That reinforces my point. Because of UAW contracts, GM has a harder time ramping down production, therefore they should NOT try to match total demand in an up-year because if there's a dip they won't be able to scale back. They should match demand to a down year, or at most, and average year. They won't be as big (revenues) but they'll maintain profitability and efficiency (utilization of contracted labor) with much more stability.
That they have been offering massive discounts and dumping cars into rental fleets for year after year after year, means that their production planning is broken... whether you want to blame that on management or UAW, I don't care. I'm just making the point that they've been producing far too many cars, even for good years, and it's okay to sell out your inventory and "leave money on the table."
But for Toyota it's only one model, and while they weren't completely successful in breaking into that market, you don't see a huge surplus of Tundras offered at huge discounts (except when gas prices peaked and you couldn't give away big trucks). They only produced what they could actually sell. Toyota's was a marketing and design failure and somewhat limited (Tundras actually do really well on the West Coast), while GM's was a corporate strategy failure that applies to every division.
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