GM's shiners
Now let's looks at the performance of General Motors, the focus of so much in-effect hate-America talk lately. While overall sales in 2005 projected at 4.45 million (not counting heavy trucks), some 200,000 units behind, there are some generally unrecognized, especially profitable bright spots.
First, however, I feel it necessary to comment on the adverse publicity about Toyota's "plan" to out-produce GM in the next year or so. All the hand-wringing or gloating about this fails to recognize that, even if the unit-production race is won by Toyota, on a gross-per-vehicle basis GM will continue to rule the roost. That's because Toyota's strength worldwide is in cheap, er, small cars (albeit well-made). GM's strong markets are in upscale cars, notably North America, where its sales are roughly twice Toyota's. Toyota owns the large Japanese market, primarily tiny cars and trucks that moreover has been "protected" historically by the Japanese government in a variety of ways from substantive import competition.
Nevertheless, as the Detroit Free Press headlined "GM: NOT SO FAST, TOYOTA." GM announced its 2005 worldwide sales as 9.18 million units, up from 8.99 million the year before, a bit more than a million ahead of Toyota's global 8.1 million. Makes one wonder what motivated Toyota to make its "throwing down the gauntlet" prediction it would surpass GM - or was it all new media hype?
I also think the Wall Street sharks have been leading the frenzy about GM, hoping to benefit from sell-offs of any more of GM's separable assets, such as GMAC. My crystal ball is no less cloudy than anyone else's, but I think this simply ain't gonna happen. Get lost, Wall Street.
Turning to GM's widely ignored successes, let's start small with the biggest - HUMMERs. Led by the new H3, HUMMER ended up with 56,727 sales, nearly double the year before. Yet all you hear about is the Toyota Prius, its sales being subsidized by several states and the Feds, which ended the year at 107,897, double 2004 and admittedly capacity-restrained. Personally I think both are relatively small-number fads, and therefore capable of disappearing almost overnight.
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