Doesn't mean much without GM saying how many were available. Did they get 100, or 100,000 pre-orders?
The media will tell you that Americans only like to buy large cars, but try to buy a small car and you will find they don't have any in stock -- but look, here are 50 trucks for 40% off lined up in a row.
It used to be just American car manufacturers that did that, but it happened to me when I went to a Honda dealership looking for a Fit, which they didn't have new because the factory washed out, but here we have 20 CR-Vs from the same factory on sale, why not take one of them?
Lots of Americans don't like to buy things without thinking they're getting a sweet deal.
Most small cars your average American will consider are fairly low-margin items unless you go uptrim. Often the only times incentives are possible are because of severely slumped sales of a model, usually the only time you'll see those kinds of numbers off on a car is if it's an older MY or otherwise definitely on it's way out of the lineup.
SUVs and Trucks have historically been priced higher, with larger margins. The Automakers can give nice looking discounts to prospective buyers while still making more money.
> It used to be just American car manufacturers that did that, but it happened to me when I went to a Honda dealership looking for a Fit, which they didn't have new because the factory washed out, but here we have 20 CR-Vs from the same factory on sale, why not take one of them?
The Fit was assembled in Mexico; my gut says the new trade agreement made it unprofitable to continue selling under that setup (possibly foreign parts content?)
The other thing to note; It's a lot easier to fit a battery pack in an SUV than a car, doubly so when we consider these manufacturers are likely looking to retrofit existing unibody designs to electric if they can.
>> Production of the current-generation Fit in Mexico will end, and Honda will ramp up production of the related HR-V crossover as a result.
(https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a33337398/honda-fit-discon...)
Same reason it's nearly impossible to find a rear-wheel drive car in areas where it snows regularly. You can go further south and find plenty of RWD cars, but few northern dealerships will stock cars that can't be driven half of the year.
CRVs sell in large numbers so dealerships stock them. Fits don't sell in large numbers so dealers don't stock as many. It's not a conspiracy.
Still, it's so expensive GM will make money on it. They probably won't have any problem making however many people are willing to order. It's a niche item, though.
Ford has an electric F-150 truck coming out.[1] Ford's goal is to make a cost-effective work truck, not a "lifestyle vehicle". If they succeed at that, the impact on the industry will be huge.
[1] https://www.autoblog.com/2020/09/17/electric-ford-f-150-deta...
Misguided people will tell us that it's all about 4WD, but you see the same phenomenon in 2WD trucks and besides it didn't used to take so much clearance to add another differential under the engine and engines are smaller now anyway. The real reason is to sell pickups to people who don't need pickups. If they worked for a living they'd get annoyed just like we are. They should have been sold lift kits instead.
The following article credits Electrek.co with the info, but no mention of it on their website.
https://www.motor1.com/news/450123/hummer-ev-edition-1-sold-...
I wonder if there will be vocal GM short-sellers now too.
This is a legacy company trying to implement the Tesla marketing strategy, and, as often happens, it feels a bit contrived.
Interesting that people question everything when it's GM and question nothing when it's Tesla though. Remember 450,000 Model 3 reservations? Have they even sold that many yet?
Marketing is telling half the story, the best half.
(except for the superbowl ad, which was inventing a story to tell)
It's too bad they didn't capitalize on a few more differentiating points.
"Full sized dashboard in front of you"
"We will sell you parts and a service manual."
"You don't have to hook your car to the internet if you don't want."
Why is that "concerning"? It probably hasn't been officially tested yet.
Anyway, what does it matter when you can make adjustments to your EPA number have the car actually under-perform range in the real world by 25% or more:
https://www.caranddriver.com/features/a33824052/adjustment-f...