#Daewoo

At times the auto industry can feel overwhelming, with all the different products, brands and stories to keep straight. There’s always something going on in this business, from breaking news to vehicle reviews.

Everybody loves talking about millennials but nobody does anything about them. Roughly speaking, this demographic encompasses young – and not-so-young – folks born in the early 1980s to about 2000. With birth years spanning two decades, this is a huge group of very diverse people.

Chevrolet‘s European product line is mostly comprised of re-hashed Korean products that started out life as Daewoo products. But with the introduction of the 2013 Malibu, Chevrolet is hoping to change things a little by offering what it sees as a “premium” product for its European flagship.

GM Daewoo has changed its name to GM Korea and its brand of choice to Chevrolet last March.  Since the name change, customers want to replace the old GM Daewoo emblem with the Chevrolet golden bow-tie.

Daewoo, one of South Korea’s most famous nameplates, is being retired by parent company General Motors, in favor of Chevrolet. GM is hoping to make Chevrolet a global brand, and the move fits in with their overall strategy.

Hyundai was able to achieve a 45 percent market share in South Korea in 2010, falling well below its target of 52 percent. Luckily, the failure to meet the target thanks to phenomenal growth from the Kia brand, owned by Hyundai and Kia’s new Optima and Sportage.

General Motors is harnessing the small car expertise of their Daewoo division to develop two new small cars, an upscale hatchback to be branded as a Vauxhall or Opel products, and a smaller, less expensive version likely to be sold as a Chevrolet.

Chevrolet‘s next Aveo will see more bodystyles beyond the traditional hatchback, with a crossover and a sedan among them.

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.

Due to the overall turmoil at General Motors these days a lot of  projects have been put on hold. Included in that list is the replacement for the current Aveo. A new Aveo, code named the T300, was due out in April of 2010, but now that product has been delayed until January of 2011.