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Members of the automotive media—including myself—got a real kick out of Chevy’s new Trailblazer CUV. “Compared to the Bronco? What a stupid little machine! The Bronco is now god! The Bronco is an enthusiast vehicle! And look! It’s going to crush all of these silly, jellybean-shaped crossovers!”
Well, as it turns out, plenty of people still want CUVs. In fact, they want them so much that Chevy’s three-cylinder Trailblazer is spending much less time on dealer lots than Kia’s smash-hit Telluride. The Detroit Free Press reports that while the average car spends nearly 97 days on the lot before it gets sold, the new Trailblazer spends just 19. The Telluride sits for about 26 days, for what it’s worth.
Now, these numbers from iSeeCars do not comment on the volume of the cars being sold, just the rate at which they fly off the lot. So it’s possible that any other member of this top 10 list iSeeCars has compiled is actually outselling the Trailblazer in terms of volume. And we think that’s likely, considering that, while this list says the Bolt EV spends less time on dealer lots than the Toyota RAV4 Hybrid, we know for a fact that GM’s compact EV offering is not outselling the ‘Yota. In 2019, the RAV4 Hybrid outsold the Bolt nearly 6:1.
The whole story on the Trailblazer’s sales is actually a bit more complicated. The compact SUV is manufactured at GM’s Bupyeong plant in Inchon, South Korea, which has experienced closure and parts shortages due to the coronavirus pandemic. As a result, GM barely has the production to satisfy the demand for the CUV in its home market of South Korea—where it’s already a hit—let alone the United States.
And a quick look at the inventory numbers from websites like Cars.com gives a bit more insight into this as well. While there are nearly 3,000 Trailblazers for sale nationwide, General Motors maintains nearly 4,100 dealerships across the country. There are just not enough Trailblazers to go around. This high demand for a car that isn’t very available leads to that very short period of time sitting around in showrooms.
Brad Franz, a senior marketing manager for Chevrolet SUVs, told the Detroit Free Press, “The iSeeCars study validates all of our research to bring the Trailblazer to market with the right design, the right features, the right performance, at the right price.” Truthfully, that’s a bit one-sided and we will have to see how the small SUV performs when the supply is back to normal.
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