General Motors has confirmed it will stop producing the Chevrolet Cruze compact sedan in March 2019, along with the Volt plug-in hybrid and Buick LaCrosse.
Canadian Cruze sales through October 2018 totalled just over 24,000, while Canadians bought 61,786 Honda Civics in that same 10-month period. Note that GM's announcement is specific to the Cruze sedan and does not apply to the hatchback model.
GM has also confirmed that it will halt construction of the Chevrolet Impala and Cadillac XTS sedans at its Oshawa, Ontario factory in the fourth quarter of 2019.
Other GM models slated for cancellation include the Cadillac CT6, whose production will end in June 2019. That calls into question the future of the 4.2L turbo V8 Cadillac recently announced for the high-performance CT6-V.
The Oshawa plant is one of three vehicle assembly facilities GM says it will "unallocate" in 2019, along with Detroit-Hamtramck and the Lordstown plant in Ohio, which builds the Cruze. Also on the list is a facility in Baltimore, Maryland and a transmission plant in Warren, Michigan.
Notably, most of the cars being cut are sedans, a segment whose sales have slid in recent years thanks to shoppers drawn to crossover and SUV models. GM says the vehicles are being discontinued so that the company can double the amount of resources it allocates to electric and autonomous vehicles.
The irony in the Chevrolet Volt's case is that since introducing the Volt in 2012, Chevrolet has insisted on referring to it as a range-extended electric vehicle, while it is more accurately described as a plug-in hybrid.
As of the end of October, Chevrolet has sold fewer than 2,800 Volts in Canada, while sales of Toyota's Prius family totalled more than 7,000.
The Impala moved 3,393 units through October in Canada, versus more than 12,000 for the Toyota Camry.
At Cadillac, while the CT6 ostensibly replaced the ancient Oshawa-built XTS, just 175 examples of the newer car have left showrooms so far in 2018, following 250 and 352 sales in all of 2016 and 2017 respectively.
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