Despite the slumping U.S. auto market, General Motors is sticking to its guns and will continue to decrease sales to daily rental companies. The Detroit-based automaker drastically reduced its fleet sales last year, and will continue that trend through 2008 and into 2009.

GM is trying to distance its business plan from fleet sales as they aren’t as profitable as retail sales and drive down the resale value of its cars. In the past, GM has also found itself selling to fleets just to keep production lines open, which has proven to be a flawed plan.

According to Automotive News, GM plans to sell about 575,000 vehicles to rental companies this year — down from 700,000 in 2007. That number will fall again to about 500,000 to 550,000 in 2009, a range GM calls “equilibrium.”

GM has also already begun selling more optioned vehicles to rental companies and will continue to do so. Not only does it showcase GM’s cars for potential retail customers, but it also helps keep resale values up — the latter of which is very important to GM. In addition to the aforementioned changes, GM has reduced the number of retired rental vehicles it sends to auction per year from about 550,000 to 400,000, which also helps to keep resale values high.

    Print This Post