Originally posted by Pete D:
Originally posted by Pigeon:
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Try building a top quality product, one that can compete with the current generation of Hondas and Toyotas, not something like the new Pontiac G6 - a car that's barely up to the bar set by the last generation Accord and Camry instead of setting the bar higher than those cars are. Then you won't have to tack on several thousand $$ of incentives to sell your cars, they'll sell themselves at or near MSRP and cover that pension burden.

Scott



I don't agree. Even if the G6 or whatever they came out with was better than a Camry or Accord they would still have a hard time getting customers away from the Japanese competition, a very hard time.

If they wanted to make a car that is better, it would cost more money, as sigma pointed out, GM has a lot of money going into pensions and whatnot on each car. If GM had the extra $1000 to spend per car I imagine they could make a very competative product.



They have an extra $1k to spend - actually $3k+. Look at what they spend in incentives and tell me that those funds wouldn't be better spent on product development and/or beter quality materials and/or better manufacturing quality.

Even though it'll take time to win back market share it can only be done by either being the cheapest alternative (think GM and Hyundai switching places) or having the best quality product at a competitve price (think Honda). If you keep building average at best cars and then kill them with incentives you reinforce the notion that the car isn't worth buying on its own, it must be sold on the cheap.

Scott

Troll! '99 BMW 328i