy super bowl, free soccer balls, joe ewanick, one world football project, one world futbol project, paul a. eisenstein, paul eisenstein, thedetroitbureau
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Will supply 1.5 million free “indestructible” soccer balls to needy children worldwide.
by Paul A. Eisenstein on May.31, 2012
GM Marketing Chief Joel Ewanick and One World COO Lisa Tarver.
Even as it announced a new marketing alliance with the world’s most valuable soccer team, Manchester United, General Motors revealed plans to donate 1.5 million soccer balls to needy children around the world.
The charity program is “the work I’m most proud of,” said GM global marketing czar Joel Ewanick, during a Thursday news conference called to announce the automaker’s deal with Manchester United.
(For more on the Chevy deal and its changing global marketing strategy, Click Here.)
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The “virtually indestructible” soccer balls will be distributed through the One World Futbol Project, which spent more than a year developing a ball that could be played with in even the most rugged environments without damage. The project has already lined up support from a number of companies and celebrities such as pop singer Sting.
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Tags: Chevy, auto news, car news, chevrolet, chevrolet manchester united, chevrolet one world, chevrolet soccer, chevy soccer, free soccer balls, joe ewanick, one world football project, one world futbol project, paul a. eisenstein, thedetroitbureau
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NHTSA now looking at problems with Chevrolet TrailBlazer.
by Paul A. Eisenstein on Feb.14, 2012
More than 300,000 Chevrolet TrailBlazers are covered by the new investigation.
Federal safety investigators have expanded an investigation launched last week when they initially responded to reports of six fires involving Toyota Camry and RAV-4 models. A similar problem, with fires apparently starting in the driver door of the Chevrolet TrailBlazer, is now being investigated, as well – and authorities want to know if the problems are linked.
The Toyota door fires were apparently linked to defective power window switches and could impact as many as 830,000 vehicles. But, as TheDetroitBureau.com reported last week, the Japanese maker improves its economies of scale by sharing such components in a wide range of products and it is possible still more Toyota vehicles could be roped in by the investigation.
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It is also common practice for suppliers to offer similar – and sometimes identical – parts and components to more than one automaker. That could be the case with the 2006 to 2007 TrailBlazer, with 309,000 of the SUVs involved in the latest investigation.
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Tags: NHTSA, NHTSA toyota, auto news, auto safety, camry fires, car door fires, car news, chevrolet, chevrolet news, chevrolet trailblazer, chevrolet trailblazer firest, chevy door fires, chevy news, chevy trailblazer fires, fires door switch, paul a. eisenstein, paul eisenstein, rav4 fires, thedetroitbureau, toyota fires, toyota news
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Challenges targeting newest generation of buyers.
by Paul A. Eisenstein on Jan.20, 2012
Chevrolet is testing the interest of Millennial buyers in a pair of concepts, including the Tru 140S.
There’s a big gap between what people say they want and what they’ll actually spend their money on, as automakers are well aware of. So, the industry is taking a cautious view of a new study by consulting firm Deloitte that finds six of 10 Millennials would like to buy a hybrid or electric vehicles rather than a conventionally powered car, truck or crossover.
That would suggest that manufacturers are positioning themselves well for the wave of young buyers just now entering the market – also known as Gen-Y, the Millennials comprise a cohort of almost 80 million Americans, a group even bigger than the vaunted Baby Boomers that reshaped America over the last half century or so. Virtually every maker on the market is now offering at least one gas-electric model in its line-up, with an assortment of conventional hybrids, plug-ins and pure battery-electric vehicles, or BEVs, to follow.
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But young drivers aren’t the only ones who say they want to go with the latest, battery-based green technologies. Some other recent surveys have found that even older Americans routinely say they plan to “consider” a hybrid next time they shop for a new car. It’s just that those battery-based vehicles usually don’t make the cut, in the end. Last year, hybrids actually slipped as a percentage of the overall U.S. market to barely 2%. Total sales of all battery-based vehicles barely matched demand for the Honda Accord.
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Tags: auto news, car news, chevrolet, chevrolet code 130R, chevy tru 140s, deloitte, gen y car buying, millennial car buyers, millennials, millennials battery cars, millennials hybrids, millennials smartphone apps, paul a. eisenstein, paul eisenstein, thedetroitbureau
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Saving could top $1 billion annually.
by Paul A. Eisenstein on Aug.10, 2011
New GM car czar Mary Barra.
General Motors plans to slash by half the number of underlying platforms it uses worldwide by 2018, while ordering a similar reduction in the number of engine variants in its line-up, the maker says.
It’s all part of an effort to reduce costs by as much as $1 billion annually, according to GM CEO Dan Akerson, who says the maker wastes far much time, effort – and money – on projects that either get canceled or which could share their basics with other GM programs.
“We’d be deep — halfway, two-thirds of the way through – on a project and we’d cancel it due to a weakening economy,” said the former Navy officer, who took the helm at GM early last year. “The start-stop, on-again-off-again, herky-jerky nature of our product development process was very disruptive and it produced poor results.”
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Indeed, it has meant that many vehicles come out late and then don’t live up to customer expectations, added GM’s new product development czar Mary Barra.
“We end up being second, third, or at the back of the pack,” she said.
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Tags: Cadillac, auto news, buick, car news, chevrolet, dan akerson, general motors news, gm akerson, gm news, gm product development, gm products, gm streamlines product development, gmc, mary barra, paul a. eisenstein, paul eisenstein, thedetroitbureau
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Maker moves 2.35 million vehicles in first-half 2011.
by Paul A. Eisenstein on Jul.20, 2011
Chevy sets an all-time sales record.
Bankruptcy be damned, it seems. Almost exactly two years after its parent, General Motors, emerged from Chapter 11 Chevrolet says it set an all-time record with sales for the first half of 2011 reaching 2.35 million.
Of course, when it was founded, a century ago, Chevy wasn’t moving metal in 120 different countries. The new record – which tops the previous peak by a solid 286,499 cars, trucks and crossovers – was buoyed by all-time bests in a number of those markets, including Brazil, China, France and South Africa.
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Here in the U.S., meanwhile, Chevrolet sales are up 16% for the January-June period, the lead GM division posting nine consecutive months of year-over-year sales gains.
“We will continue to work at bringing new customers to the Chevy family – no matter where they live,” proclaimed GM’s global marketing czar, Joel Ewanick, in a company announcement.
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Tags: Chevy, Chevy Volt, auto news, car news, chevrolet, chevrolet news, chevrolet sales, chevrolet sales record, chevy cruze, chevy news, chevy sales, chevy sales record, chevy sonic, paul a. eisenstein, paul eisenstein, thedetroitbureau
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Long-troubled Opel relegated to also-ran.
by Joseph Szczesny on Jun.08, 2011
The Chevrolet Volt in China. The Chevy and Cadillac brands will now serve as GM's lead global marques.
General Motors is working on a dual-brand emphasis that will put Chevrolet and Cadillac in the position of lead brands as the maker presses forward with its global expansion, according to GM chairman and chief executive Dan Akerson.
The move relegates brands like Buick and GMC to regional responsibilities, but it also appears to downgrade the role of Opel, the German-based subsidiary that had long been GM’s lead brand outside North America.
“Creating a global dual-brand strategy with Cadillac and Chevrolet, flanked by regional brands in places like China, Australia and Europe,” is one of the challenges facing General Motors, Akerson said during GM’s first stockholders meeting in Detroit since 1990.
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Brands such as Opel, Holden and Buick will have supporting roles, said Akerson, who also told reporters he would like to see Cadillac built in other parts of the world as part of the dual brand strategy. Insiders say there’s a good likelihood that could result in a Cadillac model coming off one of GM’s assembly lines in China, where it is now the largest automaker, with a 15% share of the booming market.
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Tags: Cadillac, auto news, car news, chevrolet, dan akerson, general motors news, gm china, gm europe, gm global, gm global expansion, gm news, joe szczesny, opel, thedetroitbureau
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“We have to target a very different sort of buyer.”
by Paul A. Eisenstein on May.25, 2011
Coming at you: GM will adopt a European-style, small-block, turbocharged V8 for the next-gen Corvette.
This exclusive report (c) TheDetroitBureau.com. It has been updated to reflect additional details.
Anxious to attract the sort of high-performance buyers increasingly drawn to European sports cars from the likes of Porsche, Ferrari and Lamborghini, General Motors is planning some major changes for the next-generation Chevrolet Corvette – starting with a high-revving, small-displacement powertrain, that will substitute for the big V8s traditionally found under the hood of the Chevy 2-seater.
TheDetroitBureau.com has learned that GM has approved the use of a very European-style V8 that will be only slightly larger than 3 liters in displacement. The engine will be of an overhead-cam, rather than traditional overhead-valve design, using a dry sump oil system that’s particularly well-suited to high-performance road courses rather than straight-line acceleration. The engine is expected to feature a narrow 80.5 mm bore and a long stroke, more like a Ferrari or Lamborghini powertrain than the approach used for traditional Motor City metal.
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A very senior GM executive also confirmed that the new engine will be turbocharged, which will help yield a broad torque curve and maximum performance under a variety of driving conditions. The engine is expected to deliver in excess of 400 horsepower, which means a specific output in the range of 125 horsepower per liter. That’s the sort of number that would help the next-gen Vette stack up well against the likes of a Porsche 911 or Lamborghini Gallardo.
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Tags: Mark Reuss, auto news, car news, chevrolet, chevrolet corvette, chevrolet news, chevy corvette, chevy news, corvette bowling green, corvette engine, corvette news, corvette powertrain, corvette small block v8, corvette v8, gm news, paul a. eisenstein, paul eisenstein, thedetroitbureau, vette
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