LOL. I remember when Mary Barra said that a year or two ago and thought, Good Luck!
Manufacturers can't just wave a magic wand and create pricing power on a whim. GM is not Ferrari. And they can't legally collude together to set production levels and prices without violating antitrust laws, at least not in the US and I presume other countries as well. If they had a way to reduce inventory and be more profitable, they'd have done it already. The pandemic induced component bottlenecks that created artificial scarcity, but those parts shortages will work themselves out in the coming months. (Hmm, makes you wonder why the component manufacturers aren't all attempting Mary Barras themselves and planning to reduce output and drive up price of their own products - answer: because they don't have that kind of pricing power either!)
No, the only other way they can claim this kind of pricing power is if manufacturers are able to convince consumers that we're in an era of permanent car scarcity, where inflated manufacturer pricing power and dealer markups are the new norm and unavoidable AND that the manufacturer's brand value is dear to us that we would never be satisfied with a substitute vehicle from another manufacturer - a perpetual Buy Now Before It's Too Late!' scenario. In other words, we have to fall for this con.
I'm sure they'll try to hold the line on inventory for a while and make grand pronouncements in the press about how consumers prefer to order the exact vehicle they want, don't mind waiting 12 weeks for it arrive, and and think paying full MSRP is totally fair. But it's just part of the con.
As someone else said earlier in the thread, don't buy a car you don't need!
Lots of other good comments in this thread.
Quote:
Originally Posted by LuvMyE92
Clipped from an online story:
“We’ll never go back to the level of inventories that we held pre-pandemic because we’ve learned we can be much more efficient,” GM CEO Mary Barra told reporters last year.
BMW Chief Financial Officer Nicolas Peter told the Financial Times last fall that the automaker plans to “clearly stick with … the way we manage supply to keep our pricing power at the current level.”
Mercedes-Benz parent Daimler AG has the same idea. “We will consciously undersupply demand level,” Daimler’s CFO Harald Wilhelm told FT.
Ford CEO Jim Farley has suggested that the company may move closer to a build-to-order business model, though he recently promised dealerships Ford would not sell cars directly to customers, like Tesla does. This is not good news for those of us who are used to the old days, when you could buy nearly anything - often including an M car - for a substantial discount. And BMW raised prices last year (at least they did on my car!) which isn't helping. |