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November 14, 2007
DETROIT — This year, General Motors has been getting some warm reviews for its new cars. Yet the company still has a hard time getting on drivers’ shopping lists, according to the New York Times' Micheline Maynard.
“At last, a decent midsize car from General Motors,” Automobile Magazine said of a stylish new version of the Malibu. The new Cadillac CTS is “an excellent luxury sport sedan,” raved Edmunds.com, which praised the more powerful engines that G.M. has made available on the car. And in January, the Saturn Aura was named the North American Car of the Year by auto writers.
This is all a sharp contrast to six years ago, when the legendary product expert Robert A. Lutz arrived at G.M. to take charge of vehicle development. Back then, the company was selling cars and trucks that he admits — in his typical blunt-talking fashion — he never would have parked in his vast personal garage.
Now, he says, G.M.’s new models can be compared to the best that the company’s Japanese and German competitors have to offer.
The question is, Will enough consumers compare them — and choose G.M.?
Despite Mr. Lutz’s efforts, G.M. still has a hard time getting on drivers’ shopping lists. Its market share, close to 28 percent when Mr. Lutz arrived, has dropped to just under 24 percent, in part because G.M. has pulled back on unprofitable sales to rental car companies.
But there are other factors holding G.M. back, too, that may be hard to overcome despite the improved lineup of cars.
Perhaps the biggest challenge is changing the way consumers think about its cars. The idea that G.M.’s cars have been a disaster, even if the trucks were passable, “has been so ingrained, and so hard to change,” Mr. Lutz said.
Even he acknowledges that this may take another generation of vehicles to change, meaning well into the next decade — a long time for a company that has lost billions of dollars in recent years and whose competitors keep getting better, too.
Posted by Peter C. T. Elsworth 
at 11:14 AM to GM
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