How many billions has GM spent on Saturn? Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but I've heard $10 BILLION since it's inception.

Did you know that the entire Saturn line-up, with more dealers, barely sells more than the original S-series did with only a handful of dealers, in the early '90's? Pitiful. In the beginning, Saturn had some energy, actually had the spark of a certain something. Something good which GM could have built off of. Imagine if the S-series had continuous improvements (as it should have), it would be selling 300,000 annual units today.

But, the blew it, now it's just another GM brand with no identity, selling rebadges.

I'd rather see it folded into the BPG channel. Maybe even have Pontiac take it's place.

 

Saturn wasn't failure... GM's ability to market their connection to Saturn was.

Up until last year when I explained things to her, my wife thought Saturn was a Japanese import. She had no idea it was a GM product. This discussion came up when I was talking about buying an Aura. She would have no part of buying an import and would only consider a GM product ... Chevy, Cadillac or perhaps Buick (Her dad was a Buick guy). After I set her straight, she said, "well Saturn is a stupid name".

I say GM should wrap Saturn into Chevrolet and absorb it, much like they did with Geo.

 

Oh yeah, I agree. GM blew that part completely.

 

It is very sad, Saturn got off to a good start in the small car and fuel efficient market, they even sold the EV1's. How great would it have been if GM made that the 40mpg, hybrid and electric vehicle brand. Now they just have products that are already sold at other GM stores. How is Saturn now any different than Oldsmobile was 10 years ago?

Sky = Solstice
Aura = Malibu
Outlook = Acadia
Vue = shorter Equinox (this is their most unique product and best seller)

1999 Saturn SL 1.9L + M5 = 29 city 40 hwy mpg

I'm not sure if it is too late for Saturn, but I'd love to see them only do EV and hybrids. They have a small enough dealer network that they could deal with only 200,000 sales a year.

 

I don't think you can have Pontiac take its place. Saturn reaches other buyers that don't traditionally buy GM vehicles. This helps reach crowds that Pontiac can't reach today.

Saturn's original approach has failed, no doubt about it. It had separate design teams, marketing teams, and factories. Now, it is has been absorbed into GM, selling rebadges yes, but that is what every GM brand does. Today though, it is sharing design teams, marketing teams and factories.

Saturn's customers are very loyal. Saturn also provide more of a foreign design that some people like. I think that Saturn is in a good position to help capture market share, and hopefully be profitable.


I think the GM needs to look and find out why they are not profitable. Saturn alone didn't cost them 15 billion last quarter.

Saturn has been around for close to 20 years now. While not knowing how much investment has been put into it, 10 billion over 20 years seems small to the huge losses that GM has incurred over that time.

 

That was the plan for Saturn ... not make its connection to GM apparent. Since so many folks are the opposite of your wife, i.e. would never buy a domestic, they downplayed the GM connection so that all these import-intenders would give them a shot. That's why there were no GM badges on the original cars, and no mention of GM in their advertising in the beginning. Saturn was even set up as an independent corporation initially, with its own engineering, marketing, manufacturing, etc. It was not just another division.

Of course, all that went away after GM let it languish for so many years and it was unable to support itself as an independent company.

 

Do the same matching with Pontiac...

Torrent = Equinox
G3 = Aveo
G6 = Malibu
Solstice = Sky
Grand Prix = Impala
Vibe = Matrix (a toyota rebadge)

They have only one car that isn't available else where in the states, the G8.

Saturn only has the Astra. Everything GM does is rebadges, you can't really use this logic regarding these cars.

Buick
Enclave = Acadia Outlook Traverse (and Possibly a Caddy Later)
Lacrosse = Impala and Grand Prix
Lucerne = used to be the Bonneville.

 

 

I think that's a fair question.

Actually, you could argue that the Equinox is a longer Vue

And at least they have the BAS hybrid and soon the 2-Mode Vue to differentiate a little bit from the 'Nox

And you're forgetting the Astra. It's not unique? Not a great seller, but not shared with anyone else...

That's 25 City and 36 HWY using the current figures.

Saturn SL: 25/36/29 combined

Saturn Astra: 24/32/27 combined

So the Astra is behind in highway mileage, but not too far off on city and combined mileage.

I really don't think that's a bad idea. It would at least make them unique in some way again.

 

I think GM sometimes has a big problem seeing the big picture and nurturing a brand to slowly evolve into something good. Saturn is a case and point.

 

A few years ago I was up in front calling for Saturn's demise. I felt that it didn't offer anything that Chevrolet didn't and that there wasn't anything in it's lineup that couldn't be sold under the Bowtie division. This was before the entire division was revamped.

Today, I haven't completely changed my view on Saturn, but at least it isn't costing GM much in product development.

The Sky was created for pennies off of the Solstice. Astra is a Opel... GM didn't even spring for a new grill. Astra is actually a good car and is selling pretty well. However, I see everything in Saturn's showroom as what Buick used to be instead of potential Chevrolet products.

I just started a thread that was basically a rant against GM's extremely flawed decision making and inability to adapt to changes in the market or actually sell vehicles here that they unveil at car shows here.

Pontiac is closer to Chevrolet than Buick. Take the G8, the Solstice, and the Vibe. Dump the G5 & G3 which are sold by Chevrolet as Cobalt & Aveo. Drop the rest of the line that's redundant with Chevrolet. New Pontiac Chevrolet division. Chevrolet even gets an El Camino-type vehicle in their showrooms again

Meanwhile, Combine Saturn & Buick in the same showroom as a mid-market division. Both have high marks in quality and service as well as customer experience. Keep GMC in that division, and create a single SUV (instead of the 3 these divisions have now). The rest of the lineup complements each other and each will create vehicle traffic for the other... better than they are doing now alone.

Create Chevrolet-Pontiac, Saturn-Buick, and Cadillac-Hummer divisions, treat them as 3 divisions. Makes far more marketing sense, actually complements each division, and will draw more like customers.

 

Actually, Astra sales are pretty sucky. They've only moved 9000 units this year through September.

 

I believe they aren't trying to sell too many more since the dollar fell and these are built in Europe.

 

Yeah, I think Lutz commented that GM loses money on each one.

 

I don't believe they are too anxious to sell them right now, but even before the dollar fell, they were falling way short of GMs 20,000 unit projections. People used to going to Saturn for a small $14,000 car weren't quite ready for a $20,000 car and people who might be interested aren't that aware of it.