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GM Will Lose 120,000 Truck Sales In 2018, Will "Re-Import" Many Trucks


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John Goreham

Contributing Writer, GM-Trucks.com

2-15-2018

General Motors has a very tricky task ahead of it. The company needs to transition from the old Silverado and Sierra generation to the new, while not suffering a dramatic loss in sales. Despite its best efforts, GM is expecting to lose 60,000 truck sales in Q1 and 120,000 in 2018 overall. This production switch will look to many like GM is losing market share due to the new design, and many media outlets will surely report it (incorrectly) as such.


GM's chief financial officer, Chuck Stevens, outlined the plan to Motley Fool, saying: “This is an all-new architecture. Our last three generations of truck were fundamentally of the same architecture with changes in sheet metal. So this is an absolutely all-new architecture, which requires all-new body shops. So when we take downtime at certain facilities, it's because we're either converting or constructing new body shops to facilitate this launch. And we've been opportunistic around doing that around holiday periods so that you can get extra time to make these transitions without a full impact on downtime.”


Despite its best planning, inventory build-up prior to the switchover, and work taking place on holiday weeks, GM still expects to have about one third less production of its Sierra and Silverado in the first quarter of its new truck generation. 


One other interesting fact is that GM’s proud pronouncements that the Ft. Wayne plant will build the new Silverado has a twist; The plant won’t be capable of doing the final finish work on many of the new generation trucks during the transition. That means that many of GM’s trucks will need to be shipped out of the U.S. in an almost complete state, then finished in Oshawa, Ontario Canada. Making even more Silverados imported trucks.  

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Interesting thoughts.  I consider my truck to be American (assembled in Mexico) and my wife's Toyota to be Japanese (assembled in Canada)!  I've never heard of an American vehicle in Canada referred to as an import.  However, cars like Honda and Toyota assembled in Canada are commonly referred to as imports!

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I had an 82 built in Canada, the truck I drive now now is also a Canadian built truck.  Id rather see jobs go to Canada over Mexico because I feel like the labor would be more protected and beneficial.  However, jobs staying in America is always a plus.  

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As long as it's assembled in the US or Canada, I'm happy. At least it won't be wearing sumbraros lol

My current truck is one of the last year's that they assembled them in Oshawa and I've very happy with mine... One of the major factors that has stopped me from buying a new one is because it's assembled in Mexico..   

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11 hours ago, Donstar said:

Interesting thoughts.  I consider my truck to be American (assembled in Mexico) and my wife's Toyota to be Japanese (assembled in Canada)!  I've never heard of an American vehicle in Canada referred to as an import.  However, cars like Honda and Toyota assembled in Canada are commonly referred to as imports!

Thats how I feel about it as well. 

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11 hours ago, KARNUT said:

If their not employing US workers and are being sold here they’re imports as far as I’m concerned. If they’re employing US workers then they’re domestic.
What if they are green card carrying non-Americans working at the American plants?  hmmmm? 

 

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A truck from either Canada or Mexico is imported if you just go by the definition of the word. What they're doing with final assembly in Ontario is a weird gray area. At least they're not building the trucks in Mexico for now. Not buying a vehicle from Mexico. 

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25 minutes ago, Colossus said:

why

 

Because if my money has to go to workers outside the US I'd rather it not go to a country that allows exploitation of it's workers. I'd rather it not go to a country that actively encourages illegal immigration to it's neighbor. I'd rather not encourage GM or any other automaker to dump American or Canadian jobs to move the plant to somewhere with looser regulations across the board. It's a sad time when the "foreign" Tundra has higher domestic part content that a GM or Ram because of how much of those trucks parts are made in Mexico just to save a penny.

 

I cold keep going but I think I've made my point. 

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