Why won't local Chevy bring in real Chevy cars?

[tidus1203]

Why won't the local Chevrolet (General Motors) bring in the Cobalt (compact sedan) to compete with the Civic and Corolla, as well as, bring in the Malibu (mid size sedan) to compete with the Accord and Camry instead of those Korean cars rebadged like the Optra.

[pitbullz]

may malibu pa pala...

[Hanren]

Maybe the market dominated by Toyota and Honda is already saturated kaya mukhang hindi viable na mag risk sila dito..just my 2c ..

[niky]

Cost.

The Chevy Optra is a Korean product, and the cost of importation (as well as the cost of the vehicle itself) is much less. If they bring in the Chevy Cobalt, that's a product that is only produced in the US. Pricing will not be competitive if it is brought here.

Pricing is where the Cobalt competes against the Civic in the US... bring it here, and it'd likely be a little more expensive than a Civic for the same specs. Given that, who would buy it? The Dodge Caliber we are getting is in the same league as the Honda Civic 2.0 and the Mazda3 2.0R in the US, but it costs 1.5 million here. Some of that is mark-up, but some of it is cost of importation. At best, I'd say the Cobalt would cost about 200,000 pesos more than a comparable Civic if brought in. It'd be suicide to sell it instead of the Optra.

The Focus survives on pricing because it is Philippine assembled, which gives Ford a big tax break. Otherwise, they wouldn't be able to price it competitively.

The Malibu is supposedly a good car, and apparently able to compete squarely with the Accord and Camry... but pricing, again, is an issue... even more so, as the taxes for vehicles this big are exponentially larger.

[tidus1203]

Di ba nila magagawa yung cars dito to get tax breaks too?

[boybi]

Di ba nila magagawa yung cars dito to get tax breaks too?

It would cost GM billions of pesos to build an assembly plant, and the Philippine market alone is not big enough to justify building an assembly plant here. Also, hindi rin sure kung kakagatin ng Philippine market ang Cobalt and Malibu. Toyota country todits.

[niky]

It depends on what GM's plans are.

Building a local factory is no joke... Ford has one of the biggest because they've committed to making the Philippines the local hub for producing some of their products, like the Lynx and the Focus. Toyota has one because it's rich... ...and they're utilizing its capacity to the fullest because they sell a damn lot of cars. If they sell the new Vios in the numbers they hope to, it'll be good for local labor.

But it's hard. Other manufacturers have had to scale down capacity due to lack of market share... for GM, building a billion-peso local plant to sell a measly.. say... 500 Cobalts a year just won't work.

Patience nalang siguro... GM has just started expanding into the local market, and they'e just poured a ton of money into Daewoo to buy their production facilities in Korea, so any plans they have of building in the Philippines are still at least ten or twenty years away.

Maybe in five years or so, they'll be able to globalize their cars, and we will finally be able to get a decent compact or midsize from them here... till then..

[Memphis Raines]

Di ba nila magagawa yung cars dito to get tax breaks too?

Chevy answered this before by stating that to build their top-end variants here would be impractical since the target market for these models would be very limited and may not offset the cost of building a whole new plant division.

Tax breaks alone wouldn't even make a dent to curb the cost.

However, they are willing to accommodate such orders if the client is willing to shoulder the customs taxes and duties which is the real bummer of the equation here.

[Memphis Raines]

Sabay-sabay pa kaming sumagot nina Boybi at Niky

I guess we are all just as equally eager to have these exciting variants on our shores

[niky]

Eager? Naaah... I've heard the Malibu was good, but I'm not holding my breath... the new Camaro would be nice, though...

[ryan]

Yes, I think Chevy should bring it at least some of their aspirational "american" models like Camaro, Corvette, etc. Or even Saab, Opel although they better not price their spare parts too much.

They won't be selling in volumes but maybe they can help improve GM's brand image which I think has gone down TOO MUCH already. Nowadays, my impression is brands like Hyundai and Kia are even much better than GM nowadays.

Sayang, they have nicer newer cars like the Captiva but mere fact that its from GM makes me veer away from it.

[ringostarr]

cobalt puwede pa

pero malibu this will cause a lot of stir with the locals

[AG4]

Why won't the local Chevrolet (General Motors) bring in the Cobalt (compact sedan) to compete with the Civic and Corolla, as well as, bring in the Malibu (mid size sedan) to compete with the Accord and Camry instead of those Korean cars rebadged like the Optra.

Most if not all current American Chevrolets are designed for the North American market.
For the global market, mainstream Chevrolet models (usualy the smaller size models) will continue to come from GMDAT of Korea and GM Thailand, but they will soon share the same platform as other GM cars.
The current Optra and Aveo for example are transitional models (Daewoo to GMDAT), these cars started development before Daewoo became part of GM.

New generation Global Chevrolet models will be based on the Global GM platforms.
The all-new Captiva for example is the sister model of the European market Opel Antara and the 2nd gen USDM Saturn Vue, these SUVs use the updated GM Theta platform.

According to the latest reports, the next GMDAT model to move to a Global GM platform (GM Delta platform) will be the Optra replacement which will be merged with the next USDM Cobalt.

[Jun aka Pekto]

I test drove the Chevy Cobalt SS Supercharged 3 years ago. Acceleration was quite good and a notch above a standard Civic Si. Lots of usable low-end torque.

Build-quality was pretty decent. The Ecotec engine seemed a bit coarse. But, that's probably because I also test drove a number of V6 cars that day. It certainly wasn't a cruddy car like some posters here claimed it to be*.

* Or maybe that was in another forum.... Meh *shrugs*

Add: Too bad Chevy quit making the Cobalt SS Supercharged.... It would've been a good match pricewise/performancewise for the MazdaSpeed 3 even though the Chevy gives up about 63 hp to the Mazda.

[Memphis Raines]

Ah yes...the Camaro



:drool:

[mqavila]

Forgive my ignorance but the local Chevys here are actually made by what Korean company? Specifically, the Chevrolet Optra?

[tidus1203]

Its Daewoo....

[AG4]

Add: Too bad Chevy quit making the Cobalt SS Supercharged.... It would've been a good match pricewise/performancewise for the MazdaSpeed 3 even though the Chevy gives up about 63 hp to the Mazda.

They replaced it with an even stronger 260hp turbocharged engine for 2008.

Its Daewoo....

What is? The Optra and Aveo?
Their platforms were developed at Daewoo's Worthing Technical Centre in the UK.

[batang_raon14]

Before asking why they won't bring real Chevy cars, ask the current and previous owners of rebadged Chevy cars. If the rebadged ones costs 30K++ to 60K++ for a major tune-up and 5-8K for a regular tune-up, how much more would the real ones cost?

It's worth spending that much for my Camry now, or for a BMW if it was what I bought, but for an Optra? Oh c'mon.

After replacing my daily driver Chevy with a Nissan Sentra N16, men was I satisfied. Imagine only spending 1.5K-3.5K on regular tune-ups and 6K max on major tune-ups. Quite a difference.

Pameke yung murang sale price ng mga GM Cars na yan e. Add pa yung free PMS up to 40K. Pagkatapos nung free mo, gapang to the max na yung bulsa mo. So, what more kung magtayo sila ng assembly plant nila dito? Their ROI would be on the negative at start, forcing them to reflect such damages to car prices and parts.

The only thing going for me with my Optra then was the looks. Same I could say with the rest of the lineup that GM has at the moment, but as per performance/quality/reliability, I give my thumbs down. Before ko siya palitan, I thought hindi siya underpowered gawa ng ang ganda ng hatak. Pero nung napalitan ko na with the Sentra na 1.6 din ang makina, found out na it really is (Optra 100km/hr = 3000rpm, Sentra 100km/hr = 2500rpm). Owners would really love to share about that defective CD Changer as well. Just my .02

[AG4]

Forgive my ignorance but the local Chevys here are actually made by what Korean company? Specifically, the Chevrolet Optra?

The local Chevrolet Optra is a Thailand built version of the Korean GMDAT Lacetti.
Daewoo is now under GM but the Spark, Aveo and Optra are transitional models(Daewoo to GMDAT) that were developed before Daewoo became part of GM.
The Optra replacement will be merged with the USDM Cobalt and share the updated GM Delta platform with the next Opel Astra.

GM plans to narrow down their platforms. The first to go are the old Daewoo platforms that were developed in the UK by Daewoo's old Worthing Technical Center.
GM will also add VVT engines to future GMDAT models, the first model to receive the new VVT engine is the facelifted 1.6 liter 2008/09 USDM Aveo5.
The new engine is 8% more fuel efficient than the old non-VVT ETEC-II 1.6 liter engine.