Early last month GM made the big announcement that it planned to drop the Chevrolet brand in Europe by the end of 2015. From that point onward, GM will put the focus on its Opel/Vauxhall brands as its European bread and butter. Many were caught off guard by this decision, but GM is positive it's making the right business move. So what was the ultimate reason why Chevy was given the axe in Europe? Chevy was undermining Opel and Vauxhall sales.

The brand also wasn't worth the continued financial investment because GM failed to properly differentiate it from Opel/Vauxhall models. The problem was that the products were based on the same platforms and were too similar. They cost the same to produce, so it wasn't possible to present one as a budget version of the other...we decided Vauxhall-Opel was the stronger brand, and for it to thrive we needed to avoid disturbing that," according to Chevrolet's global boss, Alan Batey.