Lets not forget fleet sales bring the overall value of the car down over time. Resale value is one of the major aspects that consumers liek about buying a Camry or Accord.

GM needs to get fleet sales down more I think. This last gen Impala while not a bad car, was not enough to bring buyers over from other manufacturers.

 

There is still one thing I like more about the Accord over the malibu or impala. You can get a manual transmission.

 

I have worried about this since we got wind that the Impala might move to rwd and likely become somewhat lower volume (like maybe Charger and/or 300). On the other hand, if they kept the pricing at or very near the current Impala, would the sales really drop by HALF simply due to rear drive? If a current car sells well, and the next generation gets the inevitable improvements is safety, NVH, ride/handling, power, perhaps fuel economy, refinement, and styling while keeping the same name but switching to rear drive, would buyers suddenly flock away? Or could the Impala become a 250k+ selling rear drive family sedan?...

If it does move "upmarket" and mirror the relationship between the Maxima and Altima, for example, I share some of the concerns highlighted by Flint...

 

This is a sign that is (long past) time for Detroit to start making American cars again.

 

That is what I was thinking. Maybe upscale is offering options that the Tahoe has and an SRT-8 like package while keeping the base car with the current options and a 3.5L HV V8

 

I think the Impala's sales numbers are going to surprize alot of people the way the 300 did. There seems to be a tendancy to lowball public acceptence of RWD. Most retail Crown Vics and Town Cars are sold in the winter wonderland of the Northeast. The 300 and Charger has sold in far disporportionate numbers (approaching 180,000 per year for a time) for the number of Chrysler & Dodge dealers there are (at lest a third less than Chevrolet or Ford).

Although I fully expect the new Malibu to sell every bit as well as the current Impala, I think the new Impala is more than capable of running a steady 150-180K per year. Between the number of Chevy dealers there are & Chevrolets tendancy to do almost anything to keep volume high, any thought of the new Impala selling less than 100,000 per year is probally pessimisim at it's worse.

GM derives half it's sales from Chevrolet alone, and Pontiac is tiny by comparison. Impala's focus on being "America's car" as opposed to a performance car that attracts a far smaller market should easily give it 3 times the volume and likely alot more IMHO.

Gotta admit, 30% going to fleet is pretty impressive compared to the competition. Save the Five hundred, seems everything else is running 50% or better going to fleets.

FWIW: fleet sales in itself isn't that bad. A state agency buying a fleet of cars pays more than rentals, so they aren't quite giving the cars away.

 

Zeta would definitely mean more 'upscale' as the platform costs way more than existing FWD architectures... I'm assuming!

 

There's fleet and there's fleet. Chrysler, like everyone else, is trying to get out of the rent-a-car business, which isn't very profitable and floods the secondary market with mid-mileage used cars. On the other hand, the Charger is being heavily marketed to agencies and police departments, which are more profitable sales and don't generate the lower-mileage used cars that can cut into new-product sales.

 

Probably not because GM is not planning on over tooling the vehicle to build at all cost and than have to incentivise or fleet the excess production. Production will be significant limited compared to the current total sales for the Impala. Current retail picture is matching NG total production. That is a good thing because if the vehicle is good and has solid demand GM could maintian close to MSRP on the vehicle.

I said well over 30% -And No - Not really since DCX has been Fleeting the LX since SOP. Sales have been inflated for a while aready, hiding that super success story everyone loves to talk about. And let us not forget the incentives that have been on the vehicle. That is not true demand but pushing product on the public.


Yes - But the way the Big 3 have historically used fleet sales over the past 25 years has been. Did you ever wonder why each of the Big 3 at one time each owned IIRC a rental car company.

It was like the Mob laundering money.

 

No there is fleeting vehicles because there is a demand in commercial fleets (good) and than there is fleeting because there is a limited or reduced demand in the retail fleets (bad).

This fleet business as I said above is typical Big 3.

Reducing fleet to hold up residual value is not a true statement. There is no demand for a fleeted vehicle in the first place (reducing residual value) and yet the OEM continues to fleet heavily (reducing residuals further).

The LX cars are fleet queens and heavily incentives because DCX does not have a true retail demand for what they produce.

 

Are you trying to say with the "Fleet Queen" statement that the Chrysler LX cars are either selling more to fleet than other US cars in it's class or is selling a greater percentage to fleets than other US cars in it's class???

 

I am not trying to say, I am saying that the LX vehicles are "Fleet Queens" and their success in the market has been inflated by "Fleet Sales" which are buried in the monthly OEM press announcement.

Very much like Jerry Flint's article is over inflating the significance of the Impala in the opening post's article.

I do not see your point of comparing who Fleets excessively more than another domestic OEM. We are not talking 5, 10, 15 percent in some vehicle lines like Toyota for mainstream product. The domestics are fleeting 30, 40, 50 and 70 percent.

And lets us factor in the fact that in 2004, I was floored to learn that almost 70% of GM's retail business was at GMS pricing.

So on a high level, out of market of 17 million vehicles, of which at the time, GM sold 5 million, (minus 30% fleet) only 1 million of those sales were to real people. And let us not forget about zero percent and other attractive incentives used to entice those 1 million real reatail sales.

Even at a high level, I would say there is a problem when Nissan, Honda, Toyota, as individuals sell more vehicles to the average Joe on the street than GM.

What does that say about what the greater market thinks and why vehicles are fleeted and why yet again the domestics are trying to get themselves off Fleet.

 

Well, Detroit has more-or-less gotten into a revolving door on this is fleet situation -- every few years they "right-size" production by closing plants, but their sales continue to fall to the point where they are over-capacity again with in a couple years.

Solution? Turn up the fleet sales and incentives until the next round of plant closings. Hope that you hit bottom eventually. When will that happen? Good question -- because if they could guess the consumer demand 5 years out correctly, they will make a ton of profits.

 

Wouldn't that be far truer of the Impala (let alone Lecrosse and Grand Prix) since not only does it sell a higher percentage to fleets, but in combination with it's volume, far outstrips the numbers the LX sell to fleets?

In all fairness, the 800 pound gorilla we aren't considering is that many government agencies & colleges have a "Buy American first" policy. Save Hybrids, that's even true here in California. Not an "end-all" reason, but a decent contributing factor.

Nothing wrong with selling to fleets. But buying rental agencies and creating a high turnover in vehicles in order to buff up production numbers I am in 100% agreement with you. My point of disagreement was in singling out the Chrysler LXs as "Fleet Queens", despite the fact that they are neither going to fleet in the highest numbers or in the highest percentages.

 

I have a feeling that if they get a new UAW contract that doesn't require them to pay autoworkers full wages whether or not they're working, that you'll see less pressure to keep plants open making unprofitable cars.

Right now, you're better off losing some money running a plant than losing more money by not running it.