6 ms·

Doesn't mean much without GM saying how many were available. Did they get 100, or 100,000 pre-orders?

by conk 6y ago

waterside81 6y ago
You'd think the first question the reporter would ask is "how many is that?" Such lazy journalism.
- chaostheory 6y ago
  It’s really an ad masquerading as a news article http://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html http://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html
  - MichaelZuo 6y ago
    It’s surprising since it seems directly from reuters and not one of the PR wires. They’re so confident about it!
    - chaostheory 6y ago
      Nearly every news outlet and publication does this and not just Reuters. It's very pervasive and it's not new. Sometimes, it's official, other times it's just a PR agency with a story and a reporter who needs one. I'm sure there's a lot of quid pro quo, but there's little that I've seen written on the subject beyond Paul Graham's essay.
- martythemaniak 6y ago
  Let's not blame the journalists here, if GM was proud of how many they sold out of, they would say so. A journalist asking them isn't going to change that.
  - freehunter 6y ago
    The job of a journalist is to ask questions and not be satisfied with just repeating what a corporation wants them to say. Just repeating a company's PR is the job of an advertiser.
- datavirtue 6y ago
  No....they just want invited back to the next big release party.
cnlevy 6y ago
1 /s
mabbo 6y ago
My immediate, sarcastic reaction was "WOW! Both of them!?"
Shivetya 6y ago
pretty much this same issue came up with the Mach E but they were more than willing to let the news out there were 3500 first edition Broncos. Also concerning is Ford still has not revealed the EPA numbers on the Mach E, still only shows projected.
- itsoktocry 6y ago
  >Also concerning is Ford still has not revealed the EPA numbers on the Mach E, still only shows projected. Why is that "concerning"? It probably hasn't been officially tested yet. Anyway, what does it matter when you can make adjustments to your EPA number have the car actually under-perform range in the real world by 25% or more: https://www.caranddriver.com/features/a33824052/adjustment-factor-tesla-uses-for-big-epa-range-numbers/ https://www.caranddriver.com/features/a33824052/adjustment-f...
jlv2 6y ago
And with only a $100 deposit, the pre-orders don't mean much.
- Animats 6y ago
  Refundable, too. Still, it's so expensive GM will make money on it. They probably won't have any problem making however many people are willing to order. It's a niche item, though. Ford has an electric F-150 truck coming out.[1] Ford's goal is to make a cost-effective work truck, not a "lifestyle vehicle". If they succeed at that, the impact on the industry will be huge. [1] https://www.autoblog.com/2020/09/17/electric-ford-f-150-details-powerful-truck/ https://www.autoblog.com/2020/09/17/electric-ford-f-150-deta...
  - KozmoNau7 6y ago
    If they want to make it a good work truck, they need to bring the bed back down to a reasonable level. It's ridiculously high now.
    - jessaustin 6y ago
      Amen, brother. Modern bed height is untenable. I'm 6', and I can only reach the tools that miraculously didn't roll more than a foot from the side. All day, it's constant climbing up on the tire or bumper. Sometimes something is close enough to reach by jumping and belly-flopping over the side. Give me an old Toyota mini pickup any day. Misguided people will tell us that it's all about 4WD, but you see the same phenomenon in 2WD trucks and besides it didn't used to take so much clearance to add another differential under the engine and engines are smaller now anyway. The real reason is to sell pickups to people who don't need pickups. If they worked for a living they'd get annoyed just like we are. They should have been sold lift kits instead.
PaulHoule 6y ago
I am always skeptical about what car makers say about sales. The media will tell you that Americans only like to buy large cars, but try to buy a small car and you will find they don't have any in stock -- but look, here are 50 trucks for 40% off lined up in a row. It used to be just American car manufacturers that did that, but it happened to me when I went to a Honda dealership looking for a Fit, which they didn't have new because the factory washed out, but here we have 20 CR-Vs from the same factory on sale, why not take one of them?
- freehunter 6y ago
  Car dealers have to pay upfront for all the cars on their lot. They're not going to stock vehicles that don't sell. So naturally there aren't a lot of small cars on the lots because those cars just sit there losing money and depreciating in value. Same reason it's nearly impossible to find a rear-wheel drive car in areas where it snows regularly. You can go further south and find plenty of RWD cars, but few northern dealerships will stock cars that can't be driven half of the year. CRVs sell in large numbers so dealerships stock them. Fits don't sell in large numbers so dealers don't stock as many. It's not a conspiracy.
  - PaulHoule 6y ago
    People want fits bad enough that they buy them lightly used at new prices.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
- Donald 6y ago
  Correct. Automakers have redirected the American compact car market to larger sedans and especially crossovers to increase profit margins.
- csharptwdec19 6y ago
  > The media will tell you that Americans only like to buy large cars, but try to buy a small car and you will find they don't have any in stock -- but look, here are 50 trucks for 40% off lined up in a row. Lots of Americans don't like to buy things without thinking they're getting a sweet deal. Most small cars your average American will consider are fairly low-margin items unless you go uptrim. Often the only times incentives are possible are because of severely slumped sales of a model, usually the only time you'll see those kinds of numbers off on a car is if it's an older MY or otherwise definitely on it's way out of the lineup. SUVs and Trucks have historically been priced higher, with larger margins. The Automakers can give nice looking discounts to prospective buyers while still making more money. > It used to be just American car manufacturers that did that, but it happened to me when I went to a Honda dealership looking for a Fit, which they didn't have new because the factory washed out, but here we have 20 CR-Vs from the same factory on sale, why not take one of them? The Fit was assembled in Mexico; my gut says the new trade agreement made it unprofitable to continue selling under that setup (possibly foreign parts content?) The other thing to note; It's a lot easier to fit a battery pack in an SUV than a car, doubly so when we consider these manufacturers are likely looking to retrofit existing unibody designs to electric if they can.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
205guy 6y ago
Exactly, this number is conspicuously absent from any stories about this. Googling for this information ("hummer preorders") only finds a bunch of similar articles about being sold-out, or reserved-out, with no numbers either. The following article credits Electrek.co with the info, but no mention of it on their website. https://www.motor1.com/news/450123/hummer-ev-edition-1-sold-out/ https://www.motor1.com/news/450123/hummer-ev-edition-1-sold-... I wonder if there will be vocal GM short-sellers now too.
- itsoktocry 6y ago
  >Exactly, this number is conspicuously absent from any stories about this. This is a legacy company trying to implement the Tesla marketing strategy, and, as often happens, it feels a bit contrived. Interesting that people question everything when it's GM and question nothing when it's Tesla though. Remember 450,000 Model 3 reservations? Have they even sold that many yet?
m463 6y ago
There are so many elephants in this room that they have every bit of marketing on full alert. Marketing is telling half the story, the best half. (except for the superbowl ad, which was inventing a story to tell) It's too bad they didn't capitalize on a few more differentiating points. "Full sized dashboard in front of you" "We will sell you parts and a service manual." "You don't have to hook your car to the internet if you don't want."

Doesn't mean much without GM saying how many were available. Did they get 100, or 100,000 pre-orders?

by conk 6y ago

Doesn't mean much without GM saying how many were available. Did they get 100, or 100,000 pre-orders?

waterside81 6y ago

You'd think the first question the reporter would ask is "how many is that?" Such lazy journalism.

chaostheory 6y ago
It’s really an ad masquerading as a news article http://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html http://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html
- MichaelZuo 6y ago
  It’s surprising since it seems directly from reuters and not one of the PR wires. They’re so confident about it!
  - chaostheory 6y ago
    Nearly every news outlet and publication does this and not just Reuters. It's very pervasive and it's not new. Sometimes, it's official, other times it's just a PR agency with a story and a reporter who needs one. I'm sure there's a lot of quid pro quo, but there's little that I've seen written on the subject beyond Paul Graham's essay.
martythemaniak 6y ago
Let's not blame the journalists here, if GM was proud of how many they sold out of, they would say so. A journalist asking them isn't going to change that.
- freehunter 6y ago
  The job of a journalist is to ask questions and not be satisfied with just repeating what a corporation wants them to say. Just repeating a company's PR is the job of an advertiser.
datavirtue 6y ago
No....they just want invited back to the next big release party.

cnlevy 6y ago

1 /s

mabbo 6y ago

My immediate, sarcastic reaction was "WOW! Both of them!?"

Shivetya 6y ago

pretty much this same issue came up with the Mach E but they were more than willing to let the news out there were 3500 first edition Broncos. Also concerning is Ford still has not revealed the EPA numbers on the Mach E, still only shows projected.

itsoktocry 6y ago
>Also concerning is Ford still has not revealed the EPA numbers on the Mach E, still only shows projected. Why is that "concerning"? It probably hasn't been officially tested yet. Anyway, what does it matter when you can make adjustments to your EPA number have the car actually under-perform range in the real world by 25% or more: https://www.caranddriver.com/features/a33824052/adjustment-factor-tesla-uses-for-big-epa-range-numbers/ https://www.caranddriver.com/features/a33824052/adjustment-f...

jlv2 6y ago

And with only a $100 deposit, the pre-orders don't mean much.

Animats 6y ago
Refundable, too. Still, it's so expensive GM will make money on it. They probably won't have any problem making however many people are willing to order. It's a niche item, though. Ford has an electric F-150 truck coming out.[1] Ford's goal is to make a cost-effective work truck, not a "lifestyle vehicle". If they succeed at that, the impact on the industry will be huge. [1] https://www.autoblog.com/2020/09/17/electric-ford-f-150-details-powerful-truck/ https://www.autoblog.com/2020/09/17/electric-ford-f-150-deta...
- KozmoNau7 6y ago
  If they want to make it a good work truck, they need to bring the bed back down to a reasonable level. It's ridiculously high now.
  - jessaustin 6y ago
    Amen, brother. Modern bed height is untenable. I'm 6', and I can only reach the tools that miraculously didn't roll more than a foot from the side. All day, it's constant climbing up on the tire or bumper. Sometimes something is close enough to reach by jumping and belly-flopping over the side. Give me an old Toyota mini pickup any day. Misguided people will tell us that it's all about 4WD, but you see the same phenomenon in 2WD trucks and besides it didn't used to take so much clearance to add another differential under the engine and engines are smaller now anyway. The real reason is to sell pickups to people who don't need pickups. If they worked for a living they'd get annoyed just like we are. They should have been sold lift kits instead.

PaulHoule 6y ago

I am always skeptical about what car makers say about sales. The media will tell you that Americans only like to buy large cars, but try to buy a small car and you will find they don't have any in stock -- but look, here are 50 trucks for 40% off lined up in a row. It used to be just American car manufacturers that did that, but it happened to me when I went to a Honda dealership looking for a Fit, which they didn't have new because the factory washed out, but here we have 20 CR-Vs from the same factory on sale, why not take one of them?

freehunter 6y ago
Car dealers have to pay upfront for all the cars on their lot. They're not going to stock vehicles that don't sell. So naturally there aren't a lot of small cars on the lots because those cars just sit there losing money and depreciating in value. Same reason it's nearly impossible to find a rear-wheel drive car in areas where it snows regularly. You can go further south and find plenty of RWD cars, but few northern dealerships will stock cars that can't be driven half of the year. CRVs sell in large numbers so dealerships stock them. Fits don't sell in large numbers so dealers don't stock as many. It's not a conspiracy.
- PaulHoule 6y ago
  People want fits bad enough that they buy them lightly used at new prices.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
Donald 6y ago
Correct. Automakers have redirected the American compact car market to larger sedans and especially crossovers to increase profit margins.
csharptwdec19 6y ago
> The media will tell you that Americans only like to buy large cars, but try to buy a small car and you will find they don't have any in stock -- but look, here are 50 trucks for 40% off lined up in a row. Lots of Americans don't like to buy things without thinking they're getting a sweet deal. Most small cars your average American will consider are fairly low-margin items unless you go uptrim. Often the only times incentives are possible are because of severely slumped sales of a model, usually the only time you'll see those kinds of numbers off on a car is if it's an older MY or otherwise definitely on it's way out of the lineup. SUVs and Trucks have historically been priced higher, with larger margins. The Automakers can give nice looking discounts to prospective buyers while still making more money. > It used to be just American car manufacturers that did that, but it happened to me when I went to a Honda dealership looking for a Fit, which they didn't have new because the factory washed out, but here we have 20 CR-Vs from the same factory on sale, why not take one of them? The Fit was assembled in Mexico; my gut says the new trade agreement made it unprofitable to continue selling under that setup (possibly foreign parts content?) The other thing to note; It's a lot easier to fit a battery pack in an SUV than a car, doubly so when we consider these manufacturers are likely looking to retrofit existing unibody designs to electric if they can.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

205guy 6y ago

Exactly, this number is conspicuously absent from any stories about this. Googling for this information ("hummer preorders") only finds a bunch of similar articles about being sold-out, or reserved-out, with no numbers either. The following article credits Electrek.co with the info, but no mention of it on their website. https://www.motor1.com/news/450123/hummer-ev-edition-1-sold-out/ https://www.motor1.com/news/450123/hummer-ev-edition-1-sold-... I wonder if there will be vocal GM short-sellers now too.

itsoktocry 6y ago
>Exactly, this number is conspicuously absent from any stories about this. This is a legacy company trying to implement the Tesla marketing strategy, and, as often happens, it feels a bit contrived. Interesting that people question everything when it's GM and question nothing when it's Tesla though. Remember 450,000 Model 3 reservations? Have they even sold that many yet?

m463 6y ago

There are so many elephants in this room that they have every bit of marketing on full alert. Marketing is telling half the story, the best half. (except for the superbowl ad, which was inventing a story to tell) It's too bad they didn't capitalize on a few more differentiating points. "Full sized dashboard in front of you" "We will sell you parts and a service manual." "You don't have to hook your car to the internet if you don't want."