General Motors goes into SUV production overtime

By Tim Beissmann | January 25th, 2010

Facing dramatic shortages on some of its vehicles, General Motors is boosting production of its full-sized SUVs from this Friday.

The Arlington plant in Texas makes the GMC Yukon, Chevrolet Tahoe and the Cadillac Escalade in both standard and hybrid forms. It had less than a 34-day supply of each SUV at the beginning of January – around three weeks below the industry average and almost one month underneath the recommended 60-day supply.

The plant – which has been running two 10-hour shifts Monday to Thursday – will add two overtime shifts on Friday every week until at least April. The factory will also operate on two Saturday in both March and April.

Supply of the Escalade was as low as 15 days as demand for the extra-long SUV increased at the beginning of the year.

Two other GM factories – Kansas City, responsible for the Chevrolet Malibu and the Buick LaCrosse, and Ingersoll, Ontario, which makes the Chevrolet Equinox and the GMC Terrain – have also moved into a third shift and some Saturday production to meet demand of sedans and small crossovers.

The announcement follows a similar one by Ford less than two weeks ago when it revealed that low supply levels meant it would boost production of its Expedition, Explorer and Lincoln Navigator full-sized SUVs.

(with Automotive News)

JEKYL & HYDE

could be worse,they could try and order a commodore in aust,and get told 2-3 months.can’t wait for their fuel to go up again,the overtime shifts will quickly cease(thats if the whole country doesn’t go broke in the meantime)….
Golfschwein

It’s like watching a recovering drug addict going on a last what-the-hell binge. Sad.
Aussie Sheila

I wish we have those GM SUV in Ausralia, much much better and classier than these japanese and German junk plaguing the streets.

Howie-R31

Seriously? Better? I highly doubt your speaking from any experience to do with “GM SUV”‘s ?
Matt

Really? I was about to say they are both pretty ugly… at least it looks like they tried (but failed) to do something with the Escalade, the GMC looks like “I couldn’t be bothered trying to design anything interesting”

Mark G

The new Escalade is not nearly as stunning as the old 2nd generation model was when it went on sale in 2001. However, on a trip to the US in 2009 I saw many more of these new (3rd gen) ones and the old ones look quite dated by comparison.

Mark G

Aussie Sheila I couldn’t agree with you more.
jojo

I remember we had a Suburban turbo Diesel in our work pool car years ago. It was such an antiquated, gas guzzling, poorly assembled piece of rubbish.

Give me a Germam/Japanese SUV anyday.

lazybones

“much better and classier”

Wow and there’s me thinking the Americans didn’t make classy cars. Just hideous square blocks in black with lots of chrome and shinny wheels. Lets not forget the walnut trim.

If you look at the CA article about Ford ramping up their SVU production. You’ll see just how simlar the design philosophy is.
Safety First

Wow… Hang on isn’t GM in trouble because it continually built these Behemoths instead of what the public wanted??? I know I asked the same Question whenever the F truck is mentioned, but Seriously, I mean Government Motors was only their because they didn’t build the econo cars that the market wanted!! Or so some of the Japanese Faithful would have had you believe last year….

and to
lazybones says:
January 25, 2010 at 2:00 pm
If you look at the CA article about Ford ramping up their SVU production. You’ll see just how simlar the design philosophy is.

I’d ask the question, if you (being Ford) have the number one selling truck (globally) for more years than you care to remember, and your SUV’s are top of the pops in their market place, would you reckon that your design philosophy was wrong?? Be honest… Nah neither would I

Frenchie

That’s the problem. People in the US want their SUV’s but for GM the market crash because they had really no small car the market wanted, plus people lost their jobs and could not afford to buy/lease a car. The big thing that hurt GM is their VEBA agreement. Last year it cost GM 6 billion for health care fund!
lazybones

“would you reckon that your design philosophy was wrong?? Be honest… Nah neither would I”

The original comment was a reference to classy design. Not sales. In the US Market its about bang for your buck not cutting edge design. They believe if it aint broke don’t fix it.

The GMC Yukon (Top name because it really is YUK!) retails about the same as an X5, but its larger. Which one would you rather be seen in?

Safety First

But GM a (and the others) are there for one reason. Sales!! Tesla (spam word :p) Prius, Econetic and Bluemotion are ther for one reason….I know they preach cutting edge technology, enviromental who-har and the rest, but lets face the truth… Everything exists to be sold!! That’s it! Nothing else matters!!
lazybones

True sales are the bottom line. But its funny how you can sell ugly cars in the US so long as they are cheap. But its a much harder sell in Europe and OZ. When a car’s looks get old and it doesn’t get a fresh look. Its sales start to drop. So clearly American buyers have different buying preferences to the rest of us.

Thinking about it, I can only name 2 American cars that feature a modern design. Dodge Viper, Corvette.

birdie

ramping up production for those abominations ; wont get government motors out of that bottomless pit they put themselves in
Karl

……only in America