Filed under: SUVs, Plants/Manufacturing, Cadillac, Chevrolet, GM, GMC
Tahoe, Yukon and Escalade not being replaced
The full-size SUV's future is on shaky legs and now, reports have surfaced that General Motors has killed the next generation Tahoe and Yukon 'utes, just weeks after announcing it would shutter its SUV plant in Janesville, Wisconsin. Of course, if that pair is buried, the Suburban and the Cadillac Escalade that use the same platform must also come to an end, at least in their current form.
Past reports indicate that the ultra-lux ride from Caddy will move to the Lambda platform for its next generation. The Tahukon pair had been slated for a redesign in 2011, and since that's reportedly not going to happen, the duo's future is definitely in question. GM will probably keep churning out the current version until it's no longer profitable to do so.
These days, any story about the General would be incomplete without some mention of Chrysler, and this one's no different. America's number three automaker just announced just last week that it would be phasing out its full-sized 'utes as well. Therefore, any possible merger of the two companies would carry on without a new large SUV platform at all. How the times have changed.
[Source: The New York Times via Inside Line]
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 4)
phewop 6:34PM (10/27/2008)
Nooooo! This will be the death of gm
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Torrent 11:18PM (10/27/2008)
Or consumers could just NOT buy them unless they absolutely need an 8 passenger suv.....
GM has enough fuel efficient crossovers to keep them going.
Frylock350 8:17AM (10/28/2008)
@torrent,
As a Suburban owner there's no way in hell I'd ever drive an FWD mommywagon or buy anything with more than one cam and less than 8 cylinders. I don't care how much gas my Suburban uses (~20mpg on 87), there's simply no replacement.
Chad 10:15AM (10/28/2008)
Frylock350, eventually there literally won't be a replacement for the vehicle you specify.
happy_penguin 6:57PM (10/31/2008)
Suburban was a model long before it became high volume and it survived just fine back then.
AJB 6:36PM (10/27/2008)
These vehicles have a fairly long history, so it's too bad that they will be phased out . . . having said that, there was never a practical reason for these beasts to become mainstream apart from the image and alleged style that they provided. Only a small minority of Americans use them for towing or off-road duty, a minivan provides more interior space, and just about every other vehicle has superior gas mileage. Long live sporty wagons!!
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jcar302 6:43PM (10/27/2008)
I agree, out of all the people i know that own full size suv's, i can't name one that needs it, or uses it for what it was designed to do.
If the expedition and navigator aren't already gone, they will be next.
And i hope for my eyes sake the armada and sequia bite the bullet too, god are they ugly.
Gabagool 7:06PM (10/27/2008)
"having said that, there was never a practical reason for these beasts to become mainstream apart from the image and alleged style that they provided. Only a small minority of Americans use them for towing or off-road duty, a minivan provides more interior space, and just about every other vehicle has superior gas mileage. Long live sporty wagons!!"---------------Great point, but i still think that this is a typical over reaction by GM.
Also, if GM kills these what will they fall back on? They do not make any cars that are even close to Toyota or Honda, CamCord and Corolla/Civic are generations ahead of what GM offers.
Jj 7:52PM (10/27/2008)
@gabagool: The Mailbu is right there with the "CamCord". The Cruze appears to pretty much have the Civic and Corolla beat.
That said I'm not so sure that completly abandoning the full size SUV is the right way to go. Scale back production, maybe scale the line down to just the Tahoe or Yukon, but I think there will always be a market. The Suburban has seen bad economies and high gas prices before.
jv2k 12:58AM (10/28/2008)
How exactly is the corrolla ahead of anything? It's ugly underpowered, has worse gas milage, and has a plasticy interior.
216 6:36PM (10/27/2008)
Noooo the Tahoe was my favorite Truck/SUV vehicle ever...next to the Avalanche (which is the same thing just a truck model)
damn
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DJ 6:38PM (10/27/2008)
This is appears to be incredibly short sighted at best. GM has shown with not a lot of effort that it can build a hybrid full size SUV without sacricing space or towing capacity and still get 20MPG in town. Imagine what they could do with more research.
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Gabagool 6:40PM (10/27/2008)
I Bet Toyota will keep its huge SUVs, they will simply make them a tad more efficient.
I said this before, GMs biggest problem is Rick Wagoner, he is a monkey. And a welfare collection one at that.
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Hike15 8:29PM (10/27/2008)
toyota will be the last company with a full size suv and they willl call it best fuel economy in class
Tool 6:43PM (10/27/2008)
This was a very sobering (and well written) article about GM.
800,000 SUVs and Trucks have been taken out of production. With an avg profit of $10,000 per copy, you can see why GM is bleeding money right now. Because that's $8 Billion in profit.
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Papi L-Gee 6:59PM (10/27/2008)
I agree with you almost completely.
"Almost" because they don't make any profit if they don't sell.
sol 6:43PM (10/27/2008)
I remember being in a library parking lot, waiting for a woman in a Suburban to turn around. She pulled back, hit the brakes and the 'burban would wobble like jelly. Then she'd pull forward, hit the brakes and more wobbling. She did this for 5 minutes, getting more and more flustered. It was at that moment that I realized the ridiculousness of a large truck-based SUV in a city environment.
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khlhll 6:53PM (10/27/2008)
File this under, "no sh#t."
Americans are fat, lazy, and stupid. Its about time they stop driving vehicles that are the same way and wake up.
Its funny in others countries families do just fine without huge rolling living rooms to tote their spawn around in.
On the same note:
We have all this excess, the best of everything, etc. and yet we're about to elect an idiot like Obama to the highest office? Proof that just because you may be well off, you don't necessarily have intelligence.
Congrats America! You all a bunch of fools. Prepare to bend over and take it in the a@s! And you thought Bush was bad. HA!
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ocnblu 7:09PM (10/27/2008)
The Suburban is indispensable. I can see the Lambdas replacing the Trailblazer/Envoy AND the Tahoe/Yukon, but not the Suburban. I predict the Suburban will stay.
Gabagool 7:11PM (10/27/2008)
I am a republican myself, but you can't really claim that Obama is any more of an idiot than Bush is.
He may be a unionist, a Marxist, but he is not an Idiot.
Also, come on now, you know this very well that Bush is the definition of the word Idiot.