Tag Archives: GM

Chevy Forced To Extend Shutdown Of Bolt Plant After Realizing That Literally No One Wants A Bolt, by Tyler Durden

Posted on July 19, 2017 | 1 comment

Nobody wants Chevy’s $35,000 electric Volt, even with subsidies. You’ve got to wonder how Tesla’s $35,000 Model S will do. From Tyler Durden at zerohedge.com:

General Motors launched it’s much-hyped, all electric Chevy Bolt at the end of 2016.  The Bolt was expected to make a splash as it was the first electric car in the U.S. market to offer 200 miles of driving range at an affordable price starting around $35,000.  The only problem is that pretty much no one seems to want one.

Unfortunately, that lack of demand is about to earn a bunch of UAW workers at GM’s Orion, Michigan plant an extended summer vacation.

As AOL Finance points out today, GM has managed to sell just over 7,500 Chevy Bolts through the first six months of 2017.  Moreover, since dealers are sitting on about 111 days worth of inventory, we’re going to go out on a limb and say the Bolt launch slightly underperformed expectations.  All of which has resulted in GM’s decision to extend the shutdown currently in effect at it’s Orion plant for just a little while longer.

  General Motors Co has extended a shutdown at the Michigan factory that builds the new Chevrolet Bolt electric car as part of a broader effort to get control of bulging inventories of unsold vehicles in the United States.

“Shutdown periods vary by plant based on launch timing of new or refreshed models across the portfolio and our ongoing efforts to align production with market demand,” GM said in a statement.

Bolt

But it’s not just the Chevy Bolt that GM is having a hard time selling.  Overall, the company is battling a massive inventory glut, some 126 days of supplies, in passenger cars.  As such, the company has extended summer vacation shutdowns at three other North American assembly plants. The assembly plant at Lordstown, Ohio, that makes the Chevrolet Cruze and a plant near Kansas City, Missouri, that produces the Malibu sedan both have three additional weeks of downtime. An assembly plant in Oshawa, Ontario, will be idled for two extra weeks to reduce inventories of the Chevrolet Impala large sedan.

To continue reading: Chevy Forced To Extend Shutdown Of Bolt Plant After Realizing That Literally No One Wants A Bolt

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Trump Tweets, Ford and GM Counter, their Shares Jump, the Peso Plunges, but the Jobs Won’t “Come Back” to the USA, by Wolf Richter

Posted on January 3, 2017 | Leave a comment

Trump’s crony socialism by tweet is still crony socialism. From Wolf Richter at wolfstreet.com:

Whacked by slow demand, Ford cancels plant in Mexico, shifts car production to existing plant in Mexico.

President-Elect Trump has been hounding individual businesses with his drive-by tweets, to knock them around some, get their shares to sink, and cut some “deals.” Last year, he singled out Ford, Carrier, Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Amazon, and others. Now companies have set up damage-control teams to prepare for and counter a hit of this type.

Today he singled out GM. It was automaker day. It started with a Trump drive-by tweet about threatening GM with a “big border tax” for importing its Chevy Cruze from Mexico:

General Motors is sending Mexican made model of Chevy Cruze to U.S. car dealers-tax free across border. Make in U.S.A. or pay big border tax!

But he got the facts wrong, and GM’s damage-control team instantly retorted:

General Motors manufactures the Chevrolet Cruze sedan in Lordstown, Ohio. All Chevrolet Cruze sedans sold in the U.S. are built in GM’s assembly plant in Lordstown, Ohio. GM builds the Chevrolet Cruze hatchback for global markets in Mexico, with a small number sold in the U.S.

Reality is this: Demand for GM cars has been swooning, and inventories on dealer lots have been ballooning. For example, at the end of November, dealers sat on 127 days’ supply of Cruze models, more than double a healthy level, after sales had plunged 18%. In November, GM had announced the first wave of layoffs. In December, it followed up by announcing 10,000 layoffs and five plant closings [read… “Car Recession” Bites GM: Inventory Glut, Layoffs, Plant Shutdowns].

To continue reading: Trump Tweets, Ford & GM Counter, their Shares Jump, the Peso Plunges, but the Jobs Won’t “Come Back” to the USA

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Another Volt… Called The Bolt, by Eric Peters

Posted on February 2, 2016 | 1 comment

Eric Peters is a libertarian and an analyst of the automobile industry, and he does a great job on both fronts. From Peters on a guest post at theburningplatform.com:

Why does GM continue to throw money at electric cars?

Perhaps because it’s not their money.

It’s yours. And mine.

In the form of apparently endless taxpayer-extorted “help” (via federal taxation) to spur the design and manufacture of vehicles that have to be given away at a loss because – channeling Donald Trump – they are losers.

First the Volt – so few of which were offloaded (“sold” would be an affront to honest English) GM had to idle the plant devoted to their assembly. Then GM doubled-down and ginned up the ELR – a Volt dressed in Cadillac duds that was the ultimate dud. So few of them were offloaded (no surprise, given each one cost twice what a Volt listed for) it made the Volt seem like a bases-loaded homer.

Now comes the Bolt.

Another $30,000 (that’s after the $7,500 federal direct-to-the”buyer” bribe) automotive Turducken that’s inferior in every way function can be measured to a 1984 Yugo.

The Yugo had an eight gallon fuel tank and averaged 38 MPG – giving it a range of about 304 miles. Its cost when new was about $3,600 in 1984 dollars – the equivalent of about $8,200 today.

The government didn’t have to bribe anyone to buy a Yugo. Punchlines aside, people freely exchanged their money (not other people’s money) for them.

It could be refueled in less than five minutes. Using the heater or the headlights did not gimp the range.

It weighed 1,543 pounds.

Now (30 years later) behold the Bolt.

Its battery pack weighs 960 pounds – more than half what the entire Yugo weighed (with a full tank of gas). GM spokesmen beam that you can put 50 miles of range into those batteries after only 30 minutes of waiting.

A full charge is possible after a mere nine hours.

The car itself, a subcompact, weighs 3,580 pounds – twice (and then some) what a Yugo weighed and about as much as a current mid-sized IC car such as a Honda Accord or Toyota Camry weighs.

It probably goes faster than a Yugo – which had a top speed of about 84 MPH. But – like all electric cars – not for very long.

The faster you go in an electric car, the less far you’ll go. Range declines as velocity increases. Few car journalists – whether out of ignorance, laziness or fear – ever disclose this inconvenient truth.

To continue reading: Another Volt…Called The Bolt

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