On its way to recovery, General Motors Europe has embarked on a major quality push for its core Opel and Vauxhall brands with the new Astra set to spearhead the drive.
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“We want to be better than Toyota — that is a short-term goal,” said Michael Burns, president of GM Europe. Toyota is the market leader in most European quality surveys.
In an interview with Automotive News Europe, Burns said GM has already made great strides in Europe.
“We have markedly improved our quality compared to five years ago, with 50% fewer incidents per vehicle,” Burns said. “The improvement is shown by data from various auto clubs, and major car magazines. We also noticed that we have passed a lot of others [in quality statistics.] We want to be the best.”
Higher diesel penetration is another short-term goal for GM Europe and Burns says the company is gaining. It lagged 10% behind the European average diesel share last year, “but we have closed that gap the last couple of months to 5 [%] and we will continue to improve our share,” Burns said.
He cited the availability of more diesel-powered models as a major factor. Opel now has a full range of diesels from a small 1.3-litre to a 3.0-litre V6 turbodiesel and can install them in models ranging from the Corsa and Meriva to the Astra, Vectra and Signum.
Burns said he expects the diesel-car share in Europe to grow from 46% now to more than 50% in the next three years. In the long term, he expects that share to stabilise between 55 and 60%.
