Each Chrysler or GM car sold cost taxpayers $7,600, but who’s counting?

Nobody knows how to do a cost/benefit analysis over at GM? Nice job.

Ever heard of creative bookkeeping? Those figures are not even worth the electrons it takes to display them here…

This is bad management at it’s finest and we want to give these same people more money???

gm management sucks big time

GM just wanted to make sure that the people who bought them weren’t the only ones losing money.

Correction: Report: Each Saab sale loses The US Taxpayers’ $5,100

GM at it’s best

That’s what happens when you overprice garbage! How in the world do you expect them to sell!

You almost forgot that SAAB also is going through a reorganization similar to Chapter 11. Everything GM touches, turns into brass.

I tried oh so hard to find a 9-2X when GM first started the 0% for 72 months deal. Talk about a great way to get a cheap WRX. Too bad they were all gone within the first week.

So let me get this straight. GM gets rid of the Pontiac and Saturn brands, because they weren’t profitable, but they decided to keep Saab despite the fact that they’re losing money on every Saab car sold….

….What the hell?

Owning a Saab before GM ownership made no sense, it makes even less now. Why would you want to pay BMW money for an underpowered, underperforming, ugly vehicle?

Stix,

They did get rid of Saab. As mentioned above, it’s been sold to Koenigsegg.

I’m starting to take any and everything LLN says about GM with a huge grain of salt. They should stick to news on new models and spy shots. Leave everything else, including car reviews, to real journalists.

I see now. That makes sense.

I wonder how much of those losses where really Opel’s that were shifted to get money out of Sweden. Saabs were in production for so long it they should have been paid forlong ago. On the other hand, if they had a new model once in a while, they might sell some cars. The 9-2x was nicely done just way to expensive (until that big sale and they were gone in a flash).

@Ashes to Ashes_Dust to Dust
Correction Report: Each Saab sale loses The US Taxpayers’ $7,600

The news is even worse for the fool who purchased the Saab, instead taking that perfectly good money and wisely buying a BMW.

Borat, all I know is that whenever I drive by a GM dealership my car starts to accelerate. (And it’s not a Toyota or a Lexus.)

If they lost $5000 on each model, I’m freakin’ a 6′10 basketball star. That;s BS – no they didn’t lose that per car, there is no way.

On GM – I find it hard to believe a company that sells millions of units a year at a hefty price (a car cannot cost much more than $10,000 to build – I’m sorry) lost so much money and stayed in business. If it is true, which I still don’t think we realize something, no auto manufacturer should be existing. You cannot sell that many cars and lose money. If they did, they must absolutely be the worst ran company in history. Some sort of wool is being put over our eyes, I just know it!

Jake – How’s the weather up there?

borat, that number is bull**** and you know it…

Jake, Shaq called… he wants you to help him with his free throws.

Remember one thing, a company can make a financial loss and still remain open. The decision is based on making economic profit, so if each saab at least covered the variable costs plus a section of the fixed costs, it’ worth staying open as a business at least in the short-medium term.

But we’re talking years here. The thing is, the fixed costs of operating a factory in Sweden are really high, there’s pensions and probably some unemployment taxes. Plus it might not have been “accepted” by Saab or Sweden to shut it down. In any case, I think part of why Saabs are so expensive is that they cost a lot ot make just because of salaries+benefits+social charges in Sweden.

In any case, when GM took over, all hell broke loose so I say good luck to Koenigsegg.

As a sidenote, I like my Saab

This is, after all, the company that continues to build the Corvette even though there are thousands of them sitting on dealer lots no one wants. I dont care what car it is if it doesn’t sell kill it.

Pure mismanagement on GM’s part. SAAB had 3 new models production ready and GM pulled the plug each time they were ready to roll out production. Development costs are huge so no wonder they got so little out of SAAB. GM fell in love with a badge and didn’t know what to do with it. SAAB had done ok sticking to it’s idosyncratic designs and was never going to be main stream, its always been a left field choice.

This is nothing compared to what the purchaser of a SAAB loses

I’m with the others who call BS on this. I hate it when financial figures are manipulated to make something seem true that isn’t. No doubt GM’s mismanagement of SAAB cost them a ton of money. But articles like this make it seem as if everytime someone went in a bought a SAAB, GM lost money, which is not the case. The money was lost on the front end and through a lack of sales…not the sales themselves. It’s not as if SAAB sales were suddenly to skyrocket that GM would have lost even more money, as the wording of this article suggests.

well no wonder they sold this company!

Thanks for some sanity DJ_Quaaludes on this issue.

I still can’t help but laugh at the failure that is the 9-7X. This is the car that big mouth Bob boasted would suck the doors off the BMW X5.

If its really that big of a money loser why did anyone buy it? Probably has something to do with creative accounting.

So GM loses $5,000 per SAAB sale. But each Saab sale diminishes all mankind — how do you put a price tag on that?

Aside from GM’s poor management, Saab’s time had come and gone a while ago in the US. Before Toyota, Honda & Nissan upscaled, there was Audi, Volvo, Saab & Peugeot (just barely). Audi has ascended, Peugeot dropped out, Volvo & Saab are left to compete w/ Toyota, Honda & Nissan. There’s just not room for them all. Saab lost it’s ‘anti 3-Series’ niche it had back in the late 80s. It’s time for Saab to be put to rest.

DJ
It does not matter upfront or not the lost comes out per unit. Say they invested 1B and were only able to sale 500M worth of automobile the lost is 500M/number of units sold. Glad they sold it… time to concentrate on fewer brands.

I guess the same could be said for Ford’s ownership of Volvo. Every Volvo sold costs Ford ??$$. Volvo keeps losing money and the $6.5 billion they paid in 1999 vs what the Chinese are going to pay them today for it. The interest on that money and the resources they have expensed to keep it afloat. Accountants rule the world, or at least they think they do.

I haven’t posted on here for a long time, but had to after reading this: “Sgt Pepper
This is, after all, the company that continues to build the Corvette even though there are thousands of them sitting on dealer lots no one wants. I dont care what car it is if it doesn’t sell kill it.”

lol, this has to be the stupidest thing I have ever read, that didn’t come from NMOFG or a few other idiots out there.

The Corvette is the best value of any sports car out there and GM should kill it? We have sold two ZR1’s alone at my dealership and have a 3rd one about to roll out. The market is soft right now, no doubt about it, as many of those who can afford them are hanging on to their wallets tighter because of the economy, but when it picks up over the next few months, the buyers will be back. And those who didn’t take advantage of the ridiculous incentives we have now on ‘Vettes will be paying premiums again at that time

I know GM hasn’t always been great and name me one 100 year old company that has not had its issues. The problem is that GM’s time for restructuring came during the worst economic time we have had in 80+ years. Alls I know is that we can’t keep Equinox’s or Camaro’s in stock, and Malibus and the GMT900’s are all selling strong again. GM will be fine and over the next 20 years you will probably see Toyota, VW and Honda go through similar cycles. Markets and businesses adjust over time. The other difference is that we have 24/7 access to news and forums like this to troll on and to spread misinformation

Stupid huh. Your only stupid if your uninformed which I guess by your post you must be. Follow the numbers from Jeeffhardy.com that the alot of people on the corvette site use to track find vehicles. The numbers are as follows 2010 1624 units on dealer lots
2009 1843 units STILL on dealer lots
2008 113 units still on dealer lots
Based on these numbers I would say Chevy would have to offer half off all Corvettes and still not get rid of them. Why? Because the average Corvette buyer is trying to keep their job and house and can no longer afford a Corvette. A fact that seems to escape everyone that is saying the economy is turning around.

Look it up before you call it misinformation.

Sgt, that’s funny… just today I was looking at Craigslist and found the last new ‘08 Viper in Canada (or so the ad says) for $88,888 Cdn. And I don’t know what the particular shade of blue it is but it’s absolutely gorgeous.

Why do I torture myself by even searching in the first place?

When I read these dumb comments I KNOW the end times are here.

Stg.Pepper

If there are 2000 Chevy dealers that is only 1.79 Corvettes per dealer. Doesn’t really sound that bad.

Web site http://www.jeffhardy .com/lookupvette.php 1843 leftover 2009 Corvettes doesnt sound like alot?? Hell thats more than the 2010’s on hand.Factory production was halted a couple of times during the year and the cars built per hour was lowered. I love the Corvette but this is a trend that I dont see turning around anytime soon. GM is the kind of car company who refuses to do the right thing until its too late. They will keep build thousands of these cars then deeply discount them. To what end? You buy a new Vette and the depreciation is horrible. The Vette is dead as a high volume car. When will GM kill it? Alot later than they should.

Lansen must be a GM executive. Whats the matter you didnt know the economy was bad. Litening to Wall street too much?

Sgt.Pepper, Good info. Do you think they break even, or make money selling Vettes? If not time to go. Though it is one of the few GM cars without much competition, we don’t need taxpayer funded sports cars.

Even though this generation Vette has been around since 05 and the tooling has paid for itself i still dont see how they make enough to justify continuing. You hit the nail on the head. This company was run badly and the tax payers had to bail them out and they still havent changed the way they do business. WHY WHY WHY would you continue to sell cars like the SAAB at a loss. IF down the road they need more money then the should be forced to liquidate.

Lefty, I did not made up the number ($7600 losses per car for GM). The number came from full professor at Rochester Polytechnic Institute (and it is a very respectable engineering school). As I was watching Forbes analyst on one of the biz channels he threw up number 12 large losses per car (albeit since government tale over). The same reported mentioned that insofar it cost US taxpayers 1.5 millions USD per employee. If we would let company go into Chapter 11, it would not cost us as much. Does it worth 1.5 millions for each job?

Sgt….alls I am saying is that your remark, “They should kill the vette’ is just crazy. Should they reduce production, as they already had, of course. But to kill a car because you have some ‘extra inventory’ would mean that many car makers would have to kill several models. Should Acura kill the TL because they have leftover ’09s on the lot? We only have two ‘09 Vettes in stock at my store, including one ZR1. The other one, a coupe, just arrived about 3 weeks ago. We also have one ‘10. So we are about where we normally are for this time of year with Vette inventory, from my 6 years of selling Chevy’s.

I know there be some frustrations from many taxpayers about the bailout, but just blindly saying that one of the best vehicles that GM makes should be ‘killed’ got a big lol from me. We will probably just have to agree to disagree

Make it a great day!

Sgt; Funny, the vette makes money, the new GS package is “the bargain” in sports cars.

I love the Vette especially the GS. All i’m really saying is that if this is the new normal for Vette sales I dont know how the Vette could live on. If this continues and GM doesnt react quicly enough it could be an ugly end for the car. Maybe put it on hiatus if it doesnt pick up and then bring it back as the C7 when the economy recovers. Believe me Bradley if i had the money I would be driving a Vette again instead of a Solstice.