Holden’s market share has slumped as the brand prepared to close its manufacturing operations and began its move to a full vehicle importer. Thus far, sales results have proved lukewarm at best. However, things may be on the uptick for Holden.
In December, the Holden Astra soared past rivals to top the passenger car sales chart and handily outsold fierce rivals. The Mazda 3 and Toyota Corolla have often dominated the sales chart, but the Astra placed first with 3,532 units sold. Mazda sold 2,807 3s and Toyota moved 2,641 Corollas.
The Astra was Holden’s star in December, but interest in the Colorado helped push Holden sales. The brand sold 3,130 pickups last month, though it lagged behind Toyota and Ford. The newly launched Equinox also found 679 driveways in its first month on sale. Holden’s final sales figure was enough to put it in second place and leapfrog Mazda as a whole with 12,179 vehicles sold to Mazda’s 9,102.
This year will be a monumental one for Holden. The first imported Commodore will reach Australia in February and the Holden Acadia will launch sometime this year as well to give Holden a three-crossover strategy in Trax, Equinox and Acadia. Meanwhile, Holden Special Vehicles will supplement Holden itself with two new products: right-hand drive versions of the Chevrolet Camaro and Chevrolet Silverado 2500HD.
Comments
Now, GM has sell Opel. I don’t think that Holden will produce the same performance again…
So much for the Holden Scorn.
As for Opel. GM has a habit of moving people around globally so be it Holden, GM USA or China anymore they are all the same people working together.
You can be sure that the most important people were not left behind at Opel.
Today GM works globally not just small units anymore.
Where is Mark Adams, PSA or GM? I thought that he’d be moved to Buick ASAP. He could fill the now open top spot at Cadillac. Or he could take over Chevrolet design and make it look less Korean.
Opel has a great looking line up only bested by (maybe) Mazda. I still disagree with the sale. It could have been an EV automaker given GMs technology edge while also handling Buick design.
I have not seen any official announcement yet.
He has a good line to the top at GM as Chevy is about the only division he has not worked at yet. GM tends to move these guys globally before they move them up to a major role.
But being from London he could chose to stay in Eurooe too.
With Opel being in the PSA family and not part of GM any more, ware will Holden import their autos from?
It will be a mix from America and the Far East where most of all there other cars come from like Mazda, Hyundai and Toyota.
GM and PSA have certainly concluded contracts for mutual OEM production and delivery, and those contracts would have, I guess, minimal numbers of years of validity.
GM builds for PSA’s Opel the Karl/Viva and the Mokka (a large part of them) in their South Korean plants, and on the other hand, PSA’s Opel produces Astras for Holden, the Cascada both for Buick NA and Holden, and the Insignia as Buick Regal for Buick NA and as Holden Commodore for Australia. The latter will probably run up to 2024, when PSA wants to have all their Opel products moved away from GM technology to common PSA platforms.
The successors of the Opel built Buick and Holden will then be based on GM’s new modular architectures.
Align it with Chevy. And things may get even better from here on out probably. Have engineers and designers from both continents work together to make some bad ass vehicles moving forward. For people still ragging on GM constantly, the fact is their vehicles are getting better and better. And because they are becoming g a smaller company, it might mean even better vehicles.
There is not a chance that the current Insignia and Astra models will run to their originally projected lifetime. PSA wants Opel to move into other areas/markets, plus, with the new EU regulations for emissions coming into force in the next few years (which GM had not adequately prepared for in any sensible way) Opel/Vauxhall have to move to a shared platform that will not incur massive fines for non compliance.
When PSA ends production many Holden models will come from China. Also, it may be good for Holden to move on to a new generation of models in it’s efforts to win market share.
GM did no rational product planning with Opel. Wall Street and media love current General Motors management, but Opel not being ready for future emissions standards demonstrates worse than bad planning. This becomes even worse considering most of the world will adopt similarly tough standards sooner or later.
GM putting all eggs in the EV basket is silly considering the lack of charging infrastructure. Also, emerging markets will need non EV solutions. India, for example, a massive and important market, could have been a boon with fuel efficient, high quality options.
A quick browse of Australian Holden dealers web sites will reveal that truck loads of Astras were registered in December and are now available for sale as ‘demos’. We won’t see those figures from Holden again unless they pull the same deception again..
Of note is the fact that the Commodore is still a good seller although most of the V6 versions are gone leaving the SS Commodore available in large quantities across the country.
Yes and here’s the proof !!!
http://www.news.com.au/technology/innovation/motoring/car-advice/holden-astra-discounted-by-more-than-6000-as-dealers-choke-on-supplies/news-story/2dd3b76a321ae25c9ed6f670effb62ec
Holden claimed sales they never had to try and get a higher place on the annual sales list.
Now they’re caught out.
Funny.
Standard price is &26,500 holden are selling them for &19,990 drive away (OTD) this is why it has sold so well.
One thing to keep in mind is Aust sales figures are not sourced from vehicle deliveries but from dealers declaring how many were sold.
What has happened is Holden declared X amount were sold but fell short by around 1,000 units, these cars need to move before more can be declared for the next month.
This BS game has been going on for years.