General Motors Corp. said it may lose as many as 500 dealers in its home market this year, an increase from 350 last year, as the largest U.S. automaker works toward a goal of cutting 1,700 by 2012.
The reduction will widen in part because of the strain of a fourth straight year of U.S. auto-sales declines and a company initiative to trim brands and emphasize only Chevrolet, Cadillac, GMC and Buick, GM North American President Mark LaNeve said in an interview
today. GM may also have to spend more to convince some of its 6,400 dealers to consolidate, he said.
“We had 13,000 dealers 18 years ago, so we’ve already cut that in half,” LaNeve said at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit. “We don’t want them to close all at once because we figure we lose sales for 18 months after a dealership closes until other dealers pick up the business.”
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