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GM will stop reporting monthly U.S. vehicle sales

DETROIT — General Motors said on Tuesday it will stop reporting monthly U.S. vehicle sales, saying the 30-day snapshot does not accurately reflect the market, and will instead issue quarterly sales. GM will also no longer report monthly sales in China, its largest market, and Brazil. GM will provide monthly data to the U.S. Federal Reserve, industry associations and government agencies across the globe, but that data is not made public. Analysts and investors rely on monthly U.S. vehicle sales not just to track the performance of individual automakers, but as a barometer of the health of the world's second-largest auto market and as an indicator of consumer confidence in the U.S. economy overall. GM and its Detroit rivals Ford and Fiat Chrysler have relied heavily on sales of high-margin pickup truck and SUV sales to boost profits. GM's total U.S. sales, its second-largest market, are down 3.2 percent for the first two months of 2018, reflecting a 6.8 percent drop in retail sales to individual customers, the company reported last month. GM executives have expressed frustration that comparisons of monthly U.S. sales results among rival automakers are distorted by short-term discount programs, and by differences in strategy for selling vehicles in bulk to rental car fleets. "Thirty days is not enough time to separate real sales trends from short-term fluctuations in a very dynamic, highly competitive market," Kurt McNeil, U.S. vice president for sales operations said in a statement. GM's actions could prompt other automakers to also switch to quarterly U.S. sales reports. Major automakers will report March U.S. new vehicle sales on Tuesday. Until the early 1990s, most U.S. automakers released sales results every 10 days. The former Chrysler Corp. stopped reporting sales on a 10-day basis in 1990, and rivals followed suit over the next three years. GM executives are betting that investors will quickly adapt to receiving U.S. sales data every three months, as investors in other retail sectors already have. Retailers such as Walmart report sales on a quarterly basis. Reporting by Joe WhiteRelated Video: Image Credit: Reuters Earnings/Financials Green Buick Cadillac Chevrolet GM GMC US

It's time for Corvette to attack Porsche

For most of its existence, Porsche was a smug little sports car company with a fairly limited lineup and small but steady sales. Any time the company strayed from its air-cooled, rear engine formula, the purists would turn their noses. The 944? The 948? "Not a proper Porsche," they'd sniff. And then came the greatest sin of them all: the Cayenne. To the purists, this was treason. Porsche making an SUV? Horrors! Of course, you all know how it turned out. Porsche grew to be a profit-generating juggernaut within the Volkswagen Group. And since one SUV wasn't enough they added another, the Macan. By the end of the decade Porsche will have quadrupled its global sales. You have to wonder what else it has up its sleeve. Couldn't this be a lesson for General Motors? It has a terrific sports car brand in Corvette. In fact, it's arguably the most iconic brand within GM's full-line portfolio. But for its entire existence that brand has been locked up within Chevrolet. Maybe it's time for GM to treat Corvette as a stand-alone company. Maybe it's time for GM to unlock that brand and treat Corvette as a stand-alone company. A Corvette SUV could be a killer first step. Since Porsche only makes two SUVs, maybe Corvette could make three. Small, medium, and large. And just as Porsche has the Panamera, an executive sedan from team Corvette could become an instant "gotta-have" for the yacht-buying jet set. Of course, the Corvette purists will cringe. And the biggest hue and cry will come from Chevrolet's US dealers. That's why the best place to launch the new Corvette brand would be far away from those franchisees: in China. Chinese consumers have no pre-conceived ideas that 'Vettes can only be sold in Chevy stores. And Chinese enthusiasts very much admire Corvette's historic pedigree. You've no doubt read about how Chinese authorities are cracking down on conspicuous consumption. That makes the timing even better. Corvette's selling point has always been that it is an amazing bargain for the performance you get. What a perfect way to undercut Porsche. In fact, pairing the Corvette brand with Cadillac in China could be just the shot in the arm that Cadillac's Chinese dealers need. Despite having very competitive cars, Cadillac lags far behind Audi, Mercedes, and BMW. What Cadillac dealers need is a lot more showroom traffic. And a jaw dropping lineup of Corvette-branded vehicles could bring in throngs of buyers.

Take a close look at the guts of the Chevy Volt battery, powertrain

Just how intimate would you like to get with the powertrain in a Chevy Volt? If you're anything like YouTube user d55guy, then spending a half hour filming yourself taking apart the battery pack, motor, inverter and more for a look inside sounds like your idea of fun. After all, this way you get to see the cooling system, the heavy safety kill switch and count up the individual cells in the battery modules. Fun! Turns out, we also enjoy languidly paced Volt dissection video goodness, and we think you might want to see it as well. So, we've embedded two videos below and if you don't have a better understanding of how the Volt is put together after watching them, well, at least you can't say we never tried to show you anything. Given that what's really happening here is the organized 'destruction' of an expensive and potentially dangerous object, let's talk safety. There's a serious disclaimer at the beginning of the videos and on the YouTube description page, but we feel the need to repeat the gist of it here: do not try this at home. The creator of the video says he is a trained engineer and has been doing things like this "for the better part of a decade," so he apparently knows what he's doing. With that in mind, watch it all below. When you're done seeing the insides of a Volt powertrain up close, if you need more filmed EV dissection/destruction, check out this video designed for first responders approaching a damaged Tesla Model S. This content is hosted by a third party. To view it, please update your privacy preferences. Manage Settings. This content is hosted by a third party. To view it, please update your privacy preferences. Manage Settings.