Earlier this year the owner of car brands like Pontiac and Chevrolet, General Motors, filed for bankruptcy. However, they have now been able to turn things around and have stopped receiving protection from bankruptcy.

After sorting themselves out, they are now trying some new methods in an attempt to bring more sales to the business. The company are looking into a series of new methods to sell their vehicles. The first method they have already tried but pulled out of last year, and that’s car leasing. They have put together plans to once again return to the contract hire market sometime in the next month. Because the deals would be coming directly from GM, they could offer very cheap van leasing offers as they can sell the cars right off the production line.

The other method they are trying to the more news worthy one, they are going to be making deals with eBay, the online auction site. As of yesterday, General Motors began listing Buick, GMC, Chevrolet and Pontiac cars for the California area on the online auction site.

The idea is to run the listings on a trial basis until the start of September, however, with over 225 of their 250 Californian dealers already signed up to the scheme, it’s already proving to be popular. The system will work by customers buying the cars for the listed price, or they can haggle for a lower price. After the car has been purchased, the buyer must travel to one of the registered General Motor dealers to get their new car.

If eBay and General Motors find the system to work well, they will consider spanning it across the US. Also if it does prove successful for GM, I wonder whether we will see other companies offer their own cars for lease such as a Mazda lease.