Pick Your Battles

The United Auto Workers union says General Motors can't shrink itself to prosperity, and that is true.

But in North America's increasingly crowded market, all auto makers — not just GM — have to start picking their battles.

That means chopping models or bailing out entirely from segments where there are too many entries and not enough market.

GM's plan to idle three assembly plants and eliminate several other shifts and production lines by 2008 suggests it indeed is scaling back and giving up on some segments, not just improving factory utilization rates.

By closing its Doraville, GA, minivan plant, GM hopefully is signaling it is getting out of the minivan business. It should. GM just can't make a compelling minivan.

Despite the ravings of globalization foes, the competitors stealing share from the Buick Terraza, Chevrolet Uplander, Pontiac Montana and Saturn Relay are not built offshore in low-wage factories. The most successful minivan players all are assembled in the U.S. or Ontario, Canada, by workers making UAW wages or close to it.

Chrysler dominates with 36.6% share in the U.S., followed by GM with 15.5%, Honda with 15.5% and Toyota with 14.2% through October, according to Ward's data.

Honda and Toyota offer just one model in the U.S., GM offers four, all heavily incentivized. Yet in market share the companies are neck-and-neck. GM's share is shrinking while the others' are growing. It's not worth the effort anymore. GM is doing well with cross/utility vehicles such as the Chevy Equinox. It should blow off minivans.

If GM insists on offering minivans long-term, it hopefully will build just one in smaller volume alongside other very different vehicles. For instance, Toyota assembles Sienna minivans in an Indiana plant that also produces Sequoia SUVs and Tundra pickups.

Some argue that if GM could design a technologically advanced, dramatically styled minivan, it could dominate. But the auto maker already tried that.

The GM200s introduced in the late 1980s not only were the most advanced minivans of their day, they were among the most sophisticated mass-produced vehicles ever developed. If engineering innovation and advanced styling alone sold vehicles, the Pontiac Trans Sport, Chevrolet Lumina and Oldsmobile Silhouette would have been hits.

They featured a unique architecture with plastic panels glued to a “birdcage” steel spaceframe and dozens of other innovative features. Yet buyers likened the vehicles' pointy nose to a portable vacuum cleaner and rejected it.

More recently, Nissan attacked the minivan market with its avante garde Quest. Again, daring interior styling and a superb powertrain have not prevented it from being a dud. Nissan sold only 35,506 units through October, down 12% from last year, giving it a 3.8% share.

No auto maker is immune. Toyota, Honda and Nissan have yet to find success with big pickups.

And Volkswagen found it could not buy its way into the luxury market.

It's as if some segments have their own special code that only a few auto makers can break.

As overcapacity rises throughout the world, auto makers need to stop wasting resources trying to crack that code.