GM joins Ford in jettisoning the minivan market

Duh what Jap maker offers an AWD mid size sedan?

mike

Maybe so. I may be wrong but I perceive that as market segment of very finicky customers. It may be one of those markets where they spend a $billion on a new product, and the market just says it's mediocre. Mediocrity is the heart of what's driving them into bankruptcy.

In fact I think we're already there with the "Edge". It's an all-out development effort, but reviews in the press are mixed. It looks good, but it weighs 5000 lb, and it only seats 5. There's nothing really great about the performance or the gas mileage. Just middle-of-the-road all the way. It looks a lot better than a Pacifica, but maybe not so good as the Murano, depending on your taste.

How about the Compass? It's cheaper, but awfully ugly. The Compass is going to be the new Aztek, I'm afraid. Recent Autoweek test had all kinds of breakdowns. It's bad when you develop products that are ugly right out of the box.

I guess this new Buick Enclave thing is the GM's big all-out crossover effort. Their current crossovers are kind of forgettable to me. I know they had the Ranier/Aztek for a while. Now they have that Pontiac Torrent instead and whatever it is at other divisions. These were all okay (ignoring the Aztek's styling). I guess you could say mediocre.

I guess that's Subaru, right? Is that what you mean?

You said it, man. Well put.

If I felt as you do about any of the vehicles you mentioned, I would not buy one of those, if I were you. ;)

mike

And in the US they sell how many in a year? ;)

mike

That is not what is proven in the annual sales figures.. Both GM and Ford sell far more vehicles in the US than any import brand. ;)

mike

For now. Import market share is increasing and domestic market share is decreasing, and if this trend is not reversed it will be very bad news indeed for the US automotive industry and you won't be able to make that statement anymore. I stand by my statement and hope that GM and Ford's product planners agree with me, for their sake.

nate

GM does. Projections are that Toyota will outsell Ford in the US next year (and GM worldwide).

It was not to long ago those 'in the know' were predicting Ford would 'soon outsell GM in the US,' as well ;)

(I deleted your address line. No to smart of to put all of that information out in a NG.)

mike

This post brought to you by Mike's new book" Condescension: how to make friends and influence people by coming off like a know-it-all."

I think Joe knows what he's doing. Nothing available there that's not available elsewhere, and besides he's been posting here for *years*.

I seem to remember those as maybe pie-in-the-sky projections for years down the line. I'm talking about projections for *next* *year*.

Any specific reason not to, or just sort of a general paranoia?

When you begin to get dozens of calls at 5 PM from telemarketers and all of the paper in your FAX machine is printed out with spam at 2 AM you may feel differently, unless of course it is not YOUR paper ;)

mike

So... so it's sort of a lack of understanding of the differences between email spam and telemarketing. Nothing to worry about.

What differences?

I guess he never had his FAX spammed. ;)

mike

The economics are completely different. Sending email spam, especially using botnets, is essentially free. Last I saw, estimates were that the response rate on email spam was down around one in

100,000 -- but the cost of sending the message is so low they're still making a profit. At those rates, harvesting my email address from usenet is worth it to them; unfortunately, my email address was in so many different places long before there was spam that ceasing to use it on usenet wouldn't make any difference at this point. I don't use my personal email address on usenet!

A telemarketing call or fax spam costs infinitely more -- up in the pennies range. For random telemarketers to call my office to make pitches on the basis of harvesting the phone number from usenet would be insane; likewise to send spam to the department's fax machine on that basis.

Perhaps, but in the real world they still do so automatically at 3 AM . ;)

mike

For pete's sake, why are you still cross-posting about this? Nobody cares! Shut up!