The pain for GM was mitigated because its large SUVs--the Chevrolet Tahoe, GMC Yukon and Cadillac Escalade--are all new.
And there is a chance car makers would not be able to sell in the U.S. their least-efficient models, typically large sedans or SUVs with eight-cylinder engines.
These less-than-disastrous sales of large SUVs are helping GM avoid corporate disaster.
Let's say you work in the U.S. auto industry, which for years has banked on large, fuel-hungry SUVs and light trucks.
Lindland estimates that the industry will sell 482, 000 large (non-luxury) SUVs this year, down from a high in 2001 of 786, 000, and that sales will level off there for the next few years.
More worrisome, perhaps, says Michael Robinet, vice president of vehicle forecasting for csm Worldwide, is that Opel has expertise GM needs as the industry shifts away from large trucks and suvs toward more fuel-efficient passenger cars.
Its current two-mode hybrid system is limited to large trucks and SUVs, like the Chevy Tahoe and Cadillac Escalade.
In this country, expect executive types to buy them--and athletes who up until now have only found SUVs large enough.
The category is heating up, though, thanks to the entry of VIA Motors, which is focusing on plug-in hybrid conversions of large GM vans, trucks and SUVs.
At the tail end of the global economic boom, when concerns about the environment were widely voiced, large "gas-guzzling" sports utility vehicles (SUVs) became objects of loathing and ridicule.
GM's all-new full-sized pickups will hit dealer lots early next year, along with a pair of large crossover SUVs for GMC and Saturn, called Acadia and Outlook.
He put himself in charge of GM's most important and sickly unit, GM North America, and said he would delay building a rear-wheel-drive car line so he could move up production of the company's next generation large SUVs like the Chevrolet Tahoe and GMC Yukon.
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