SUVs on the brink of extinction

Yeah my uncle at GM was one of the many engineers that worked on the EV-1 in the 90's for GM. That's right they've had an electric car for 10 years that was once in production same as Honda and Toyota. If they wanted we could all go electric. They are bamboozling us!!!

That is a reasonable prognosis because, I figure that they have a point in being that gas prices in the entire world are far reaching it's max. So when you look at spending you dollars, logically the average car consumers out here aren't really going to be able to buy into SUVs anytime soon. Typical of that being that they require so much economically in just up keep of maintenance alone, and not just gas prices.

Good! Its going to be better for our planet in the long run.

It's sad to see so many cars and factories being destroyed. All the time, money, and materials put into those have now gone to waste. And thousands of jobs have now been lost. I think they should either use the factories for something else (such as the manufacturing of hybrid cars) or at least take all those materials and use them for something instead of throwing them out.

Of course, it's nice to see people are taking enough notice to the harmful effects of these gas-guzzlers on our environment (and their wallets) to quit buying these SUVs. However, I hope they won't get rid of them completely. I know a family of 9 and I have no idea what they would do without an SUV. Hopefully, GM will decide to create fuel-efficient SUVs rather than flushing their business down the toilet when they don't need to.

I agree KCFOXIE, GM could have cornered the small car market by moving the Opel/Vauxhall vehicles to its US plants. In fact they still can. What Americans may not know is that US automakers (GM & Ford) have been making small cars with good mileage for decades in Europe. I lived in Germany/Deutschland in 1984 and saw many Opels and Ford Escorts. In fact the GM-Vauxhall Astra with a basic 1.4 liter engine and 5sp trans gets 39.9 mpg average and about 45 on the highway. It also is a nice looking car unlike the Chevette.
3nd, GM does not need to close down their factories, they can actually retool the dies, reprogram the robots, and or basically duplicate/clone the machines in European plants and move them to the USA. The problem with GM is that they don't think about long term growth and short term flexibility in manufacturing processes. Even the old defunct AMC execs were smart enough to be able to retool and upgrade a car plant in in less than month after careful planning of a new model.
Finally, Time stated that GM makes 15% to 20% profit on a SUV, but only make 3% or less profit on a small car. Thus, greed is their only motivation to make any change.

GM didn't have to kill the SUV. It is completely possible to make a fuel-efficient or green SUV and they could have made a killing doing it. Is it that redesigning the nature of the gas-guzzling behemoths is more expensive than closing those plants and laying off all those experienced workers?

Wow, it's happening; now the question is; what are we going to do with ALL the cars that runs only on gas? We could build a tower that goes up into space and still won't be able to get rid of them.

I could care less what cares are selling or not, but another major shut-down of multiple shops isn't the best news to hear.

Good riddance! It seems like people are finally waking up and driving smarter. I really would like to see GM bring back their electric cars.

GM Isnt in the toilet, worldwide they are the largest car maker next to the VW group.

GM has many diesel, and had a fantastic electric that wasnt ugly (it was a redine Saturn SL... they were not that hideous), and it got 300 miles to a $4 charge.

GM could reinvent itself in a heartbeat.... by making Euro GM cars in US GM fatories with US-designed cup holders and selling them at CHEAP US prices.... I mean, a 5 year old design (reads cheap manufacture and parts) would be brand new to us, with that new $15,000 to $22,000 price tag .... but costs under $12,000 to make.

If they chose. They, like the government, are far from proactive in their decision making process.

It's not as simple as 'retooling' the plant to make something else. Wish it was. First you have to convince GM to put the money into retooling. Then it's 1 - 2 years to do the work. They have closed a lot of plants in the past few years and they all want new products. My husband works at one of these plants and will have a very difficult finding another job due to his health. 25 years and no where to go. It is a very sad day here. The whole community will suffer.

GM has stopped suv-making?
What about Ford, Honda, Hyndai, Toyota, Porsche, Mercedes, Hummer, Range Rover, and Chrystler?

My Father has devoted 30 hard-working years to GM and is going to be out of a job in a few months due to the Doraville, GA plant closing...its sad to see him at a point in his life where he no longer knows how he will support his family, and being a deaf man will find it even harder than it already is to find another job.

Love the pic to this post.

I totally agree that they need to produce electric cars. I remain EXTREMELY skeptical about the production of the electric vehicles. When I see an ELECTRIC vehicle available for sale... then maybe I'll buy a car from a showroom. Unfortunately I have very little faith in the auto industry right now.

i guess after 20 years of making shit, this could happen.

This is not a good business model to follow

Oh ya and fuck Bush he totally had this planned in 00.

Its becoming so clear. 9/11 and this must be connected

lol

BCD Ford is in debt in the billions of dollars, they are not going to be around long enough to pick up the lost GM sales.

It's over for them, no more begging for a bail out.

http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=F

go to balance sheet and look at total liabilites, its at the bottom left

$275,802,000,000

Why isn't everyone blaming BUSH for this ? Everything gets blamed on Him ......Barak Obama is gonna SAVE THE USA !!! Sureeeeeeeeeeeeeee

I'm pretty sure they'll re-fit the factories to make other cars. Destroying them costs too much, and wastes even more. Maybe one will be used for electric cars.

That's odd. At least 35% of the cars I see on the road these days are SUVs ... but that might just be relative to where I live.

Expropriation.

GM has not been doing well and it does not have the money to retain these plants and convert to the needs of new auto customer. Perhaps if we weren't in this war we could afford to save these jobs. When the government decided to go into Iraq for the oil rights, it has almost tripled the cost. We are paying for this war everytime we go to the pump and pay for food that has been shipped from all over the country. We went to a country to fight for oil, obviously gas prices are going to go up. If gas prices go up, the people will buy smaller cars. A company (or government) with any insight would have started putting money on fuel efficient cars as soon as "shock and awe" became a part of our vocabulary. Unless of course they thought that the oil fields would be under control by "Mission Accomplished."

I'm glad their not producing any more SUV's, but I do feel bad for those workers at those plants. They definitely need to convert those plants so that they can produce electric cars.

GM was in the toilet long before the recession and the spike in oil prices. A drop in their sales does not nescesarily mean a drop in nation wide SUV sales. Ford has been picking up their customers for years due to lower prices, and will continue to do so during the current credit crunch as people look for money saving purchases. This article only shows the death blows of an outdated corporation not the end of excessive SUV use.

i wish we didn't have to rely on corporations to do the right thing, because most of the time it seems like they won't even if they could make a lot of money off of it.

The obvious thing to do would be to convert the plants for hybrids, wonder how long it would take though. In the meantime I'm sure more jobs will be lost and our economy slides deeper in the hole.

Great pic to go with the post.

Agree with needu on this one.

Why would anyone want to own a gas guzzler at this point in our society anyway?

Why dont they use those same plants and same workers to make the electric cars that they already have the technology for and the rights to? Here's an idea, how about an electric car, that's solar powered, that doesnt look like something that they are trying NOT to sell? How about make it look like an old classic car so it will be popular? How about be the first instead of the last?

Hmm...vewe, vewe, intwesting.