After 44 years, General Motors do Brasil has abandoned the full-size pick-up market segment in Brazil, writes Rogerio Louro Alves.
GM recently stopped production of the U.S.-designed Chevrolet Silverado at its São José dos Campos plant, São Paulo state, and will not launch a replacement model.
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GM said it was abandoning the segment due to low demand for full-size pick-ups in Brazil. In addition, the locally-built Silverado contained a lot of imported parts, increasing production costs.
However, GM has lost the battle with Ford in the segment since launching the Silverado in 1997. The two rival vehicle makers have been fighting for domination of the full-size pickup market in Brazil for 50 years.
Last year Ford sold 5,811 of its US-designed F250 model while GM sold only 2,257 Silverados. Ford also started production of right-hand drive export F-series models for Australia and New Zealand, giving it worthwhile additional volume.
GM Brazil also stopped the production and sales of Isuzu-designed GMC-badged trucks at the beginning of January, again due to falling sales and the high number of imported components.
GMC started to sell the GMC trucks in Brazil during 1996. Some models were locally-made but with a high proportion of imported Japanese parts.
Now the biggest GM vehicle produces in Brazil is the mid-size U.S.-designed Chevrolet S10 pickup.
