In the conversations I have had with GV, they are at the mercy of Mahindra in India as far as the official launch and delivery of trucks is concerned. The impression I get from GV is that they would love to see trucks being unloaded off the ship as much as most of us on this forum (maybe more so). I have certainly been very publicly hyper-critical of Global Vehicles in the past year, but I cannot blame them for the current delays. GV’s purpose is to be the representative of Mahindra in the US. They franchise dealers, establish infrastructure, and take care of promoting the brand. They don’t engineer or manufacture the vehicles.
I don’t want to sound like anyone has swayed me into thinking GV the greatest company in the world by any means, but I do understand that at the end of the day Mahindra runs the show and calls the shots as far as actual product hitting the ground. GV is in the precarious position of holding onto a bunch of franchise money without being able to deliver vehicles. They have a bunch of dealers around the country banking on being able to sell trucks to offset that cash outlay as soon as possible. They are being quiet on promotion and timeframe commitment because they keep getting burned. I believe they are staying quiet now, because it’s better to say nothing than bare the flames of being wrong again. If you go back to the beginning of this year, most of the news articles concerning the launch have been directly quoted from India and not from GV. The 2-3 weeks comment came from India.
Maybe Mahindra and GV haven’t done a great job of promoting/advertising the brand, but hey, they have all of us doing that for free anyway! Getting crappy news about delays is always a heartbreaker to those of us who are emotionally invested. I’m not going to tow GV’s company line, but I honestly believe that the current delays are not entirely their fault. Mahindra needs to make a plan and give us a realistic timeline. SOON!
Off my soapbox…
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