LAS VEGAS: A crossover vehicle from the CAMI plant in Ingersoll that General Motors promises will be a "segment buster" is one of seven new products the company says will take it back to prominence in the North American entry-level market.
Sometime in the next couple of years, a production vehicle that looks very much like the Chevrolet Traverse will be on the market, the president of GM North America announced at a trade show here.
Speaking to reporters after a speech to an industry conference, Ronald L. Zarrella said the Detroit-based firm would launch "a segment-busting Chevrolet that will combine the functionality of an SUV with the ride dynamics of a car, along with some unexpected surprises" and a new level of functionality.
Like many of the other vehicles in GM's seven-model plan to appeal to customers in the entry-level markets, the company will share costs with one of its partner firms. In this case, that would be Suzuki, which will then produce a crossover vehicle of its own that we can expect to see in Canada in a couple of years.
The renewed interest in low-priced vehicles should be of particular interest to Canadian consumers, since entry-level vehicles make up about 27 percent of the country's total new car volume.
In recent years, Zarrella acknowledged, GM essentially let the entry-level market slip so that it could concentrate on full-size pickups and their SUV derivatives, since they make up the bulk of the new vehicle market today and account for a disproportionate share of company profits.