Today General Motors announced they will cease production of the Saturn line-up at the end of the 2009 model year. This is a sad day for die-hard fans, who embraced Saturn’s "different kind of car company" credo. But this is also a major set-back to GM’s plan for a complete line-up of battery electric and plug-in electric hybrid vehicles. Saturn accounted for a third of GM’s hybrid sales in 2008, and with today’s announcement that the Saturn brand will be discontinued also came word that none of the Saturn vehicles will be re-badged as anything else. According to GM, the re-badging process is just too cost-prohibitive.

Which means, in essence, the VUE plug-in will not become an Equinox plug-in, and the AURA hybrid won’t become an Impala or Malibu. These entries in GM’s line-up will be phased out with the rest of the Saturns, and hopefully the chunk of sales they garnered will be transferred to another brand, perhaps the Chevy Volt, another vehicle featured in today’s Viability Plan.

[Source: GM]