Apparently, some intrepid reporter from Bloomberg News managed to get a report that was written for General Motors management (which probably means that someone managed to slip it to said scribe) that is about Saturn Corporation. And it seems that the report includes figures that must bring anyone down to Earth: last year, for each car sold by Saturn, $3,248 was lost. Which adds up to something along the lines of $850-million.
This is probably the first time that an automaker was happy that it didn't sell more cars.
Presumably, the loss has a whole lot more to do with running factories at significantly less than full capacity than it does with providing incentive money. Something that I suspect more and more mass manufacturers are going to come to realize is that their mass production models-which means buying fixed, dedicated automation that is capacitized to produce x units per year and is not very forgiving when it comes to making a fraction of x-are not going to be able to make it in the years ahead. Consumers are a fickle bunch, and they always want novelty.
Which is what Saturn has deftly managed not to provide customers with. It has had superior service. A great sales environment. But it has also been rolling out cars that are too long in the tooth, despite minor molding modifications and the third door in the coupe. Sure, it is finally getting ready to launch the Vue, its sport utility vehicle, but has anyone noticed that there is a near-saturation of sport utes and there has been for quite some time?
If there was ever a brand that was mismanaged, it is Saturn.
And more's the pity.
