{"id":282,"date":"2024-05-26T21:11:49","date_gmt":"2024-05-26T21:11:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.sterlingcooper.info\/blog\/?p=282"},"modified":"2024-05-26T21:11:49","modified_gmt":"2024-05-26T21:11:49","slug":"gm-ceo-dimwit-mary-barra-makes-another-stupid-move-killing-off-the-iconic-malibu","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sterlingcooper.info\/blog\/gm-ceo-dimwit-mary-barra-makes-another-stupid-move-killing-off-the-iconic-malibu\/","title":{"rendered":"GM CEO DIMWIT MARY BARRA MAKES ANOTHER STUPID MOVE-KILLING OFF THE ICONIC MALIBU"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Detroit killed the sedan. We may all live to regret it<\/h1>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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GM ending production of the Chevy Malibu is the latest sign that the Big Three are done with sedans.\u00a0 That dummy of a CEO, Mary Barra, overpaid and a financial moron, put another brand in the toilet.But consumers may not flock to expensive SUVs in response.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\"Detroit<\/p>\n

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[Photos: Chevrolet, Getty Images]<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/header>\n

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Last week, General Motors announced that it would end production of the Chevrolet Malibu,<\/a> which the company first introduced in 1964. Although not exactly a head turner (the Malibu was \u201cso uncool, it was cool,\u201d declared the New York Times<\/em><\/a>), the sedan has become an American fixture, even an icon, appearing in classic films like Say Anything<\/em><\/a> and Pulp Fiction<\/em><\/a>. Over the past 60 years, GM produced some 10 million of them<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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With a price starting at a (relatively) affordable $25,100, Malibu sales exceeded 130,000 vehicles<\/a> last year, a 13% annual increase and enough to rank as the #3 Chevy model, behind only the Silverado and the Equinox. Still, that wasn\u2019t enough to keep the car off GM\u2019s chopping block. The company says that the last Malibu will roll out of its Kansas City, KS, factory this November<\/a>; the plant will then be retooled to produce the new Chevy Bolt, an electric crossover SUV.<\/p>\n

With the Malibu\u2019s demise, GM will no longer sell any affordable sedans<\/a> in the U.S. In that regard, it will have plenty of company. Ford stopped producing sedans<\/a> for the U.S. market in 2018. And it was Sergio Marchionne, the former head of Stellantis, who triggered the headlong retreat in 2016 when he declared that Dodge and Chrysler would stop making sedans<\/a>. (Tesla, meanwhile, offers two sedans<\/a>: the Model 3 and Model S.)<\/p>\n

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2024 Malibu. [Photo: Chevrolet]<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

As recently as 2009<\/a>, U.S. passenger cars (including sedans and a plunging number of station wagons) outsold light trucks (SUVs, pickups, and minivans), but today they\u2019re less then 20% of new car purchases<\/a>. The death of the Malibu is confirmation, if anyone still needs it, that the Big Three are done building sedans. That decision is bad news for road users, the environment, and budget-conscious consumers\u2014and it may ultimately come around to bite Detroit.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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When asked, automakers are quick to blame the sedan\u2019s decline on shifting consumer preferences. Americans simply want bigger cars, the story goes, and there\u2019s some truth to it. Compared to sedans, many SUV and pickup models provide extra cargo space and give the driver more visibility on the highway. In a crash, those inside a heavier car have a better chance of escaping without injury\u2014although the same can\u2019t be said for pedestrians or those in other vehicles<\/a>. (That discrepancy inspired a headline in The Onion<\/em>: \u201cConscientious SUV Shopper Just Wants Something That Will Kill Family In Other Car In Case Of Accident<\/a>.\u201d)<\/p>\n

This narrative of the market\u2019s dispassionate invisible hand tossing the sedan aside holds intuitive appeal, but it leaves gaping holes. For one thing, federal policy has, in many ways, distorted the car market to favor larger vehicles<\/a>. Fuel economy regulations<\/a>, for instance, are more lenient for SUVs and pickups than they are for smaller cars, nudging automakers to produce more of the former and fewer of the latter. Another egregious example: Small business owners such as real estate agents can save thousands of dollars by writing off the cost of their vehicle<\/a>\u2014but only if it weighs more than 6,000 pounds, a stipulation that effectively excludes sedans entirely.<\/p>\n

Carmakers, for their part, powerfully influence consumer demand through billions of dollars spent on advertising. Because SUVs and pickups are more expensive and profitable<\/a> than sedans, manufacturers have a clear incentive to tilt buying decisions away from small cars and toward larger ones (which helps explain ad campaigns designed to confer an undeserved green halo<\/a> on SUVs).<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Even those who don\u2019t want a big car may feel pressure to upsize<\/a>, if only to avoid being at a disadvantage in a crash or when trying to see what lies ahead on the road. Such people find themselves trapped in a prisoner\u2019s dilemma<\/a>, preferring that everyone had smaller cars, but resigning themselves to buying an SUV or pickup since others already have them.<\/p>\n

For all these reasons, modest-size sedans like the Malibu are disappearing from American streets, supplanted by SUVs and pickups that seem to grow bulkier with every model refresh. (The Chevy Bolts produced at GM\u2019s Kansas plant will be bigger than<\/a> the previous Bolt model, which was retired last year.) This pattern of ongoing vehicle expansion, a trend I call car bloat<\/a>, is especially advanced in North America, but it\u2019s visible worldwide. In 2022, SUVs alone comprised 46%<\/a> of global car sales, up from 20%<\/a> a decade earlier.<\/p>\n

From a societal perspective, the decline of the sedan is a disaster. Consider road safety, an area where the U.S. underperforms compared to the rest of the rich world<\/a>, especially for pedestrians and cyclists (deaths for both recently hit 40-year highs<\/a>). Larger cars have bigger blind spots<\/a>, convey more force in a collision, and tend to strike a person\u2019s torso rather than their legs<\/a>. They\u2019re also heavier, with propulsion systems that guzzle more gasoline (or electrons) to move, producing more pollution in the process. Their weight also catalyzes the erosion of tires and roads, spewing microscopic particles that can damage human health<\/a> as well as aquatic ecosystems<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Despite the myriad problems of car bloat, the federal government has taken no steps to restrain it. In the absence of regulations or taxes, carmakers have ample reason to abandon their sedan models in favor of SUVs and trucks. The higher margins of larger cars is especially precious now, as the Big Three scrabble for money to invest in electrification and autonomous technology, as well as to pay for the rising costs of wages and benefits that they agreed to last fall<\/a> during negotiations with the United Auto Workers.<\/p>\n

Realistically, it would be a Herculean task to pivot back toward selling small cars, even if American automakers wanted to. Although adept at selling high-priced, feature-laden SUVs and trucks, they\u2019re far less experienced at the low-margin, high volume business of producing cheaper small cars. That is one reason (though hardly the only one) that China\u2019s booming market for EVs,<\/a> including many modest-size and affordable models, is sowing fear throughout Detroit<\/a>\u2014and in Washington, too.<\/p>\n

Where does the shift from sedans toward SUVs and trucks leave everyday Americans? With a strained wallet, for one thing. With its MSRP starting at $25,100<\/a> the Malibu has been one of the most affordable U.S.-produced cars, costing barely half as much as the average new vehicle, which exceeded $47,000 in February<\/a> (the Malibu is also at least a few thousand dollars cheaper than the Bolt that will replace it at the Kansas factory).<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Especially when factoring in higher interest rates and spiking insurance premiums<\/a>, cars are becoming a financial strain for many Americans. According to the federal Bureau of Transportation Statistics, the average annual, inflation-adjusted cost of owning a vehicle and driving it 15,000 miles hit $12,182 in 2023, an increase of over 30% in just six years<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Over time, the elimination of sedans leaves the Big Three vulnerable if consumer preferences shift away from enormity. \u201cLegacy car companies haven\u2019t done a great job of thinking long term,\u201d said Alex Roy, a co-host of the Autonocast podcast. \u201cGutting lineups is probably good for manufacturing efficiency, but not having one vehicle in a given product segment is short-sighted.\u201d<\/p>\n

Due to sprawled development patterns and woefully underfunded transit, many American families will still want a car even as they become more expensive. But,a surge in vehicle prices could compel some households to swap a second or third car for a minicar or e-cargo bike that offers limited range, but costs only a fraction as much. Already, golf carts are popping up in places far removed from the retirement and beach communities where they have been a mainstay: In New Orleans<\/a>, they\u2019ve become so popular that the city is adopting new ordinances.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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With the Malibu\u2019s death, is clearer than ever that Detroit has abandoned the affordable sedan. They may yet live to regret it.<\/p>\n

An earlier version of this story stated that GM will no longer offer any sedans after retiring the Malibu. While the company will not sell any entry-level sedans, its Cadillac division will continue to offer\u00a0two luxury models<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Detroit killed the sedan. We may all live to regret it GM ending production of the Chevy Malibu is the latest sign that the Big Three are done with sedans.\u00a0 That dummy of a CEO, Mary Barra, overpaid and a financial moron, put another brand in the toilet.But consumers may not flock to expensive SUVs […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-282","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sterlingcooper.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/282","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sterlingcooper.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sterlingcooper.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sterlingcooper.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sterlingcooper.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=282"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.sterlingcooper.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/282\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":284,"href":"https:\/\/www.sterlingcooper.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/282\/revisions\/284"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sterlingcooper.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=282"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sterlingcooper.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=282"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sterlingcooper.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=282"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}