Aiming to capitalize on consumer angst about the high cost of gasoline, General Motors Corp. (GM) on Tuesday said it would cap pump prices at $1.99 for customers in California and Florida who buy certain vehicles by July 5.
Now, I have no problem with full sized SUV’s, hell, I even own one, but even I don’t like this idea. High gas prices force people who don’t need big trucks and SUVs to get rid of them, like my neighbor who’s trading in his Expedition that has never towed anything. This plan will only encourage people who don’t need a big truck to keep driving one.
The big question is will GM roll this out to more than FL and CA. I guess it’s further proof of just how out of touch GM is with consumers that they would roll this plan out in CA, the most liberal state in the US, where it is sure to be met with lots of resistance.
Oy this is depressing… when they fold, the economies going to take a large shit on the us.
The problem is that GM has dumped far too many funds into their SUV platforms over the last 8-10 years. The market for SUV’s (especially full size) has been waning pretty greatly over the last 3-5. People are smartening up, realizing that they do not move 8 people / 800lbs of equipment / tow on a regular occasion. All the while, The General continued to refine & revamp its Suburbans & Escalades & H23654’s. :ham:
Not to mention that they are becoming more & more known for their quality control problems across the board.
Now, in what is basically a last ditch effort, GM is going to throw PRIVATE TAX SUBSIDIES in ontop of thousands of dollars in incentives to see if consumers will come back???
JayS absolutely right… Wagoner’s really, drastically losing touch with reality.
GM’s newly redesigned full-size SUVs like the Tahoe have been big sellers this spring despite rising gas prices. In the first four months of this year, Tahoe sales were up 36 percent.
see this kinda shit really chapps my ass. i hate the number of SUV’s there are to begin with, and i know the reason they were originally designed…and guess what…that reason was so that they didnt have to make “cars” get better gas mileage…so they took a stationwagon type design and put it on a truck frame so that they could ignore gas mileage way back when. boy is that biting us all in the ass NOW. i hate seeing people that have NO NEED for a gas guzzling oversized shitcan driving them around. i wish they made it so you had to have some kind of prrof of reason to buy SUV’s and trucks, so that people that wont use them for what their meant for cant have them. that way the demand for gas wouldnt be so high and the supply wont be wanning so quickly. MAYBE just MAYBE it could help drive the costs down. but the big-headed american public wants huge cars like that, so its our own damn fault gas costs so much
/rant
i put $10 in my FOCUS just now and im at 1/4 tank after rolling in on fumes :rant:
it was on the history channel, and it was about the international scout and the jeep grand wagoneer. and they specifically stated the scheme behind what we all know and love as an SUV was to put a car on a truck frame to avoid development for better gas mileage as there was some kind of law thingy passed about it
california is actually pretty rural outside of SF, LA, and San Diego. There is an actual need for full size SUVs.
This is just getting alot of attention b/c people who live in urban areas share the same concerns as stated earlier in this thread. As for everyone’s claims that this is GM being out of touch - I don’t think that theory rings true -
Free Marketing / Advertising - by the suprising amount of media coverage of this promotion, GM should expect better than projected sales. As is, their new Tahoe is critically acclaimed.
This is a rebate - despite the number of people that will purchase a vehicle with every intention of filling for a rebate - how many of those will actually come thru and complete the entire process? Additionally, how long will it take GM to fulfill the rebate request - 8-10 weeks at the soonest? And, even if a person completes the whole process, and a check is sent, what are the odds of the check being cashed?
Please note that in order to qualify, you must be an OnStar subscriber - OnStar will track how much you drive and where you buy your gas from - and lord knows whatelse they’ll be tracking. And who knows what GM will do with that kind of information (sell it to a marketing firm?)
Seems like the GM PR firm knows exactly what they are doing - including the Apprentice website gimmick. There was massive coverage with that as well.
Yeah in the 70s, emission regulations are much less strict when it comes to anything classified as a “truck”. Including the many minivan like ones now.
All the people complaining about seeing people that they KNOW have no use for an SUV, how do you know? Unless you know them pretty well, you have absolutely no idea what they use their car for. Just because it’s a mom driving a Suburban doesnt mean her husband doesnt tow a boat with it, or that they dont live somewhere out in the country. I get looks and rolled eyes all the time when I drive my dad’s Avalanche, usually from civics and corollas and the like, so i usually just get right up on their ass so it looks like im gonna run through them :tup:
Introduced way back in 1936, the Chevrolet (and GMC) Suburban was based on a commercial panel truck, but instead of having a huge, windowless cargo area there was a large passenger compartment. Basically truck-based station wagons, the early Suburbans had two doors (not counting the two-piece tailgate) and three rows of seats that seated up to eight passengers. The most common powerplant of the day, an inline six cylinder engine, powered the Suburban. With but 90 horsepower, the 217 cubic-inch six had its work cut out. Minor changes to the facade carried the first-generation Suburban through 1940.
eh… whatever, I really dont care. It’s their money and they can do with it as they wish. I honestly dont blame GM… gas prices are gonna hurt their bread and butter line (aka trucks/suvs) and they’ll be out alot more $$$.
oh and 80% of you guys shouldnt be bitching about SUV’s
shit… when I had the stang, I probably got alot worse milage than most SUV’s (drive it like ya stole it). If thats what people want… and can afford it, more power to them.
my ONLY gripe with suv’s is the fact that it’s near impossible to see around some of them, which IMO is a safety issue (and OF COURSE they all have to have dark ass tints on the rear of the truck which makes it near impossible to see thru them, if you even has a car that sat high enough)
I had a guy in a Prius (late 40’s, with a pony tail no less) give me the finger the other day while driving my Expedition. I was just sitting at a light waiting to turn, so it wasn’t like I had cut him off or anything. I actually found it pretty funny.
interesting. that i did not know. however it was still a slow and crummy 6cyl. and when the scout and wagoneer came out IIRC wasnt it another gas crisis time? which would account for why they were trying to put restrictions on cars for gas mileage?
wow. i am reading the fall and decline of the american automobile industry by brock yates currently. it debuted in 1983. he pointed out the mistakes GM made back then. it is stunning to see the same thing happening 23 years later. Part of me wants to see GM go down for the mistakes they have made, but i dont want to see all of the employees get screwed by the corporate criminals who will loot the company before it falls.
more retirees will get screwed then employees… They just shear outnumber active employees.
Suddenly You have half a million households that have nearly nil income, no pension, and no drug benefits.
And ofcourse, the millions of stockholders stand to lose a fortune.
