The company, which has a past littered with compact wrecks like the unsafe Corvair and rusty Vega, will roll out the Chevrolet Cruze in September — betting it can attract younger drivers and succeed in the most competitive segment of the worldwide auto market.
GM owners may know that "nothing works like a Chevy truck," but the little Cruze is a big gamble.
"They can't afford to get it wrong," said Michael Robinet, an automotive analyst with CSM Worldwide in Michigan.
The Cruze follows another GM small-car flop, the Chevy Cobalt, which failed because it looks dated, is noisy, has a chintzy hard-plastic interior and doesn't perform as well as competitors. Americans bought just 105,000 last year, compared with about three times as many Toyota Corollas.
GM must also overcome history. Dating to the Corvair in the 1960s, its executives viewed small cars as money-losers because of low prices, high U.S. labor costs and American drivers' hunger for cheap gas and larger vehicles.
"They really haven't spent any time or money on these vehicles," said David Champion, senior director of Consumer Reports' auto testing department. The Cobalt, introduced in 2004, "came out trying to be competitive in that market but always languished behind."
That has to change if the Cruze is to help save GM.
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