April28
Toyota may be over stuffing its dealers with trucks and SUVs, but General Motors has announced that it will eliminate one shift at each of its four full-size pickup truck and SUV plants “to bring production in line with market demand.” The cuts will impact GM’s full-size pickup truck assembly plants in Pontiac, Michigan; Flint, Michigan; and Oshawa, Ontario; and its full-size SUV assembly plant in Janesville, Wisconsin.
The Flint (Heavy Duty Chevrolet Silverado and GMC Sierra), Janesville (Chevrolet Tahoe and Suburban, GMC Yukon, Yukon XL) and Pontiac (Chevrolet Silverado, GMC Sierra) plants will be losing one shift on July 14, while the Oshawa (Chevrolet Silverado and GMC Sierra) plant will eliminate one shift beginning on September 8.
The shift elimination will remove 88,000 full-size trucks and 50,000 full-size SUVs from GM’s 2008 production schedule.
GM blames the shift eliminations on rising fuel prices and a generally sagging market. Through the first quarter of 2008, full-size truck sales were down 15 percent while full-size SUV sales plummeted by 26 percent.
“With rising fuel prices, a softening economy, and a downward trend on current and future market demand for full-size trucks, a significant adjustment was needed to align our production with market realities,” said Troy Clarke, president GM North America. “This is a difficult move, but we remain committed to retaining and growing our leadership position in the full-size truck market.”
That really is the last thing Michigan needs to hear at the moment.
Too bad, I have to say the latest trio of Slade, Tahoe, and Yukon look great.
mayer - I don’t think it is the last thing they want to hear. Since the US car market is down, GM is making a smart move by eliminating shifts. This way, they are not over-producing vehicles that they will later have to massively discount (see Toyota Tundra for an example). If they continue making this and discounting them, it would cut into their profitability and be bad for GM and as a result Michigan as a whole. While it might be bad news for the workers that might lose their jobs (it’s ****s though, not jobs so people just work less, not lose their jobs entirely)
And yes, best looking SUVs without a doubt. Even the treehugger magazines praise them (although they call them the Gorgeous Monsters or something along those lines lol fags)
Oh my, what a loss — fewer bloated SUVs to destroy the environment.
GM was gonna get on this boat.
It wasn’t if, it was when.
They just had to wait the longest because this ticket costs them the most.
DrFill
bahh
Like Commodore said, good move for the company as a whole, bad for the employees. You just can’t keep ****ting them out and letting them sit on the lots. It only makes sense.
They may be bloated SUVs, but like Deanster says the ‘Slade, Tahoe and Yukon really are the best in their class. One particular thing I’ve noticed about them however is you could probably stuff two V8s in the nose of these things. Open the hood and if there was a carburetor underneath a round black air filter housing you’d swear you were looking at an engine bay from the 60’s.
If I was GM looking ahead to the next redesign, I’d be figuring out a way to better package the drive train components in an attempt to lose about 300lbs of sheet metal. By all means keep the interior/cargo capacity the same but do you really need enough space between the block and the bumper to hold a tea party?
Well that 138,000 trucks that woont catch on fire and be recalled. Thanks GM
johnnycanuck, you are 110% correct. You’ll be looking at 40 year old truck when you open the hood, ’cause it is 40 year old truck. It’s like B52 without computers. That is why GM was making zillions on each truck sold - R&D was done and payed for before you were conceived. The irony is that Toyota just sunk billions into R&D and 2 billions into plant in Texas to build something like that when gas of price will drive it off the planet like meteorite finished dinosaurs.
Developing cheaper lightweight materials is definitely the path these vehicles have to follow to improve efficiency.
autonut you are clueless.
the full size trucks area proven design, however, no major component is the same as it was 40 years ago. the engines have been revamed a multitude of times since then, the fuel induction systems have gone thru 4 generations (carbs to electronic carbs to throttle body injection to full efi), etc etc etc.
The auto industry is not the only source MI relies on. MI has the Lumber, Logging Industry, Copper and Iron Mining, Cereal industry(Kelloggs, Post), Furniture, Hunting(alone is a 3 billion dollar industry in MI),Information technolgy,biotechnology, life sciences, research and development, aerospace and military equipment, engineering. K-Mart, Meijer(the American Hypermarket), list goes on and on.
Michigan sucks, SUV’s are over-rated anyway.
Autonut, you’ve proven your ignorance once again. 40 year old design? You’re either joking or high. The full size SUVs were completely redesigned in 2007. New frames, suspensionn, body, interior - new everything. There aren’t even any minor components that are more than a few years old. Oh sure, they run versions of the Chevy small block, but even the block is all new within the last few years. They already were the best SUVs on the road, and the redesign keeps them leaps ahead of the nearest competitor (no Jason, it ain’t Toyota).
The move to eliminate shifts is noteworthy, though. As recently as last year it would have been impossible to eliminate shifts due to the UAW contract. This marks a new day in domestic competitiveness. Watch out Toyonda!
I have to agree with that, Go look at a Suburban from the 50’s or even any Chevrolet truck from the 70’s and 80’s, the new trucks and SUV’s are much better handling and a smoother ride. Now if just people that actually NEEDED these would buy them…
Interesting how GM cut all the UAW plants. There is a large plant in Mexico that produces these trucks too (my Suburban was built there), yet no mention of production cuts there. Another case of the UAW winning battles, but losing the war.
It’s about time SUV and truck production took a hit. Wake up and smell the exhaust fumes Detroit… the era of the V8 gas guzzling truck is coming to an end.
Florida sucks HRR, thats why Michigan kicked your ass on you’re own turf in you’re own backyard in the capital one bowl this year. Wolverines own the gators 2-0 both times in there back yard, 2003 and 2008, OWNED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Damn, I guess you showed me, since the football team you don’t even play on beat a football team I don’t even follow.
is someone’s Bi-Polar kicking in already?
Each truck out the factory is booked as profit.
This will hurt GM badly…they should have seen it coming.
Lutz on down…..blind dummys running a multi-billion dollar company.
BUT Toyota and the Tundra is going to get burned too.
the worlds best SUVs that can catch on fire and have reported injuries Sure JR
I love the internet wars btw
Yes… all of these claims of fires and injuries, yet there’s rarely, if never any actual incident listed in any of those earth-shattering articles that someone always likes to post.
Either way… even in these sagging economic times, it’s simply amazing that more people flock to GM/Ford dealers for their truck/SUV needs than Toyondan. What’s even more amazing is that some people have nothing more than some precautionary recalls from 5-7 years ago and yet still continue to mouth off how bad the GMT8/900s are… pathetic.
Just as pathetic as Toyota dumping all sorts of money into a market that’s shrinking quickly… guess all of their fancy computer models missed that trend!
I dont like Pontiacs sorry
^^ Who the hell said anything about Pontiacs, but more importantly - what the hell does Pontiac have to do with this discussion? Glad to see we’re following along as well as we always do….
Well Gee Wiz with GM announcing yet another 3.3 Billion Dollar Loss today that should mean they will probably NEED to shudder a few more worthless GM plants. Meanwhile Ford will be in high demand with their Ecoboost and much more powerful, best selling , and best of all more efficient Trucks and SUV’s. So sorry to hear about GM’s eventual downfall. I guess they just plain and simply SUCK!
^^ Says the man who can’t count very well… there are more GM 1/2 trucks sold than Ford F150…GM has just been kind enough to throw Ford a bone all of these years.
Then again, I’m trying to point something out to someone who thinks a Taurus SHO is faster than a Buick Grand National… so what’s the point?