— On the polldaddy website, Moanalua wrote:
Pontiac outsold Buick two-to-one in the US, yet GM murdered Pontiac instead of Buick simply because Buick sold in China. I’m a little unsatisfied with that. If Buick sold well in China, but sold poorly in the US compared to Pontiac, I would have preferred that GM sell Buicks ONLY IN CHINA, and keep selling Pontiacs in the US and Canada. I’m not entirely thrilled that–in effect–CHINA dictated to GM that Pontiac should be murdered. It wouldn’t have been so bad if Buick were close to Pontiac in sales here in the US, but it wasn’t. Here we had an AMERICAN automaker (GM), shutting-down iconic AMERICAN brand Pontiac rather than sister brand Buick, even though Pontiac was outselling Buick two-to-one in the AMERICAN market. And why? Because Buick sold in CHINA. Does anyone else feel that something is wrong with this picture? Does this stick in anyone else’s craw, as it sticks in mine?
–My response:
Moanalua,
When you keep repeating the same disproven reasoning based on sales volume without taking into consideration the obvious differences in profit margin between the Pontiac and Buick, it doesn’t help your credibility. Surely an Econ major such as yourself fully understands the concept of Return on Investment and can accept that the RoI for Pontiac was nearly negative at the end of its run due to the extreme sales incentives GM had to offer to move the volume. Even a great car like the G8 wasn’t meeting sales targets. It’s simply a reflection of the overall market. GM kept it afloat as long as they could, but market conditions and buyer habits have changed. Blame GM if you want, but they tried to keep the excitement alive for 30 years after they went to corporate engines. The ‘real’ Pontiac has been dead since then. Combining the buyer habits, market conditions, and the current corporate structure of GM, there is no place for Pontiac that is economically viable.
To avoid multiple overlapping discussions, I’ll repost this in the GMA forum, if you want to continue the conversation.
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…and continue….
