Losing the War on Relevancy!

While Ford is busy shutting down it's truck & SUV production lines to make room for manufacturing the new euro-based Focus and world car Fiesta, GM is busy stumbling along in a fog of ineptitude.

I'm no Ford fan-boy, but when they saw that their Focus was selling like hotcakes while their F-150s (once their staple) languished on lots all over America they were fast to react.

General Motors on the other hand is anything but.

Their stocks have been falling at an unprecedented rate, and have recently traded below $9 which is the lowest they've been in 50 years.

Earlier this week they announced sweeping cuts to reduce costs, as well as major cuts (300,000 units less by 09) to truck production. Up to this point, it all makes sense. Then they lose the plot...

In April of last year (2007) Chevrolet unveiled 3 compact concept cars at the New York Auto Show. Yes, that is New York, as in... the United States. GM then created a website for the Triplets, urging the American public to vote on which was their favorite. Heck, they even managed to get the all-important product placement. The Beat (which won the online vote) will make an appearance in the upcoming Transformers movie sequel, much like the coming (one day... soon... eventually... or so they say) Camaro did in the first film.

With the North American automotive market in the state it's in, surely now would be the perfect time to release that Beat (and even it's siblings!) to the American car-buying public. Small cars are selling faster now than ever. MINI can't keep cars on the lots, Toyota and Honda are both into single digit inventory days for their sub compacts, and many other automakers like Mazda and Ford are working hard and fast to get their smallest world cars selling on this continent.

So what about GM and the Beat?

Well, they're planning on having it for sale in Europe next spring.

But according to Bob Lutz, GM's "car czar", GM didn't intend for the Beat (or Spark as it will be called in Europe) to be offered in the U.S., so it doesn't meet federal safety and crash standards. He says it would take too much money and about two years to bring the Beat up to snuff for sales in the U.S., and therefore it wouldn't be coming to the U.S. until the next generation arrives...

WHAT?!?

A "generation" in cars years is about 5 or 6 years at least. If Europe is only getting the new car in 2009, that means North America won't see a Beat (Spark, whatever) until 2015. And all because they didn't think that maybe it was time to design a car to be sold globally?

With that kind of brains at the helm of GM it won't even be around long enough to sell the next generation.

And just who were the marketing genius's that decide to release and promote the Triplets in the USA, while never having any intention of actually selling them here?

So, what is GM planning for the North American automotive market? Well, according to Lutz, they've got some new compact SUVs coming this fall. That's brilliant! Just what we need... even more trucks! Really, I'm being totally serious. While the rest of the world is getting sub-compact Beats that get great fuel mileage and are having their tedious old Cobalts replaced with the new Cruze (which gets 40+ miles per gallon, versus the Cobalts low 30s) we here are stuck with Aveos and Cobalts, neither of which is especially economical or even nice to look at.

Aren't we lucky?

But wait, GM will have another relevant vehicle for sale soon... the Cadillac Escalade HYBRID!