This Is Why America Isn’t Getting The Opel Adam
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Wondering why General Motors doesn’t sell the Opel Adam city car in the Untied States as a Chevrolet, Buick, or otherwise? Here’s as close as we’ll get to an official explanation, and it all boils down to (gasp!) money.
GM would need to make a “huge investment for technical changes” in order “to meet the various [U.S.] demands”, according to GM’s Germany-based subsidiary, Opel. The necessary investments, Opel says, normally result in such projects no longer being profitable.
Specifically, the front end, roof and rear-end structures, along with the airbag system and the lights of the Adam, would all have to be changed in order for the vehicle to be sold in America.
In order to make the necessary technological effort plain to see, Opel highlighted the necessary modifications on the body of a specially-prepared Opel Adam. The vehicle showcases the challenges an automaker such as Opel faces when intending to export a European car to the United States.
Opel CEO Dr. Karl-Thomas Neumann and the Opel board present a specially-prepared Opel Adam to United States Ambassador to Germany, John B. Emerson, in front of the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin. The specially-prepared Adam demonstrates the engineering changes needed to export the vehicle to the United States.
The specially-prepared vehicle was on display during a meeting wherein Opel announced its support of the Transatlantic Trade And Investment Partnership (TTIP) in Berlin, Germany, a free trade agreement that could potentially dismiss the difficulties outlined above.
The GM Authority Take
So, there you have it: the Adam isn’t coming to the U.S. since it would need major changes that would make it difficult for GM to turn a profit on the vehicle. That said, we should note that the Adam wasn’t developed for sale in the U.S. to begin with, meaning that the associated costs weren’t allocated to the program from the start. This isn’t the case with other Opel vehicles.
For instance, the Insignia (Buick Regal), Astra (Buick Verano/Excelle) and Mokka (Buick Encore) were all engineered for export/U.S.-market duties from the very beginning.
That said, it would be great if all countries in the world developed the same standards, at least as it relates to safety and emissions. That would make it significantly easier for automakers to do business globally, while arguably delivering a better product at the same time. Globalization for the win!
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How about a link to the source material?
GM Authority *is* the source, bud.
Wow, GM Authority has an *exclusive* then, woohoo! But who is the SOURCE for your info? “Opel says” is pretty broad, ya know? Last I checked Opels can’t talk, so it’s probably a person… but who??? Just something to think about, if you want your reporting to be taken seriously, bud.
1. Not all sources are meant to be divulged, especially when they do not wish to be cited publicly. It’s something that serious publications do, bud.
2. Opel can, in fact, talk. Ever heard of press releases, or corporate statements not attributable to a person? Just something to think about 😉
3. Despite #1 and #2 above, this link should answer your questions to your satisfaction:
http://gmauthority.com/blog/2015/06/gms-opel-expresses-support-for-transatlantic-trade-and-investment-partnership-ttip/
4. Any other brain busters, friend?
It would have been interesting to see more of the engineering details. Seeing as Opel went through the effort of creating a special Adam to highlight and publicize these differences, I think it is safe to assume your source for this material is not confidential.
It is an interesting article, and one of your readers wanted to know more, and instead of being professional by either answering or ignoring his question, you saw fit to demean him and ignore the merit of his request.
Do you hold all of your readers in this much contempt?
Sigh, so in fact you had no “source” other than a press release. LOL. Got it. I totally get why you’re touchy now.
I’m sorry, but this is part of what’s wrong with GM.
Apple doesn’t simply accept that CDMA devices are hard to build for. Apple could have focused on GSM and been content making progressive growth. Nokia did that, and they failed as a phone maker. Apple stayed up late, and made an iPhone for all four major carriers. They won, Nokia lost.
Opel, and GM as a whole, needs to take global design into account when making models. If you start knowing the US headlight and the European headlight have to fit in the same chassis, you cut costs dramatically. Opel is still articulating platforms for their continent, leaving other teams to clean up that later. That’s why GM doesn’t have money for budget sport cars, and why we write grouchy editorials about GM.
Every Opel (or even Boajan) product should be built with Federalization in mind.
I an loathed to site Ford as an example, but they built a majority of product with global distribution in mind.
Adam, like Corsa, sits on that old Fiat partnership platform and, in GMs defense, shaving down that platform for Adam was a highly cost effective move in the aftermath of bankruptcy.
It’s my guess that Mary Barra will not let this happen again once GM has a new minicar architecture.
Why not design every new car to be compliant with many/all of the countries laws, be it any car regardless of even if it’s likely not to be sold in one paticliar place. LHD & RHD every model should be made with both markets in mind. Even if a model isn’t designed with one particular market in mind if it’s designed to be adapted from the start, if need be it can be adapted quickly to fill any niche identified & sell in the situation that a market suddenly changes. It would give GM a huge advantage over it’s rivals & could be in a up & coming market where first to market gets the big majority of sales.
Well you have to look back to when this cars concept originated to understand the full story.
This car started back with old GM under the old ways and that this car was not considered to being brought here. Chevy was already working on the Sonic for a small car and there was only some globalization in the company back then. Much of it was mostly even buy chance.
Move ahead to today where much of GM is globalizing and what parts are not yet will be in the future.
With that said I would not be surprise to see the next gen be globalized and we may see it here as a Buick.
When you look at cars like this you have to look back to when you first see it and then think back at least 5 years to understand when they were started that is if they were not delayed.
With GM today time lines of platforms are very important to understand in the how, what’s and why’s.
This is still living in “new” GM — the idea to have cars designed and built only for Europe, not worth a global platform. That is behind the collaboration with PSA to design and build such Europe-only cars.
Time to get the liberals, democrats out of Washington and EPA so that we can have the great cars Europe has!
You don’t understand European politics, do you? Or American protectionism?
Japan and America maintain unique standards to shut out brands like Skoda, Seat, Dacia, PSA, Renault, Samsung, MG.
GM until recently supported these regulations.
Umm… the Fiat 500 is here. Either offer a competitor or don’t.
It would not be a Fiat competitor here. It would cost more as a Buick and with the Chevy already having a Spark it would not be a Chevy.
It would be between a Fiat and Mini and that is a tough place to be.
Note this is a better car than the Fiat quality wise but smaller than a Mini by a little.
Scott, Adam being stuck in the middle, three thousand dollars cheaper than a Mini, yet not offering much more content than a 500, is a sad low volume place to be.
Adam should be a Chevy, as should Corsa, with Spark positioned much like Karl is in Europe.
Chevrolet needs an entry capable of demanding Fiesta-sized transaction prices.
Fiesta (and Focus) are not as popular in the US but are more expensive and Chevrolet needs autos capable of higher sticker price.
Clearly this is a small market in N America so it would be best for GM to import these new offerings from Europe after 2019 when the next generation platform is ready.
As in this article — I believe there is too much overthinking.
1. The Fiat 500 exists. So an Adam like car apparently can be released in America.
2. Visually speaking it competes DIRECTLY with Fiat 500. Shoppers aren’t so sophisticated enough to understand or care if it should be a Chevy or a Buick*. All they see is car looking a lot like a Fiat 500.
3. Fiat costs between $16K-$30K. That’s plenty of pricing room. So if you want Adam to be ‘Buicky’… make sure it has all sorts of niceties to justify brand/price.
4. The opening for an American Adam is that the Fiats aren’t considered reliable.
5. The Adam is hip. Put it in a Buick dealer and young people will follow.
6. A hybrid Adam could go after the Prius C.
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* For instance, the Buick Encore isn’t really a Buick at all. The ads even say it. Did I care when shopping? Nope. I saw it as a Chevy and an Buick — and preferred the Buick.
And why isn’t Europe getting the next gen Volt?
Because no one wants that garbage.