GM to return to vehicle leasing early this year

Posted: Jan 13, 2009
Filed under: GM, Industry News

According to Mark LaNeve, GM’s sales chief for North America, General Motors plans to re-enter the vehicle lease business early this year. The leasing business could see about 5 percent of its U.S. sales said LaNeve.

“We’re looking to re-enter the leasing business on at least a limited basis at some point in 2009,” GM’s sales chief for North America, Mark LaNeve, told Reuters.

GMAC stopped financing vehicle leases last year when credit tightened and the economy slowed down. However, last month GMAC won approval to become a bank holding company and the U.S. Treasury also took a $5 billion stake in the finance company.

GMAC getting back up on its feet will help GM win new sales in the coming months said LaNeve. He said that he would like GM’s leasing business to return to 5 percent to 10 percent of sales rather than 20 percent to 25 percent.

Share |  Email  Print |



  • Lemon Cadillac
    This is good since I wouldn't recommend buying a GM product based on my experience with my 2007 CTS. If I were to do it all over again, I would have leased it so I could turn it in when things start going wrong rather than being stuck paying for the countless repairs just to keep in running right
  • Bobmarley
    Dont forget about the depreciation your incurring, cars depreciate the most in the first year of ownership. Your CTS goes down about $5-7k in the first year so add that to your payments and compare it to what you could have leased it for. . . leasing is nice when you can write it off to your business!!! =0
  • zermatt
    This is not a surprise as leasing has been an effective overstock release valve.

    Since this industry has no self control (they have never been able to kick the rebate habit), look for leasing to spread well beyond the 5% the story indicates and the all important inflated residual values will return.
blog comments powered by Disqus