Competitive Connection
December 17, 2007
(Next issue will be Jan. 7, 2008)
What others are saying . . .
Cadillac makes a better car than BMW, Mercedes, Lexus, etc
Cadillac makes a better car than BMW or Mercedes or Lexus or Infiniti, and that car is the 2008 CTS. No other car in the mass market, with so much at stake for its makers, dares so much as this expressive and audacious bit of automotive avant-gardism. In a segment that lives and dies by European benchmarks, the CTS sets fire to the bench and throws it through the shopkeepers' window.
For now, it's time to celebrate. Cadillac has built a ripping car here -- fast, fun, exuberant in style and substance. To the extent that imitation of one product concedes the superiority of another, the CTS surrenders not an inch. It feels like a fundamentally self-defined car. Chalk one up for the home team.—Source: The Los Angeles Times, December 12, 2007
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A look at the competition
Best selling brands
Last year’s top-10 best-selling vehicle brands in the U.S. have seen some reshuffling in their rankings, based on 2007 unit sales through the first 11 months.
Year-to-date deliveries at the close of November found Chevrolet maintaining a 4.4% lead over Toyota, which was 6.3% ahead of Ford.
Chevrolet secured the No.1 brand sales spot in seven of the 11 months in 2007. Ford held its No.2 ranking for four months in the period, slipping to No.3 in June, where it remained at the end of November with a 48.1% lead over fourth-place Honda.
The rankings through November:
1. Chevrolet 6. Nissan
2. Toyota 7. Chrysler
3. Ford 8. Jeep
4. Honda 9. GMC
5. Dodge 10. Hyundai
–Source: wardsauto.com, December 11, 2007
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A look at the competition
Toyota focused on cost cutting
Toyota expects to accelerate its cost-cutting efforts next year to save more than $2.7 billion annually, said Toyota’s president, Katsuaki Watanabe, as the world's biggest carmaker seeks to offset rising commodity and development costs.
Since 2005, Toyota has been working on a new cost-saving strategy which seeks to lump some of the tens of thousands of components in a car into modules and systems.
The ability to reduce costs has been Toyota's forte, allowing it to pour money back into developing new models and attract drivers around the world. Slashing production costs is even more important as commodity prices keep climbing, environmental and safety standards rise and consumers migrate towards smaller and lower-margin compact cars to get better mileage.
Toyota is the world's most valuable automaker. Its revenue reached $215 billion last business year as sales grew in North America, Europe and China, although Toyota is conspicuously behind in the budding Indian market.—Source: Reuters, December 11, 2007
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Around the globe
Ford Russia sales rise 70% in year
New York Motors, south-east of Moscow's city center, is the busiest Ford dealership in the world. The dealership delivers 30 Ford cars per day.
While Ford continues to lose money and market share to foreign competitors in the US, its vehicle sales in Russia rose 70 percent in the year until the end of October. The Ford Focus is Russia's bestselling, foreign car.
Among foreign carmakers in Russia, Ford is second only to General Motors. Ford and GM - whose biggest business in Russia is competitively priced Korean-made Chevrolet cars - are strong in the budget segment, which accounts for most of the cars that Russians buy. Their push into Russia also illustrates how fast-growing emerging markets are helping carmakers to compensate for flagging demand in the US and western European markets.—Source: The Financial Times, December 11, 2007
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A look at the competition
Toyota cuts production of Tundra at US plants
Toyota has sharply scaled back production of its flagship Tundra pick-up truck in North America, joining the three Detroit-based carmakers in adjusting to softening demand.
Toyota produced close to 18,300 of the big pick-ups at plants in Texas and Indiana last month, a 29 per cent drop from October. The Japanese carmaker described the reduction as normal because January and February are normally slow selling months. However, the cut in Tundra output is significantly bigger than for other Toyota vehicles. Production of the Tacoma light pick-up and the Camry sedan was 12 percent lower last month than October.
Toyota has described the latest Tundra model, launched this year, as its most important vehicle since entering the North American market 50 years ago. A new Tundra plant in San Antonio, Texas, is still not operating at full capacity.—Source: Financial Times, December 10, 2007
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What others are saying. . .
Vote is in: GM rules
GM scored four of the six finalists for the 2008 North American Car and Truck of the Year, and it might be on its way to sweeping the coveted awards for two consecutive years, an unprecedented feat for any automaker. The Saturn Aura midsize sedan and Chevrolet Silverado pickup won this year.
It's a payoff for years of work in improving quality, fuel economy, technical sophistication and overall vehicle appeal by the world's largest automaker, which delivered on its promises even as it went through painful downsizings and the reorganization of its engineering and design teams around the world.
The Cadillac CTS sport sedan and Chevrolet Malibu midsize sedan are finalists for car of the year, and the Buick Enclave crossover SUV and Chevrolet Tahoe hybrid SUV are finalists for truck of the year. The other finalists are the Honda Accord midsize sedan and Mazda CX-9 crossover SUV.
To fully understand how highly we voters think of GM's new vehicles, consider a couple that didn't make the finals. Mercedes-Benz introduced an all-new version of its best-selling car, the C-class sedan, this year, but Cadillac's CTS stood onstage as a finalist and its direct competitor from the world's most revered luxury automaker did not.
On the truck side, the Tundra, Toyota's self-proclaimed most significant vehicle ever, couldn't crack the top three.—Source: Detroit Free Press, December 13, 2007
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To read previous editions of the Competitive Connection or to access other information about manufacturing and labor at GM, visit http://www.gmmanufacturing.info