http://www.greencarreports.com/blog/...-til-next-fall

 

Will the Cobalt also end production and cease to exist?

 

Any specific reason for the delay? This is bad news. Cruze needed to make a splash against current day models. If it waits until all the new gen products are being released it may end up once again being "good enough" but not "wow" when put next to the competition. GM needs "wow" at the moment to turn heads that have otherwise permanently turned away from their direction.

I swear I've heard somebody on here say it will not discontinue production but I can't begin to understand why. Even if the Cobalt is sold for 2-3 grand less than the Cruze and can find its own niche amongst consumers that would rather save a couple grand and drive a relative heap of bolts... it's still a stain on GM's new face of quality that I'm sure they wouldn't mind wiping off.

 

That means that the Cruze will have been out for 2 years by the time it gets sold here......

Not good.

 

I've read it was pushed back from April to July.

This car needed to be out last year. It would have been best in class by a large margin. Now it will be competing with the all new 2011 Euro spec Focus and its Ecoboost I4. Honda Civic is also all new for 201 or 2012.

 

wow that totally sucks.

Why the delay we will never know.

 

There is no need to rush perfection. If GM really wants to lead the compact segment they better do their homework to compete with Honda and Toyota.

 

Any vehicle which has been in production for over a year BETTER have a perfect launch.

BTW Toyota, Honda, and others have been competing with the vehicle for at least a year now. GM is giving them a HUGE headstart on out competing the Cruze.

 

Doesn't say a time frame, but apparently the new Civic is delayed as well....

More

 

They should have just kept doing what they were doing... come out with the civic as planned. I'm sure the Honda Fit would have been there to fill in the bottom end for anyone who wanted something smaller than the civic.

 

They discovered some issues and chose to fix them up front in hopes of a good launch; instead of starting production and then getting hammered in reviews and doing a running change the year after.

 

And don't forget Toyota delayed the current-gen Corolla by a few months too (ostensibly to sharpen it up to compete with the sportier Civic)

 

That notion is Ridiculous!


The car is ALREADY out in Europe!!

Development has been long done!

What homework do they need to do? That assignment was turned in a long time ago!

We're talking about an economy car, not a Michaelangelo painting.

By that logic, the Cruize would be a better car if GM delayed it until 2015. That's the same assbackward logic that GM used before:

"Take your time and make a vehicle match what's coming from Toyota or Nissan"

The fatal flaw in that kind of logic is that the car business is a fast moving target. While you're taking your sweet a**ed time trying to match what the competition has out today, they have alread jumped ahead with new innovations and even better quality. by the time you finally get your so-called "perfected" car into showrooms, you're matching what the competition had out before, while their new cars in showrooms are still far better than the ones you're basing on a long discarded target.

Any automaker that adopts the logic of waiting to perfect a car shouldn't be in the car business. Get it done right quickly and get it out to the public. That's what the imports are doing. That's what we need to be doing too!

If GM can't get a simple economy car out on time, they may as well call it a day and shut down everything here except Cadillac, Camaro, and Corvette and focus on expanding in China.

The competition is ferocious.

Even Ford figured out a way to beat Toyota in quality and keep new models coming on time.... and Ford doesn't have the advantage of having most all of it's debt wiped away.

There is absolutely no reason or excuse for GM to delay the Cruze.

It's based on the existing Cobalt, so it's not an all new, from the ground up vehicle.

Engineering is way past done.

It's already in production in Europe.

GM has enough money to get it out.

Sorry if this sounds like a rant, but we aren't talking an all new vehicle, or all new technology. Nor is this a case GM of conserving money for a higher priority vehicle. The Cruze IS a high priority vehicle. It's going to carry GM's CAFE torch. It's going to be many potential future GM buyer's first exposure to GM products.

Sure a few months isn't alot of time, but GM delaying such a straightforward and simple launch of a car in production elsewhere is unfathomable!

I agree with your point. But consider that any issues that needed to be hammered out would have been done on the first assembly line, not one nearly a year later.

Then there's the fact that the Cruze isn't all new. The Delta Cruze is far closer to the Delta Cobalt than the new Epsilon Lacrosse is to the Epsilon Malibu.

 

Rumor is, the car did not make the 40mpg that GM was counting on it to make.

Thus the delay.

As this was GM's ace card, for the Cruze, they feel the wait is worth it. The problem being, the new Focus will be out very close to the Cruze, and will make over 40mpg. Thus, if they wait too long, they will lose their marketing advantage.

Please excuse if I make grammatical or spelling errors, or if I am rambling a bit. I am sick.

 

40? They were claiming 44mpg last week