GM, threatened by Toyota, vows to 'fight for every sale'

I hope he is right and they do fight and win. They have to do it by making a good product, not just offering rebates.

Another good strategy is to lay off some of the workers and use that money to give raises to the executives.

If GM wants to fight for every sale, they should start by not screwing me over by cancelling analog-only OnStar systems sold in the 2001 model year. I'd pay for an upgrade kit, but instead the company is acting arrogant about this, telling us it is impossible to make a digital upgrade kit, and to buy a new car as the workaround.

I have no knowledge of the OnStar system, but I find it hard to believe that there cannot be a changeover. It is contraintuitive.

It may not be worth it for GM or anyone else to develop such a system for such a relatively small number of applications.

Third party would probably not profit very much from it as the market gets smaller every year. GM wants you to buy a new car so they will not do it.

I read that interview and it was a joke. GM plans to "fight for every sale" ?????? What total BS. The strategic actions and tactical moves GM are making all point to lower sales volume while everything Toyota is doing points to higher sales volume. Actions are far more important than words.

This issue has been discussed at length in other threads. GM is indeed being completely pig-headed about this and a large fraction of the Onstar equipped vehicles on the road are soon to be obsoleted in a which is unprecedented in automotive history. What other feature of a new car has ever stopped working in an unrepairable way six years after purchase?

Have a cassette player, John? Try cramming a CD into it. GM isn't the ones who decided to do away with the Analog service. You are just jealous that Toyota isn't smart enough to come up with something such as OnStar.

I didn't have to sell the house in order to upgrade to satellite TV.

I have a cassette player, and it will still play a cassette, 80.

By the way, it was announced yesterday that Ford outsold GM in the USA for the year 2006 due to a good fourth quarter. Mike Hunt should find that something to gargle about.

That is true, however, where I live (Ontario, Canada), stores don't sell music cassettes anymore. Everything is on CD.

Where did you see that? I saw in my local paper that GM outsold them all.

I think most of us will agree that Mike Hunt is a moron. :-P

Was announced on television, Bloomberg I think. I would prefer to see it in print though, as I just caught the end of the blurb and could have misinterpreted what I heard.

Not so. The Ford F150 and the Ford 'F' Series outsold Chevy in trucks but GM sold more cars and more trucks than any other manufacturer

According the total final sales figures for 2006, from the US Department of Commerce

GM 4.5 million Ford 3 million Toyota 2.5 million Chrysler 2.4 million Honda 2 million Nissan 1 million All others were below a million

mike

In Canada, GM outsold everyone (with 418,176 cars/trucks), with Ford (229,316) coming in second, Chrysler (220,553) in third, and Toyota (195,780) in forth. GM sold more then 150,000 vehicles over Ford, and more then double what Toyota did. Though, Ford and Toyota did post the biggest percentage of increased sales.

We always have to be careful with figures like the ones I quoted. I would swear I heard it, BUT that doesnt make it correct.

As an aside, stock salesmen are often warned by their brokerage houses NOT to use email. The bullshit reason is that it is not secure, blah blah.

The real reason is that they want nothing that can leave a paper trail. If they promise some crap on the phone, you cant prove it.. If you have a letter or email, and they misrepresent, we can sue.

Onstar is very overpriced in my opinion. So you can have the system unlock the car, or call 911 if you have an accident. Big deal. Most people will hardly ever use it and the cost per month is high. Why would you sweat if On-star didn't work anymore? Look at it as saved money.

Outsold for which vehicle?

Did ford outsell Chevrolet trucks or GMC and Chevrolet trucks combined???

Get real, GM outsold Ford by 1.5 million vehicles in 2006. Why would I want Ford to outsell GM in any event?

mike

Although truck sales are down somewhat trucks still outsell cars individually. GM sells more 'trucks' than Ford, almost every year. Ford sells more truck with ONE name on the grill however and GM sells TWO brands. The F!50 sells more than any other single model vehicle the US. The Silverado is second. the Camry is third at around a half million less than the F150 and Dodge Ram is fourth, by a few thousand. When it come to foreign brand trucks, individually or in total sales, they are listed as also-rans.

mike