And here is a queer nugget of information gleaned from a day of big, important financial information out General Motors: Chevrolet is kicking some major ass in Uzbekistan. The brand that may or may not be called Chevy, owns 94 percent of the car market there. Ninety-four percent...Booyah!
UPDATE!!! This just in from GM Europe:For January through May of this year, Chevrolet's 94 percent share of the overall market means it sold 59,485 out of a total market of 63,220 vehicles. If you look at only passenger car sales (and don't include light commercial vehicle sales) for the first five months of the year Chevy nabbed 98.6 percent of the market. So...you know, double-Booyah!
This is according to Tim Lee, GM's president of international operations. How could such a thing possibly be true? Well, it turns out that Uzbekistan, which is one of Central Asia's 'stans (no, not this one or that one), has itself a little thing called GM Uzbekistan, a joint venture between GM Daewoo and UzAvtoSanoat of -- where else? - Uzbekistan.
As you'll have absolutely no reason to recall, back in 1992, shortly after Uzbekistan gained its independence from the Russians, the country's automaker Uzavtoprom, which is also known as UzAvtoSanoat, agreed to a joint venture with South Korea's Daewoo Motor, creating - wait for it - UzDaewooAuto. In 1996, the concern opened a production facility in Asaka, in the country's far Eastern end. Then Daewoo went bankrupt and the Uzbek side took over. In 2008, the current GM Uzbekistan was set up with GM holding 25 percent and the old UzAvutoSanoat owning the remaining 75 percent. The plant currently has an annual production capacity of 250,000 units and it's currently cranking out Chevrolet Matiz, Lacetti (pictured above) and Captiva models for the home market and its neighbors.
Yes, two of the three of those are basically Chevy-badged Daewoos.
So the way we figure it, is if GM simply follows its own example here in the U.S., everything will be as tasty as a big bowl of palov.
roadburner says:
03:05 PM, 06/29/10
Automotive Learnings of General Motors for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Uzbekistan!
Very nice!
kevm14 says:
09:58 AM, 06/30/10
I lol'd
bimmerjay says:
10:23 AM, 06/30/10
lol @ roadburner