A few days ago, General Motors confirmed that the Chevrolet brand's Malibu model is planned to be officially discontinued in November 2024, which also means that a generation of classic models is about to come to an end.
When it comes to Malibu, many people will think of a slogan that has been circulating on the Internet for a long time, "D silk three treasures, K5 Suoba Malibu", in fact, although Malibu is sold at a lower price, it should be admitted that in the mid-level car market, this is a good car with excellent handling and high cost performance.
Launched in 1964, the Malibu sedan was named after Malibu Beach, a famous tourist destination in California, USA, and the original Malibu was launched in three models, namely a two-door, convertible and touring version, and achieved sales of 200,000 units in its first year on the market.
From 1965 to 1966, the Malibu SS was built with a 5.4-liter 350-horsepower engine and a 6.5-liter 375-horsepower engine that accelerated from zero to 96 km/h in just 6.2 seconds.
The second and third generations of the subsequent models, Malibu were representatives of American muscle cars, with strong power performance, but due to the impact of the American oil crisis, from the fourth generation in 1978, Malibu transformed into a four-door sedan with fuel economy and practicality as the selling point, and in 1983 the rear-wheel drive was abolished, and since then, Malibu has become a family sedan with excellent handling.
Starting with the fifth-generation Malibu in 1997, the overall body became rounded and streamlined, and competitors also directly targeted the Toyota Camry. In the seventh generation in 2007, it was even more directly typed "Be careful! Camry", but in terms of sales, it has not been a match for the Camry, both in the North American market and in the global market.
In 2011, the eighth-generation Malibu was launched, which is also the most familiar Malibu of ours, and this generation even made its world premiere directly at the Shanghai Auto Show, with 2.0-liter and 2.4-liter direct-injection engines and a 6-speed automatic transmission. Relying on the price of German and Japanese joint venture cars, it has become a group of dark horses in the mid-level car market.
In just 4 years in 2015, Malibu's global sales reached 10 million, that is, in November of this year, Malibu's ninth-generation model came to the current Malibu, and in February of the following year, the ninth-generation Malibu was introduced into China and was named Malibu XL.
In January 2019, Malibu XL sold 13,931 units, becoming the highlight of this classic model in the domestic market, and Chevrolet will sell about 169,000 units in China in 2023, of which Malibu's sales account for about 9.05%, that is, about 15,300 units, which has shown a lot of decline. In 2024, Malibu XL will only sell more than 200 units per month. In 2023, GM sold only 130,000 Malibus in the global market, and sales fell by 47% in the last three months of the year.
In fact, the mechanical quality of this car is not bad, the handling is solid, the power performance and fuel economy are okay, but the interior design is really a little outdated, in addition, Chevrolet's brand appeal in the Chinese market has declined, which may be an important reason for the decline in Malibu sales.
Malibu's current 1.5T power version market price is only more than 110,000 yuan, and the 2.0T version of the market price is only 13-150,000 yuan, the cost performance is still quite high, the discontinuation of this car, may be regrettable, but it seems to be expected, because Malibu product line is basically loss-making, General Motors must reduce products, to cope with the decline in domestic market share, and Malibu product line, will turn to the production of pure electric car Chevrolet Bolt.