Anything to sell an SUV

[unixronin]

Heard any Chevy commercials lately?  "Nine out of ten cars Chevrolet sells today get an EPA highway rating of 30 miles per gallon or better."

Clever wording.  They're not talking about nine out of ten car models that they make, mind you.  They're talking about the ones that are actually selling.  Which is to say, the smaller, fuel-efficient ones.  Those big heavy gas-guzzling SUVs just aren't moving off the lot.

What's a poor automaker to do?  Why, subsidize SUV buyers' fuel costs, of course.  Buyers of "certain 2006 and 2007 SUVs and mid-size cars" in California and Florida, under a new plan, will have their gas costs capped by GM at $1.99 per gallon by the simple expedient of GM giving them a credit every month on a special GM credit card for the difference between what they actually spent on gas and the cost of that same gas at $1.99 a gallon.  The condition is that buyers must sign up for OnStar service.

Vehicles that qualify for the deal include the 2006 and 2007 Chevrolet Tahoe and Suburban, the GMC Yukon and Yukon XL and the Hummer H2 and H3.

Welcome to America, where now, the auto companies will PAY YOU to drive a gas-guzzler.

Comments

(oops, premature clickage)

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

Actually, I've read that GM has worked out that if they charged about $300/mo for OnStar, they could afford to GIVE AWAY THE VEHICLE!

Does that depend on how long you keep the vehicle? I can see that if you kept it long enough, yeah, they'd make more money off the OnStar service than the selling price of the car...

They're just playing a shell game here to fool those who might be turned off GM's most profitable vehicles by the price at the pumps.

And that's exactly my point. Gas prices are high, it's finally beginning to really sink into the consciousness of average Americans that there isn't an infinite supply of almost-free oil and that retaining access to what oil IS left is going to get, in many cases, very expensive, and people are buying smaller, more fuel-efficient cars in response .... and GM is basically bribing them to keep buying big, fuel-wasting vehicles that most of them honestly don't need.

Re: (oops, premature clickage)

[olafthunderfoot.livejournal.com]

http://www.suvcitythefilm.com/