GM Midsize Pickup Trucks in Hot Demand
The duo of GM midsize pickup trucks are moving from dealer lots at their fastest pace ever.
Struggling to keep up with demand, General Motors is finding ways to squeeze more trucks from its Wentzville, Mo., plant. As of mid-May, the company said its trucks were sitting on dealer lots for an average of only 12 days citing data from J.D. Power. Ideally, automakers shoot for a 60-day supply. Anything beyond that is considered to be slow, but when companies struggle to keep up with demand they risk losing customers to other brands.
In order to make up for the gap, GM is shuffling the plant’s production schedule to eliminate a six-minute break in production between shifts while cutting an unpaid lunch break. The end result ought to yield GM an extra 3,500 trucks per year. Through April, GM sold a combined total of 35,720 midsize pickups, which is still 35 percent below the segment-leading Tacoma, which sold 55,322 in the same four-month period.
According to Automotive News, GM is also hiring up to 1,000 “flex” workers to fill weekend shifts in a move that could increase production capacity by more than 2,000 trucks and commercial vans, which as also in hot demand, per month.
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[Source: Automotive News]
Luke is an energetic automotive journalist who spends his time covering industry news and crawling the internet for the latest breaking story. When he isn't in the office, Luke can be found obsessively browsing used car listings, drinking scotch at his favorite bar and dreaming of what to drive next, though the list grows a lot faster than his bank account. He's always on <A title="@lukevandezande on Twitter" href="http://twitter.com/lukevandezande">Twitter</A> looking for a good car conversation. Find Luke on <A title="@lukevandezande on Twitter" href="http://twitter.com/lukevandezande">Twitter</A> and <A title="Luke on Google+" href="http://plus.google.com/112531385961538774338?rel=author">Google+</A>.
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