GM to drop Chevrolet in Europe to focus on Opel.

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FRANKFURT -- General Motors will drop its Chevrolet brand in Europe by the end of 2015, GM Vice Chairman Steve Girsky said today.

The move is the latest effort by GM to turn around its European operations and to focus its resources on reviving the Opel brand.

Chevrolet will no longer have a mainstream presence in western and eastern Europe due to a challenging business model and the difficult economic situation in Europe, GM said in a statement.

"We believe this is a win for all of our brands here in Europe and around the globe as GM will benefit from a stronger Opel/Vauxhall," Girsky said. To pull Chevrolet out of Europe "will help us to accelerate progress in the region," he said.

Some of the brand's iconic models, such as the Corvette, will remain on sale in Europe, and the upmarket Cadillac marque is working on an expansion in the region in the next three years, GM said. Chevrolet sales will continue in Russia, where the brand ranks No. 5 in sales behind Lada, Renault, Kia and Hyundai.

Low sales

Chevrolet's annual sales in Europe have remained low at about 200,000 since GM relaunched the brand in the region in 2005. Chevrolet focused on selling small cars in Europe such as the Aveo subcompact and Spark minicar built by GM Daewoo in Korea.

Chevrolets were supposed to compete at the budget end of the market with the likes of Hyundai, Skoda and Renault's Dacia. But the brand failed to make much headway as its largely rebadged Korean-made Daewoo cars struggled against rivals, whose models are customized for European markets.

GM Daewoo exported 186,000 vehicles to Europe last year, accounting for over 20 percent of the unit's total vehicle output. "We will phase out exports to Europe by the end of 2015. We will discuss with the union how to enhance the operating efficiency of our plants," Park Hae-ho, a spokesman at GM Korea, said.

Chevrolet's deliveries in the EU and EFTA markets dropped 17 percent to 152,260 vehicles through October, giving the nameplate 1.2 percent of the market. Opel and its sister UK division, Vauxhall, posted a 3 percent decline to 718,829 units over that period for a 6.7 percent market share.Hurt by a brutal downturn in European demand, Chevrolet has responded by slashing prices and introducing more upmarket models -- putting it on a collision course with Opel.Thomas Sedran, Chevrolet Europe president, said: "Chevrolet's business results have been impacted by the unfavorable economic environment in Europe."

I did not expect this. I see a lot of Korean Chevrolets driving around but apparently sales are just awful.
 
The quality of car, even base model cheap-o, has a higher standard to meet in Europe. Daewoo doesn't meet their standard, or many standards really. How will they sell the Camaro now, if they even bother with it I guess. The SMART thing to do, even if GM is allergic to intelligent thinking, would be to let Opel go nuts. They are German, and therefore are in the world's auto-engineering capital. I'm not surprised it's getting the boot. It is taking sales away from itself in both Vauxhall and Opel, and gave itself a worse reputation by putting its name on crap cars without any hesitation.

To be honest, I wouldn't mind seeing Chevy gone completely. They have the Camaro, and that's it. There isn't a Chevrolet product that GM doesn't have an equivalent or better alternative to in any of it's other brands.
 
I saw this earlier and debated on posting it. Definitely an interesting move.
 
The Corvette will stay on sale and the Camaro has always been a grey import car. This goes mainly for the Deawoo Chevrolets. We don't have the American cars other than the 2 I mentioned.

As for Opel , they first need to get their sales back on track, but their image has been tainted by many bad cars build over the passed decades.
 
It's a logical move that surprises even me that it's taken this long to do. Chevrolet has only served to cannibalize sales of comparable Vauxhall and Opel products, they may as well focus on the products that matter. Although it does lead me to a few questions and conclusions:

  • How much does this have to do with the GM/PSA relationship? Last we had heard, it was a bit on the rocks. Clearing out the lower-level competition for Peugeot and Citroen could help the terms out a bit.
  • What kind of impact does this have on the next-generation Cruze, now?
  • How much does this line up the rumours for the "premium, mid-size wagon" that GM North America wants?
  • Full development costs going into Opel/Vauxhall products isn't just a win for Europeans, it's a big win for us Americans, too. That means that GM won't be wasting development dollars developing several cars on the same platform all meant to do different things. Definitely expect an improvement with the next-generation Chevrolet small cars, and I'd definitely expect more product overlaps between Buick and Opel in the US going forward.
  • Opel and Vauxhall are going to broaden their horizons quite a bit. And I'd fully expect a Vingale-like line develop in the near future for more premium options from GM in Europe
 
How much does this have to do with the GM/PSA relationship? Last we had heard, it was a bit on the rocks. Clearing out the lower-level competition for Peugeot and Citroen could help the terms out a bit.
I seem to recall Jalopnik's piece suggested it wasn't related to the PSA relationship. Or maybe it was somewhere else.

Either way, neither Citroen nor Peugeot competes in the slice of the market occupied by Chevrolet now. Like most of the other previously-mainstream brands they've moved up a step - in everything but perceived image Peugeot is easily on par with VW now, and Citroen's big-seller is the DS3, which is a MINI rival rather than a Sonic (Aveo still, over here) rival.

Chevy competes more with the Korean brands and Skoda. Apart from with cars like the Volt/Vette/Camaro, of course. But I suspect it's the success of those brands and the non-success of Chevy that's prompted this move.
 
Also it has been announced that in 2016 that GM is going to pull the plug on it's Australian division Holden. Over the last decade they have received $2.2 billion AUD in tax payer dollars to keep the company going but its seems to have been a complete waste. What I do want to know is this:

What are Holden drivers going to do? Are they going to change, are GM going to make parts for them to keep them on the road, what?

Is GM going to bring Chevrolet to Australia or are they ditching the Australian market altogether?
 
Chevrolet, like Pontiac, Lincoln etc have a non-image in Europe. They're just an American brand which has no real context to our know brands.

We equate value-brand cars with long warranties with Korean brands. The change from Daewoo to Chevy probably just confused people.

People know where Opels or Vauxhalls fit in the pecking order, it makes more sense to concentrate on those brands.
 
Also it has been announced that in 2016 that GM is going to pull the plug on it's Australian division Holden. Over the last decade they have received $2.2 billion AUD in tax payer dollars to keep the company going but its seems to have been a complete waste.

Unless the news has changed in the past 24 hours, I believe it was a rumor, not confirmed.

What I do want to know is this:

What are Holden drivers going to do? Are they going to change, are GM going to make parts for them to keep them on the road, what?

Is GM going to bring Chevrolet to Australia or are they ditching the Australian market altogether?

I entirely doubt that GM would ditch the entire market, but instead would shift to importing global vehicles to Australia. It would seem fairly likely to see Chevrolet, Buick and Cadillac taking up much of the slack in Australia - although I'm not entirely sure of what market the cars would be coming from (as of right now, the majority of those vehicles are produced in LHD configurations). It's difficult to say... If GM is losing that much money there, it's hard to estimate whether or not they would want to cede and entire market to Ford's global options, Japanese or Chinese imports.
 
Totally makes sense, every time I saw a Chevy Captiva I thought... why didn't you just by the Antara?!

Vauxhall / Opel has a better image and presence than Chevy will probably ever will do in Europe.
 
Unless the news has changed in the past 24 hours, I believe it was a rumor, not confirmed.



I entirely doubt that GM would ditch the entire market, but instead would shift to importing global vehicles to Australia. It would seem fairly likely to see Chevrolet, Buick and Cadillac taking up much of the slack in Australia - although I'm not entirely sure of what market the cars would be coming from (as of right now, the majority of those vehicles are produced in LHD configurations). It's difficult to say... If GM is losing that much money there, it's hard to estimate whether or not they would want to cede and entire market to Ford's global options, Japanese or Chinese imports.
Thanks for picking me up on that. I must have left some words but thanks for the pick up on that. Like I said they have required taxpayer money for the last decade and a contributing factor was the high cost to build locally meaning they couldn't compete with imports and the fact that Holden and Ford for that matter were practically making dinosaurs.
 
It was reported a while back that GM North America is fully prepared to take over production of the Zeta-based models if/when they decide to discontinue operations in Australia. If I remember correctly, they said that production of both the Chevrolet SS Sedan and Chevrolet PPV (Commodore and Caprice, respectively) would move to their production facility in Oshawa, Ontario, Canada.

I imagine a lot of this depends on the TPP agreements, if any.
 
What will be the consequenses for Chevrolet dealerships is Europe?
GM has said that Chevy will continue to offer servicing backup for ten years.

Most Chevy dealers in Europe are combined with Opel/Vauxhall ones anyway, there aren't a great deal of stand-alone dealers. So the dealers will just keep selling Opels or Vauxhalls.
 
It's a shame Chevy are being pulled from Europe. See them on the road all the time.

If they actually sold some US Chevys like the Impala, Camaro, Malibu and a couple of trucks here they might have done a bit better.
 
They do sell the Camaro in the UK. There's no market over here for any of the others.
 
It's a shame Chevy are being pulled from Europe. See them on the road all the time.

If they actually sold some US Chevys like the Impala, Camaro, Malibu and a couple of trucks here they might have done a bit better.

Those cars aren't build for European gas prices.
 
They do sell the Camaro in the UK. There's no market over here for any of the others.

They do sell it here, but there is only 1 dealer that will sell you one. Bauer Millett in Manchester.
Before they became an Abarth/Alfa Romeo dealer they were an American car importer so they were importing Camaros before Chevrolet sent them over.


Those cars aren't build for European gas prices.

An Impala or Malibu with a 2.5/3.0 V6 Diesel from Opel would have been fine I would have thought.
 
But then GM would sell 2 crappy cars here. Opel sales are nothing to be proud of. Selling Chevy's with the same engines would make it only worse. Also, aren't the Malibu and Impala quite big and heavy?

I think this decision to cut off Chevrolet to try and boost Opel back into health is the best they could do.
 
Europeans don't want large cars without premium badges. They didn't buy Monaros or Commodores when badged as Vauxhalls/Opels, there's no reason believe they'd want an Impala or Malibu either.

Camaros can be bought from dealers other than Bauer Millett, according to Chevrolet's UK website anyway.
 
But then GM would sell 2 crappy cars here. Opel sales are nothing to be proud of. Selling Chevy's with the same engines would make it only worse. Also, aren't the Malibu and Impala quite big and heavy?

The Chevrolet Malibu, which shares it's basic structure with the Opel/Vauxhall Insignia, is only slightly larger. It's roughly an inch (2.5 cm) longer, and maybe an inch or so wider, much more storage in the boot, and that's about it. We get the Insignia here as the Buick Regal, and compared to the Chevrolet, it's roughly 150 lbs (68 kg) heavier. I'm not sure how that works out.

The Chevrolet Impala, on the other hand, is a very large car. It's roughly 10 inches (25 cm) longer, but only 100 lbs (60 kg) heavier than the Insignia.

Both the Malibu and the Impala get pretty good fuel economy, averages usually range between 24-27 MPG (10-11.5 100km/l)

I think this decision to cut off Chevrolet to try and boost Opel back into health is the best they could do.

Between this and the eventual consolidation of Holden in 2017, I think we're going to see a very lean and mean GM going forward. At the very least, I'd expect the R&D folks at Opel to be very busy helping to develop new global vehicles far more often.
 
Both the Malibu and the Impala get pretty good fuel economy, averages usually range between 24-27 MPG (10-11.5 100km/l)

By European standard that isn't a good milage at all. Advertised cars are named around 4.5-5.5 l/100km which would usually result in them actually being 6-8 l/100km.


All in all I agree with GMs approach, why try to enforce a "strange product" in Chevy if you could instead push a known product of the same company. Heck I didn't even know Daewoo was swallowed by GM, givin the cars Daewoo badge would have made more sense as well because in Germany Daewoo is more known for small cars than Chevy and thus would definitely have sold better.
 
The problem with comparing fuel mileage between US and Euro cars isn't really a fair one, the US focuses on the emissions, and as anyone with a gasping breath left will tell you without hesitation that kills power and efficiency, and the CAFE BS the Feds limp-wristedly try to push doesn't help. If memory serves right, not normally the case, the EU has regulations with the primary focus on the fuel mileage, even if emissions are getting tougher, the Defender is case-in-point there.

As Third said Chevrolet is an American company that really has no pulling power beyond the western hemisphere. It is also GMs "one size fits all" branch as it has one of everything, and only holds the Camaro and Corvette over the other brands heads, and even then Corvette stands alone internationally. Opel, Holden, and Buick big time international brands, even if Holden will become Chevy Australia soon, so Opel/Vauxhall need to cover Europe without their American cousin getting in the way.

I still say Chevy should go altogether.
 
By European standard that isn't a good milage at all. Advertised cars are named around 4.5-5.5 l/100km which would usually result in them actually being 6-8 l/100km.

The problem with comparing fuel mileage between US and Euro cars isn't really a fair one, the US focuses on the emissions, and as anyone with a gasping breath left will tell you without hesitation that kills power and efficiency, and the CAFE BS the Feds limp-wristedly try to push doesn't help. If memory serves right, not normally the case, the EU has regulations with the primary focus on the fuel mileage, even if emissions are getting tougher, the Defender is case-in-point there.

I did forget about that. I may be incorrect, but I seem to remember EU fuel economy being calculated almost entirely on a highway cycle as well. If that were the case, we could say the Malibu would do more than 6.5 l/100km, the Impala somewhere around 8 l/100km. Still not that bad, in in my opinion.

As Third said Chevrolet is an American company that really has no pulling power beyond the western hemisphere. It is also GMs "one size fits all" branch as it has one of everything, and only holds the Camaro and Corvette over the other brands heads, and even then Corvette stands alone internationally. Opel, Holden, and Buick big time international brands, even if Holden will become Chevy Australia soon, so Opel/Vauxhall need to cover Europe without their American cousin getting in the way.

I still say Chevy should go altogether.

The market value of Chevrolet largely depends on what part of the world you're in. In the Americas, Southeast Asia, and the Middle East, it's a very popular brand with pretty strong sales. In Europe, it's burdened by the fact that Vauxhall and Opel were their own version of Chevrolet in their respective markets. That being said, Chevrolet can use the Camaro and the Corvette to bring people into dealers internationally, and chances are, that's what they'll plan on doing if they use it to replace Holden in 2018.
 
It's a logical move that surprises even me that it's taken this long to do. Chevrolet has only served to cannibalize sales of comparable Vauxhall and Opel products, they may as well focus on the products that matter.

That's exactly what I thought would happen when they first introduced Chevroletwoo to Europe, and look what's happened now. Not only have Vauxhall/Opel had more years of neglect, but arguably Chevrolet's brand image within Europe has taken a bit of a knock.

Instead of being a brand with some sort of mystique of "Ooh, the Corvette, Camaro and Chevelle!" and being associated with a sports-muscle pedigree, it's more of a bland box of Korean spares with the soul of a kettle. ...in my opinion.

GM remind me in some ways of British Leyland, and not just because of the huge debts. The cannibalism is very odd indeed.
 
GM remind me in some ways of British Leyland, and not just because of the huge debts. The cannibalism is very odd indeed.

This is...enlightening. I learned some about BL a few years ago (thanks to Top Gear), but I never thought about putting the two in parallel.
 
Well, the in-house competition at GM is a bit more complicated than that. For the better part of a half-century, the differentiation between Chevrolet, Pontiac, Buick, Oldsmobile and Cadillac did their best to divide up multiple groups of buyers in North America. Each brand was a stepping stone forward for when you'd made a bit more money, or had a certain social status to represent. Of course, there were exceptions to that with certain models, but it was the outright definition of GM to play that game until the mid '70s. Although sales of the Regal would eat those of the Cutlass, ultimately the money went to the same place, it largely didn't matter. And, with the in-house competition so ridiculously strong at GM for all those years, they were constantly trying to out-build one another to get better favors year after year.

The advantage to brands like Chevrolet ultimately is that they are able to appeal to a wide range of budgets, and thus, a wide range of customers. Opel and Vauxhall have to be just that, but, part of the problem is that they are burdened with branding that is old and stale, and worse yet, a reputation of building bland cars for middle-executives who get the keys to a new company car every few years. Sure, Chevrolet did that for quite a long time, but they had some sense knocked into them in the past few years. The same thing needs to happen at GM Europe. Make the cars exciting again. They don't have to be bleeding edge techno gadgets, or harsh riding track day sedans, they just have to be damn-good cars that are sold at a competitive price.

What they need to do is attempt what they did with the 2014 Impala on the entire Opel/Vauxhall lineup. Make them look lean and muscular, give it adequate equipment at a fair price, and offer a bevy of engines.
 
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