Autoblog

Despite lowering expectations for its Euro-only BLS sedan all the way down to around 7,000 to 10,000 units annually, it appears Cadillac was still a bit too optimistic with the car's chances for success in the old country. The FWD sedan that's based on the Saab 9-3 and built alongside the Swede in the company's Trollhatan factory has sold a little over 400 units after being on sale since April, with the month of May being its first full sales month. Trollhatan has slowed its production of the car down to 30 units a week. When the BLS launched the factory was producing that many cars per day. At this pace GM/Saab is on track to produce only 1,560 cars a year, a number well off any of GM's original targets. Despite the slow start, the BLS is still the best selling Cadillac in Europe so far this year. The BLS has also been fairly well received by the European automotive press and dealers are reporting many requests for test drives, so don't count out Cadillac's chances for success in Europe just yet.

Thanks to Ulf for the tip and translating the original source from Swedish.

[Source: Ekonomi & Politik]

On Monday GM sales analyst Paul Ballew announced that the General’s market share would slip a percentage point in the first quarter to 24 percent compared to a year earlier. Mark LaNeve, the company’s VP of North American sales (a.k.a. Captain Obvious), also called the sales outlook for 2006 “very challenging”.

But GM has had some recent successes it plans to capitalize on in the coming year, including strong demand for the company’s redesigned lineup of GMT900 full-size SUVs. The Tahoe is on track to sell 120,000 units this year, which is ahead of last year’s sales rate that predicted only 100,000 Tahoes to be sold by year’s end.

The company has also put down the incentive stick with which it beat consumers over the head with last year in favor of a new pricing strategy that has resulted in lower and less complicated base prices. The new strategy should lead to higher transaction prices for each sale compared with the incentive laden sales of yesteryear.

[Source: Automotive News]