GM Buying Its Own Transport Trucks To Deliver Vehicles To Dealers
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GM plans to create its own fleet of delivery trucks to keep a strong flow of finished vehicles shipping to its dealerships in 2023, The move is prompted by significant improvements in vehicle production.
Leading personnel from the Chevrolet brand and from Chevy’s dealer council said The General expects to almost regain its full production capacity this year. The company is working to eliminate the last supply chain obstacles, rapidly get parts for partially-completed vehicles, and efficiently get the freshly finished vehicles onto dealer lots.
Restoring production to the near 100 percent capacity typical before the supply chain disruption is critically important, but it’s not the only action GM is taking.
According to a report by Automotive News, GM plans to buy 400 heavy-duty trucks its employees will directly operate to bring vehicles to dealerships. It announced these plans at a meeting with dealer representatives on January 28th, 2023.
The Chevrolet National Dealer Council’s chairman, Keith McCluskey, said “GM people on GM-owned vehicles are delivering our product to us” and that GM is “not going to sit back and just be a victim of the transportation industry” any longer.
McCluskey said GM produced about 500,000 vehicles that only needed a few more parts for completion, with supply chain improvements reducing the number of unfinished vehicles to just 1,000 by late January 2023. He added that “the bad weather, the storm is behind us” and predicted “a very bright future.”
While GM’s new truck fleet will help bypass third-party transportation problems in the United States, there are still more potential bottlenecks to overcome. For example, shipping shortages repeatedly prevented GM from bringing new Buick Envision units into the U.S. from the GMC-SAIC Jinqiao plant in China during 2022.
Still, having 400 of its own trucks ready to move finished vehicles to lots should help GM increase the available inventory back toward the 60 days supply considered optimal pre-pandemic in the U.S. automotive industry. As just one example, 11,000 finished, ready-to-ship Chevy Silverado HD trucks were left parked with no available transport at the Canadian GM Oshawa plant in May 2022.
Clearing the backlog was particularly slow because the size of the HD trucks made it possible to fit only a few on each rail car. GM’s truck fleet will likely lessen reliance on railways and provide more flexible highway-based transportation options for all the company’s brands.
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car hauler they show is not a U S power tractor this is a U K pic. also they would not make money hauling just 7 units.
Looking at Suburban and Yukons the delivery fee is already $1495 or higher.Willl this lower costs?
Let’s see them hire drivers at their UAW starting pay rate.
uaw or teamsters ? where do i apply
a lot of drivers (union) care, in 32 years never had any time off for damages disliked most management but loved carhauling always gave my best and was always a top producer. when ryder had us my points were in the 90s.
I work for ford good thing bad think whatever l i just a new f150 there was a 1900.oo charge for delivery charge i have a idea for big 3 i live 40 mins from where the truck was built how about give buyers a option to pick it up by plant for 500.oo
Truck driving, the only job I ever had that I lied about how many hours I worked!
I work in Service and it is hard to tell a customer that we don’t have the parts and we don’t know when we will get them.
Sadly they think and have proven they are not good at logistics. They started this last year. And keeps getting worse
THIS IS A GOOD IDEA
SOME PEOPLE HATE EVERYTHING GM DOES
Really!!!! Another profound decision by
G enerally M arginal C ompany…
Wow. So many people with absolutely no clue how car hauling works, including people affiliated with GM. Amazing.
Will these drivers be UAW employees? I’m curious as to how GM will handle this. Also, will it be a union outfit
This is such a bad idea, the problem with shipping might be with the contracted carriers you’re using. there are thousand of other carrier trucks that would handle the freight with pride and dedication, or even Owner Operators.
We all know one of the big reasons they’re doing this is because now they can get even more money on the vehicles on the lots.
This is typical corporate stupidity, they think they release a vehicle, it’s shipped, let me explain the life of a car hauler to you GM, first your crying victim to transportation costs? We professional car haulers deal with all your stupidity as well, hear me out in this one.
You release vehicles, have no understanding of hours of service, fuel costs, insurance. Then we get your freight, that’s only allowing us to haul 5,6,7 units depending on truck and trailer, walk all over your property to find a specified unit, have 3-6 stops all over gods country, that takes a full day or 2 to get off after in such state of deliveries.
Then we get to your precious dealers, we are treated with the same respect as a piece of roadkill, the dealers have no safe spots for unloading, then they want us to park em in back of lot, while my trucks in middle of 4 lane busy street. Let me ask you something? When you order a pizza for delivery what happens? The guy knocks on your door, signs delivery receipt, hands you pizza and he leaves, he doesn’t go inside your house, open pizza box, and put it on plates and pick pepperoni off of it because little Suzy hates it!! Delivery of vehicles is same way, I’m at your door, it’s on your property, you are required to have porters, lot attendants or sales people that come out and get vehicle inspected in driveway, (we are not porters!!!) then sign for them and park it, that way if he hits something it’s not our responsibility. We professional car haulers get told where to park vehicle, wait as they check for books, keys, antennas and then wait forever to get a signature, the whole time our truck and trailer are in middle of a 4 lane busy highway! If vehicle is released all the $hit should be in said vehicle, we aren’t inventory people, we car haulers!
You want to deliver to a place that treats you with same respect a dead dog gets in the road?
How about tell your dealers, when a transport truck arrives, they are to take vehicle deliveries seriously, we wait 20-30 mins sometimes because person is nowhere to be found or just too lazy to want to inspect em.
We are car haulers, not lot attendants, porters or salesmen. Start respecting and paying the delivery drivers you have and maybe this wouldn’t be a problem.
Union or non union, it’s all about safety and everyone getting home the same way they left in the morning.
Non union drivers are treated worse also in your lots, let’s take ft Wayne plant into example here, I have to wait in street for a union employee to bring me such vehicle you so said is hot for delivery, they bring 4-7 out to me and say inspect em real quick we got $hit to do, meanwhile I’m dodging traffic like the frog in the video game frogger!! I don’t care if it’s the president or pope, I’m not telling em to leave until I do a thorough inspection!!
I’m not paying for a damage I missed!!
Until you manufacturers realize your the problem, your not going to find safe, reliable, professional transporters in a timely manner!!
If you’re an active car hauler, you should know that a missed damage is the exact same as a damage you did
There were 20000 car haulers in this country in the 80’s. You had a dedicated carrier back then. Then you decided to go with the lowest bidder. Through the years, GM created their own problem. Since the 80’s, thousands of driver lost their jobs or retired.
Wait till you try shipping 11,000 units 4 at a time. Hope your calling them 2024’s.
As usual blame transport. A lot of drivers left carhauling during the lock downs and never came back.
Part of the problem is the heavy-duty trucks they are tall and heavy. Gm thinks we should be able to put 9 on a truck and go, you can’t. We sit and wait for units then they sent 3000 and say why is taking so long. We have run legally, we can run 24hrs a day. Everything and everyone plays a roll. Rather then excepting some of the blame, just take easy way out and blame the drivers.