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U.S. Consumer Shift Toward Quality, Moving New GM Models Off Lots Becomes Hard
Sell: Raising Incentives and Lowering Credit Standards
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With U.S. Consumer Shift Toward Quality, Moving New GM Models Off Lots Becomes Hard Sell: Raising Incentives and Lowering Credit Standards
The Wall Street Journal reports that the consumer shift toward the quality products of Toyota Motor Corporation and Nissan Motor Company is negativing General Motors Corporation's efforts to sell new models, as well as defeating its strategy of increasing sales by dumping old names and replacing them with new ones.
It reports GM's inventories of the new Pontiac G6 and Buick LaCrosse are growing - "piling up at dealerships," says WSJ. The Pontiac dealerships are reported to have a 123-day supply of the G6 and the Buick dealerships a 122-day supply of the LaCrosse. This compares with a Big Three historical average of about a 60-day supply and an earlier reported Toyota historical average of about a 30-day supply. (One Toyota dealership employee told site manager that a 20-day supply is Toyota's preference.)
Extra baggage that may be slowing sales of the G6 are Pontiac's perennially poor reliability standings (See Table I-MVRP.), the very low reliability history of the Grand Am - G6's predecessor (See Contenders for the Kingship of Worst-Ness.), and the G6-Giveaway last September that may have equated the vehicle as something next to nothing.
The reliability history of the Buick line is poor by comparison to that of the Toyota line (See Table I-MVRP.), but may be argued by some to be more mediocre than poor.
To get the G6 and LaCrosse moving, the Journal reports that GM is raising cash incentives to as much as $4,000 per vehicle and relaxing its credit-tier system in order to accord a lower interest rate to a larger pool of potential buyers.
Source for G6 and LaCrosse inventories, incentives, and credit availability change: "GM Sees Tepid Sales of New Models: Company Raises Incentives and Prepares to Scale Back Production at G6 Factory," The Wall Street Journal, February 18, 2005, p. A6
Editor's Note: The word shift was omitted from the first sentence of this article in the first printing and was added on February 26, 2005.
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Search Engine Directory This table is provided primarily to give the visitor quick access to those search engines that site manager has found to be more consistently useful for information acquisition. For descriptions, strengths, weaknesses, comments, and other names and formats by which the following search engines are known, go to Search Engine Directory Page. Search Engines Exalead Yahoo! Ask.com Info.com DMOZ Site manager estimates that the Exalead search engine is presently 30 to 35 times better than Google, but is only 8% as good as Google was prior to the advent of large expenditures on internet advertising by the major automobile manufacturers. Site manager estimates that the Yahoo search engine is presently 15 to 20 times better than Google, but is only 7% as good as Google was prior to the advent of large expenditures on internet advertising by the major automobile manufacturers. Site manager estimates that the Ask search engine is presently 5 to 10 times better than Google, but is only 6% as good as Google was prior to the advent of large expenditures on internet advertising by the major automobile manufacturers. Info is a metasearch engine that scans 14 search engines for results. Metasearch engines are modestly successful in weeding out the junk within the first 10 entries of a search results page, but is, of course, of no help in inserting what is missing. DMOZ is the product of thousands of volunteers who select out the better sites that the web has to offer; consequently, there is an assurance of greater quality than the mean of what a search engine offers within the first 10 results of a phrase search. Metasearch Engine
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Auto on Info Standings for Selected Search Phrases on Auto News
Site Rank in Results for Search Phrase Car Quality News Site Rank in Results for Search Phrase Auto Quality News Site Rank in Results for Search Phrase Auto News First by Yahoo! Search from 5,230,000 results First by Yahoo! Search from 3,510,000 results Thirty-ninth by Yahoo! Search from 37,600,000 results First by MSN Search from 1,110,112 results First by MSN Search from 716,283 results Fifteenth by MSN Search from 7,682,302 results Fifteenth by Google from 3,730,000 results Tenth by Google from 2,400,000 results Eightieth by Google from 7,450,000 results Standings are as of 14/03/2004.
