General Motors subsidiary, Opel, has started 2016 on quite a good note in its home market of Germany, posting its best first quarter since 2011 both in terms of market share and sales volume.
Sales Up
Opel increased its passenger car sales in Germany by around 7,500 units or 14.5 percent to 59,000 cars during the first three months of 2016. The growth is three times that of the overall German passenger car market, which grew at a rate of 4.5 percent.
Market Share Up
The results furnish Opel with a market share of roughly 7.5 percent, up 0.7 percentage points year-over-year.
New Model Offensive Responsible For Growth
The Russelsheim-based automaker lends the healthy growth to a successful model offensive.
For instance, over 7,200 units of new Astra five-door hatch were sold in the first quarter, an increase of more than 80 percent compared to the model it replaced during the same period last year.
The station wagon variant, the Astra Sports Tourer, will make its premiere at German dealerships on Saturday, April 9th. More than 140,000 orders have already been received in Europe for the new Astra.
Another success story was Opel’s flexibility champion, the Meriva, which recorded strong growth of nearly 19 percent. With over 4,000 units sold, it was number one in the MPV B segment, as was the Opel Mokka in the SUV B segment. In addition, sales of the Zafira Tourer family van grew by an impressive 16 percent.
Comments
Envision needs to race to Europe, NOW, & the new Insignia will only add to the current sales success. A new Astra saloon with premium-like appointments will be a welcome addition, too
I wish Astra had an adjustable platform like Infinity is using because raising Astra hatch and Tourer would fill some interesting CUV white space. Opel still needs a breakthrough product to surpass PSA and Ford in Europe.
Agreed — the Envision can’t come soon enough to Europe, as the Opel Antara, or otherwise.
That said, the Astra platform is the basis for the Envision — they’re both D2 vehicles. But as you probably know, it’s not as simple as lifting the vehicle and calling it a day; there’s still a lot of sourcing, development, validation, etc. to bring it to market.
This is more of a query than a comment.
How can the Astra and Envision both be on the D2XX platform when the rear suspension of the Astra is the compound crank torsion beam (with Watts links) and the Envision has a fully independent rear suspension with the fuel tank located mid-chassis?
It’s a different variant of D2, it has to be in order to accommodate the Envision’s 4wd. The D2xx version also has a trough in the rear floor section, to accommodate the battery and electrical systems, they would also get in the way of a drive shaft.
Yup, they’re two variants of the same flexible architecture. The flexibility allows for different suspension and drivetrain configurations, as well as different vehicle types (cars vs. crossovers), among other things.
Thanks for the feedback. To clarify in my mind, both are on the D2 platform. But are both the Astra and Envision classified as D2XX or is the XX restricted to the FWD Astra?
The Envision will not come to Europe nor there will be a direct Antara successor.
Opel will offer four CUV/SUV models within the next years: Mokka, Meriva successor, Zafira successor and the so called Monza SUV which will be built by 2020.
This Monza SUV will be the second flagship of the Opel portfolio beside the Insignia. And there are rumours thtat this flagship will also be offered as a Buick.
You’re right, and that’s truly a shame. An Opel Envision/Antara would do great, and will be a much better vehicle than whatever the collaboration with PSA puts out.
Something must have been gone wrong with the Envision/Antara project. I am sure that an Antara sucessor was planned for Europe including a production Europe what would have been very imported concerning the over capacity here in Europe. Maybe we will never know what reallyhappened.
Notwithstanding the above, I think the next gen Meriva and Zafira will be fine cars. Opel and PSA in the same way are experts when it comes to small and midsize vans. PSA has very fine engines and very competitive platforms. So I don’t see this collabaration as critical as the most of the guys do wihtin GM Authority.
What is crucial is that the cars will distinguish from each other. So an Opel must look like an Opel and feel like an Opel inside. If this will be the case I think this Project could be a real sucess.
The omission of Envision in the European market would be a short sighted mistake, a legacy of the equally short sighted Peugeot deal.