There’s no surprise that the steady increase in fuel prices would lead to a decrease in big truck sales, however for a company like GM to continue along the path of reactionary restructuring, it’s surprising. Rarely do we read about massive layoffs and mid-year replanning at Honda or Toyota (and though they don’t manufacture 8mpg trucks, they do have considerable proactive manufacturing and marketing measures in place).
June 3 (Bloomberg) — General Motors Corp., struggling to return to profit amid record gasoline prices, said it will close four truck plants, make more small cars, and may drop its Hummer brand of large sport-utility vehicles.
Hummer, a vehicle that should never have seen the urban combat that it’s found daily duty in, may drop out of view to the general public and more into hard-core off-road use (still a popular niche) and quite possibly find stronger sales as border patrol vehicles.
[...] too will decrease truck production. 17 06 2008 As GM is dealing with the thought of off-loading Hummer, it seems as though the gas bug is infectious: Ford is temporarily (really?) closing the plants in [...]