Chevrolet Transcends Abject Poverty, Ethnic Cleansing, To Capture 98.6% Of Uzbekistani Auto Market
In one of the most bizarre stories we’ve ever seen at Autoguide, GM’s Chevrolet division revealed during a financial briefing that their share of the passenger car market is 98.6 percent in the former Soviet Republic of Uzbekistan.
You might recall that ex-Soviet strongmen were often famous for getting consistently re-elected with 99.9% of the population voting for them, but how does a car company (an American one at that) gain such a foothold in a country steeped in dire poverty and ethnic violence?
According to InsideLine, GM owns a 25 percent stake in the local auto factory, a partnership between Daewood and Uzbek automaker UzAvutoSanoat. Since GM owns Daewoo, the plant, which is capable of cranking out 250,000 cars per year, is producing the Matiz, Lacetti and Captiva (pictured) for the domestic market and export to other countries. We’re not sure how many vehicles can be sold in a country where roughly half the population lives on less than $1.25 a day, but we do know that owning a Captiva must be equivalent to rolling around in an Escalade.
[Source: Inside Line]
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Your statistics is abject, 'cause you can't get any real numbers concerning Uzbekistan.