General Motors has taken some flak from reviewers over the Pontiac G3, and here's why. The G3 is already sold in a virtually identical version in the United States as the Chevrolet Aveo5. In fact, GM sells it under eleven different names around the world, with almost no differences between them. Further, though it's the smallest car in the Pontiac lineup, it's less fuel efficient on the highway than some versions of the G5. Unfortunately, this is the negative type of item that's keeping GM in the news far more than they would like to be of late.

The car that became the G3 started out as the Daewoo Kalos. At the time it was in development, Daewoo suffered a severe financial crisis and the South Korean government forced them to sell the automobile division, which was bought by General Motors, as noted, currently undergoing a crisis of their own.

GM continued the development of the Kalos and, beginning in 2002, brought the car to the Asian, European, South American, Canadian and United States markets under different names. None of those original names was G3, although the vehicle was marketed in Canada as the Pontiac Wave.

The second generation of this design began in 2006. In the 2009 model year, the G3 was included. It comes in only one trim, a hatchback. The G3 engine is a 1.6 liter, 106 horsepower gasoline powered I4 matched with a choice of two transmissions. The standard transmission is a five-speed manual, while there is an optional four-speed automatic, both with overdrive.

Bad investment for GM (and for buyers?) or not, the G3 does have good fuel efficiency numbers. The manual transmission version gets 27 miles per gallon in the city and 34 miles per gallon on the highway. The automatic transmission gets two miles per gallon less in the city.

On the other hand, 106 horsepower is just too light. Tagged as the lowest performing car in its class, the power to weight ratio is not good. Safety is good for a subcompact, with five stars from NHTSA for front crash tests and four stars everywhere else. The IIHS ratings are not available.

Base price for the Pontiac G3 is $14,335 in the top third of its class. As noted, not everything about the car is bad. But all in all, the future for the G3 may look even bleaker than that of GM, itself. And that's too bleak by half.