Well someone IS paying attention
From here:
General Motors finally gets it.
The company’s announcement that it is embracing compact cars, shutting down four truck plants and possibly even dumping Hummer shows GM — and, by extension, Detroit — realizes fuel prices aren’t coming down and SUVs are a dead-end. It’s a fundamental change of direction for the world’s largest automaker, which has for more than 10 years counted on pickups and SUVs to provide the bulk of its sales — and profits — while all but ceding the passenger car market to Japan and Europe.
But with gas poised to top $4 a gallon any day now, auto sales tumbling and the economy tanking, company CEO Rick Wagoner — like his peers at Ford and Chrysler — is scrambling to keep up with seismic changes that are coming far faster than anyone expected.
“These moves are all in response to the rapid rise in oil prices and the resulting changes in the U.S., changes that we believe are more structural than cyclical,” Wagoner said before making his announcement at GM’s shareholder meeting in Delaware. “While some of the actions … are very difficult, they are necessary to adjust to changing market and economic conditions.”
Translation — we grew fat and lazy cranking out SUVs that ran on cheap gas, but it ain’t working anymore.
But better yet:
But wait. There’s more. Wagoner said 18 of the next 19 GM product launches in the U.S. will be cars or crossover utility vehicles. It makes sense, as small cars are the one thing keeping the industry afloat right now. Sales of the Ford Focus were up 53 percent last month, and sales of the Smart microcar were up 63 percent.
We’re going to see a lot more small cars coming to market. General Motors is, as one pundit noted, the injured giant, but it’s still got the heft to change the market. If GM cranks out small cars with the enthusiasm it gave SUVs, it will start making money again and other automakers will want a piece of the action.
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