Although not entirely surprising, Chevrolet global boss Alan Batey recently explained to Autocar that GM ultimately decided to yank Chevy from Europe due to competition with the company’s own Opel/Vauxhall division. Chevrolets often share their underpinnings with Opel/Vauxhall products, making it extremely difficult to differentiate the two brands, especially when they share the same showrooms.
“They cost the same to produce, so it wasn’t possible to present one as a budget version of the other, and the brands weren’t sufficiently opposed for one to be seen as more upmarket,” he said.
Batey also noted that Chevrolet’s budget wasn’t being best spent on the European market. Chevy sold just 200,000 in Europe last year, representing less than 1 percent of the overall market. In contrast, Opel/Vauxhall controls about 6 percent of the European market.
“You have to put the decision in the context of Chevrolet and GM as a whole,” said Batey. “It is a massive company with pressures on it to invest in many different areas. Chevrolet sells five million cars globally, and we see significant opportunities to grow the brand rapidly and significantly in Asia, for instance. So it came down to a question of deciding where to place the investment we had.”
GM is optimistic that the axing of Chevrolet will help Opel/Vauxhall with its European turnaround.
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