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Monday, January 05, 2009
GM Hopes to Lure Buyers With Cadillac SRX Crossover
Associated Press
DETROIT--General Motors Corp. (GM) is counting on the 2010 Cadillac SRX crossover vehicle to lure luxury car buyers with new design and performance features.
The redesigned vehicle was unveiled Sunday and is set to go on display at the 2009 North American International Auto Show in Detroit later this month. It replaces the SRX model first launched in 2004.
To help compete with better-selling rivals like the Lexus RX, Acura MDX, and the BMW X3 and X5, the SRX's designers took elements from other Cadillac models and melded them into this one. The new SRX looks faster than its boxy predecessor, with a curving roofline and a more rounded nose that still retains an aggressive look.
"For GM, it's our most aggressive brand," said Clay Dean, GM's global director for Cadillac design. "We want to appeal to people that set the trends."
Cadillac put more energy into improving the interior quality and exterior design of the car, Dean said. A 3-liter direct-injection V-6 engine comes standard, with the option for a 2.8-liter turbocharged V-6. Although fuel economy testing wasn't complete, GM estimates highway miles per gallon will fall in the mid-20s.
Cadillac has a strong following among luxury car buyers, and the brand remains an important one for GM.
Cadillac sales fell 24 percent in the first 11 months of 2008, about on par with U.S. light truck and SUV sales overall. The automaker sold nearly 148,000 Cadillacs in January through November, including about 14,800 SRXs. But Toyota Motor Corp.'s Lexus division sold five times as many RXs.
The 2010 SRX is expected to be in showrooms in mid-2009. Pricing hasn't been announced.
The public got its first peek of the SRX at a California auto charity event in August. The model is one of three launches GM has planned for the Detroit show that starts next week. There's a new Chevrolet Equinox crossover that the automaker unveiled in December, and a redesigned 2010 Buick LaCrosse sedan will make its debut.
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Everyone would agree they see more "Made in Taiwan/China/Japan/etc..."tags than "Made in the USA" tags for the past several years. Well, that "Made in _____" tag on your clothing has an economic term sewn into it: trade deficit. A trade deficit happens when one country buys more goods than it sells to other countries.
For example, if the entire United States (all 300
million of us) made only 100 shirts this year, and if all of China made 100 shirts, some of those shirts would be traded between
us- we would sell a few to China, and vice versa. But a trade deficit happens when one country sells more shirts than another.
China, in this example, could sell 85 shirts to America. The U.S. could sell 55 shirts to China. So, in this trade, China
sold more shirts to the United States, 30 more in fact.
Most businessmen and economists believe that most trade deficits
aren't a bad thing; it's just part of trade, and at some point trade between two countries should balance out eventually.
The big exception is the U.S., which buys vastly more stuff than it sells, and has done so for decades.
Why does this matter? Well, in order to buy those shirts, you need money. And if you are buying more shirts than you're selling shirts, you're losing money. If you're a business, you won't be in business much longer.
But, countries aren't businesses. They are, well, countries, and can print all the money they want. People who deal with currencies, or each country's version of money, look at trade deficits as one way to find out how much each country's currency is worth. If you have to print more money, each dollar you print can possibly lower the value of the other dollars out there. Like stocks, you can buy and sell currencies on what's called the foreign-exchange market (or, if you want a buzzword for the office, say Forex market).
Well, because the U.S. has been buying a lot of stuff from China for many, many years, China holds a lot of U.S. dollars. If China were to sell those dollars on the market at some point, well, it wouldn't be very good. The U.S. dollar's value would fall -- making imports and traveling abroad much more expensive.
Trade deficits are usually a good thing, because it shows that the global economy is working. It's just when a trade imbalance gets too high where economists and investors start to become concerned.
