[Martinjlm]

Originally Posted by lbls1

I'm not sure where this chart was generated from, but do yourself a favor; Visit any Honda, Toyota, Hyundai, or Acura dealer. Accord and Civics are flying out of their showroom doors. No problem. Toyota is still selling 200,000 or more units of Camry without a glitch. It begs the question: Why is GM stumbling over themselves with their difficulty in marketing a sedan when you have several makers that are selling them at such a high rate?

However, I do concur with the pickup/traditional SUV lines. It is undeniably GM's bread and butter products, in the face of their current crossover and hybrid entries. I would suggest, though, that the company should not rest on their laurels. GM has healthy competition in the pick-up and large SUV lines. The point is; GM is giving away market share by not (trying to) compete in the sedan market. It was a market that they once thrived on. Now, they appear to be dumbfounded in how to approach this market.

Even with the Camaro line, their closest competitor is thriving on sales of Mustang, with a new model and dedication to ICE still intact. Again the question is begged; What is the problem GM?

What logic says to me is to get away a little bit from the bar graphs and do some real life analysis of one's competitors. GM could be startled by what they may discover. Ramp up and look for ingenious methods of advertising; do more effective planning for mid year changes to keep a model current. If GM continues their past tendency to abandon models instead of fixing its market appeal, then they can expect continued failure of their product lines.

The part in bold… IHS Markit has been the auto industry leader in forecasting sales and production of vehicles, powertrains, and components for decades. S&P Global acquired IHS Markit in March 2022. The chart was created last week by S&P Global consultants who work for me using the latest light vehicle sales forecast data available. Same data that all the automakers currently purchase from S&P Global. It was prepared for an auto company that we are all familiar with but for confidentiality reasons I cannot disclose.

The part in blue… That’s part of what my job was my last 10 years at GM when I led the Powertrain Competitor & Industry Intelligence team before I retired and went into consulting. Consulting is what I do now for multiple OEMs and suppliers in my current position at S&P Global. When I did this at GM, much of the data I used came from IHS Markit (which is now part of S&P Global). Now I’m on the other side of the table, providing the information instead of buying it. And I still do similar work, but for pretty much every OEM, not just GM and I have the data at my fingertips. The chart I provided takes up about half a page in a 100+ page competitor analysis for my client. Most of the document is detailed analysis on vehicles that do or will compete with the vehicles they plan to produce.