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GM To Kill Off Both Opel And Vauxhall Brands?
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stasisLAX From United States of America, joined Jul 2007, 3092 posts, RR: 1
Posted Fri Feb 10 2012 02:42:21 your local time (5 months 1 week 2 days 5 hours ago) and read 1642 times:
According to today´s Detroit News, GM is considering killing off both the Opel and the Vauxhall brands, replacing both brands with the Chevrolet brand in the European marketplace. GM is bleeding a flood of red ink in its European operations, General Motors CEO Dan Akerson said the automaker has lost more than .34 billion on GM’s European operations since pushing to call off the sale of the Opel brand in late 2009. Plans to reach break-even on an operating basis were scrapped in November as the European economy teetered on the brink of collapse.
GM’s European sales dropped 15 percent in December 2011, led by an 18 percent sales decrease at Opel, according to data from the European Automobile Manufacturers’ Association. Opel’s share of the market in Western Europe fell to 7 percent last year from its highest level of nearly 13 percent market penetration rate n 1993. GM has spent almost Billion (USD) in restructuring and early-retirement costs in its European operations since undergoing reorganization and slashed nearly 6,000 jobs in Europe. Those efforts included closing an assembly plant in Belgium - and GM senior management sees more plant closings in Europe (rumors are that one assembly plant will be closed in both the UK and Germany) in the near future. GM has lost at least 0 million USD on its Opel and Vauxhall brands in 2011 - the exact total to be announce later in February maybe even be MUCH higher - over 0 million USD.
According to the Detroit News, "a properly radical plan may be to just retain four or five of GM Europe’s remaining production sites and turn them into assembly plants for Chevrolet models, and then reposition Chevrolet as a value, lower-mid-market brand to compete alongside the likes of Hyundai, Kia and Skoda, while also retaining the Ruesselsheim R&D facility for an enhanced global vehicle development programme to create true “world” cars, such as Ford is now doing,”
Opel´s market image is behind the huge drop in market share - Opel is now perceived as a maker of boring "so-so" quality cars that are marketed to senior citizens in much of Europe. GM has already lost .4 billion on Opel since 2009, and has lost billion total on all of its European operations since 1999.
It seems to me that Opel and Vauxhall dealerships will soon be sporting the Chevrolet bow-tie emblem in the very near future - there is simply no way in my opinion that GM can afford to support 3 seperate brands in the European market (or four - if you count the VERY limited number of Cadillacs sold there). Many market analysts see Opel and Vauxhall´s problems as "un-solveable" and that one consolidated operation and marketing brand (Chevrolet) in Europe is the only option that General Motors has.
Source:
http://blogs.detroitnews.com/overdri...ants-could-jettison-vauxhall-opel/[Edited 2012-02-09 17:54:46]
