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GM shares have been rising on hopes of more bailout money, but 2/3 of retirement eligible workers don’t like GM’s buyout offer.
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GM shares have been rising on hopes of more bailout money, but 2/3 of retirement eligible workers don’t like GM’s buyout offer.
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Yeah I have to say, this whole “No one wants to buy big cars” thing is totally bogus. The fact of the matter is that people like their “SUVs” (an acronym which should not stand for sub-urban vehicle, as opposed to sports-utility), they like their trucks, and they like their big cars. Call it pretention, a fallic insufficiency, the (unfounded) perception of added safety, whatever you want to chalk it up to – Americans like their cars to be huge.
So you can’t fault them for not being able to turn on a dime when the shit hit the fan rather quickly.
That being said, you *can* fault them for refusing to change in the face of changing tides. That’s just plain bad judgment.
“Do nothing; let nature take its course. Let GM declare bankruptcy and work from there, if they can – or liquidate, sell off assets, release the labor pool, and let someone else try their luck at making cars.”
The problem with this theory is that it’s the equivalent of saying “Fuck New Orleans, let Katrina take its course. Those that survive the hurricane can rebuild their houses, piece their lives back together, and start from zero. Let some other enterprising citizen move in and try their luck at making a city on the bayou.”
Darwinistic, yes. But hardly a humanistic or humanizing philosophy.
16, I’ll agree with you on “sub-par” quality if we’re talking on the cheap compact cars GM made to offset the poor fuel economy of their high quality trucks and SUVs due to CAFE standards. Their trucks, SUVs, and luxury cars are certainly not suffering from a quality problem.
In fact, GM gets auto parts from the same suppliers that Toyota uses.
Perception really does lag reality. You’re letting your perception of one of GM’s market segments drive what you think is the reality of their entire fleet of automobiles. But I’ll humor you and say there’s a ton of those crappy vehicles out there and it takes time to change perception. Hyundai did it. Goldstar did it (they’re called LG now).
By the way, Hyundai is government subsidized…. just in case you didn’t know that.
20, I read you loud and clear. Just saying that your cries are falling on deaf ears with this administration…. in other words, you’re pissing in the wind.
I really think GM should put the plug as soon as possible. Does anybody on this site know if a buyout from Toyota is likely to happen? Or any other car company for that matter? The only way I can see things improve for GM, is if they embrace alternative fuel technology. Electric/hybrid cars and trucks, and make these vehicles affordable.
If I were to purchase a domestic car today, it would be a ford. The Fusions are really nice looking cars, as well as the Mustangs.
I currently drive a Honda RSX, and it’s the nicest car I’ve ever driven.
# 24 kmach844 said, “The only way I can see things improve for GM, is if they embrace alternative fuel technology. Electric/hybrid cars and trucks, and make these vehicles affordable. ”
Even the companies who have “embraced” this tech can’t make them truly competitive. No, GM needs to slash costs and make top notch vehicles.
Good luck.
Slash costs and make top notice vehicles…. I highly doubt that GM can deliver. I really don’t care personally if they go out of business or not. I don’t own stock in any of these companies, and I don’t work for them. At the end of the day I can really care less. The last chevy that I owned was a piece of crap.
You would think that GM’s business plan is to provide health care benefits to union workers and obscene bonuses to upper auto industry executives
I would like to be paid a million dollars a year to drive truck . Don’t think I will get it .
Think of the poor guys who own GM dealerships now or their workers who sell and service these automotive vehicles
If anyone deserves it they do
Wonder if they get GM benefits and health care
Sorry, the workers nor unions didn’t ream GM. Sure, corrupt union heads ate up some money that should have gone to workers but when the heads of GM always dealt with the UAW in bad faith, made poor product – and this isn’t just perception, look at the current Consumer Reports to see the black marks on GM cars versus the best cars and you’ll see this continues – and focus on short term profit over long term viability really hurt them.
Another argument against “the unions messed us up” argument is look at the toyota plants and how they aren’t doing so well either right now. Better, but still not good.
Then there’s the regularly overpaid top management and the real disregard they hold for company towns such as Flint. Ask them about it civilly and you’ll get either the boot or ignored or a non-answer.
I think the best answer is to split up the whole company into smaller units. Allow new companies to form out of the ashes, unionized, with the top management’s pay pegged at a good multiple of the average workers salary plus incentives for responsible and measured growth. Hey, America needs new car manus and all these overly large corporations are TOO LARGE TO EXIST.
But this is peanuts compared to the greed going on with the wall street companies anyway.
the EV1 was costing more to produce than they were making, that’s why they killed it. The manufacturers make the most money off of SUV and trucks, and the least off of fuel efficient vehicles. I would think that an intelligent person who wants to save GM would want them to sell more SUVs or up the price on smaller cars. But then again, people who want to “save” the planet with electric cars are morons.
#23
Guyver
Ok let’s look at GM’s offerings I’m trying want them.
I’ll admit if I was looking for a full size pickup I’d look at the Avalanche (very clever design) and the Silverado(very competitive) but that’s it. In every other segment they are not up with the best the market has to offer. The Malibu/Aura and Lucerne come close but still fall short of the best for the money in their segments. The G8 intrigues me but it’s to new and it’s a Holden import anyway if you really look into it. The Vibe is more Toyota than GM. Sorry most of The Caddy’s still have reliability issues, same with the Vett. In the rest of the segments they don’t even have a horse placing in the race. Did I miss something? My perceptions can be changed with competitive fuel economy for the segment and at least five years of better than the competition repair history numbers.
Ok full size pickups, no surprise but and even there the F150, Ram, Tundra and Titan look good too. Not as clever as the Avalanche.
I want them to make it that’s why I’m posting my views on where they are falling short in offerings. Oh and lack luster styling but I’d admit that is in the eye of the title beholder
21, Unfounded perception of added safety? Ever heard of Newton’s Second Law of Motion? I’ll be glad to take my truck up against a “smart car” like a Prius any day and see who can walk away from a high speed collision.
26, The Japanese do not have a patent on quality. It all comes down to business decisions.
GM gets parts from the same suppliers as Toyota.
You don’t think GM doesn’t buy their competition’s vehicles to see how they’re built and what price point they’ve got be selling at? You don’t think Toyota does the same?
On top of that, GM has owned a lot of foreign companies and there’s always been a sharing of tech.
It’s not a matter of whether or not GM can make a quality vehicle because they can. GM’s battle is changing public perception which is lagging behind reality (partially their fault) and to decide what level of quality they want to give you for a specific price point.
Now if you want Cadillac quality at a Yaris price point, then you’re dreaming. Toyota won’t give you Lexus quality at a Yaris price point either. Hopefully when you do a “comparative analysis” you do an apples-to-apples comparison.
That being said, I’ve owned my current Chevy for over 11 years, it has over 165k, and it has survived hitting a deer at full speed on the highway. My truck will easily reach and surpass 200k. I have no complaints.
Always backward looking.
Cars are retro. The future is mass transit.
3-4 threads today showing how assbackwards our society really is. No wonder we are tripping on our pet notions or individualistic anarchy and refusing to plan for our own futures.
Our kiddies will scratch their heads and wonder.
You can split the companies up all you want. Product is what draws people to the dealerships, and people just aren’t flocking over to these guys.
There is a lot of options available to people nowadays, as well as used cars that run perfectly fine that people are buying as well. You can buy a decent used car that’s a few years old and slash the price tag by half, on some of these models. There is no reason why people should be buying, “brand new” cars nowadays. Unless you really like that “brand new” car smell.
30, Okay a few things.
I’m indifferent as to whether or not GM sinks or swims. But I do think that saying GM can’t or doesn’t make high quality is for a very narrowly defined group of vehicles.
Bang for the buck is a totally different argument. We were talking solely on the merits of quality and/or initial build quality, as well as perception or so I thought.
Although I’m not a car guy, but didn’t the Cadillac win a Motor Trend Car of the Year last year? And didn’t Motor Trend also give rave reviews on the new Malibu last year?
GM is shifting gears from focusing on Trucks and SUVs to their smaller cars given the current state of the economy. But it takes time to do monolithic changes like that while there are large inventories of vehicles sitting on car lots. It doesn’t happen overnight. Heck, how long have the Volt and new Camaro been under development? And people really want those vehicles. GM is doing the R&D on those vehicles as quickly as they possibly can.
Toyota and others do not have a patent on quality. It all comes down to price point. I understand that ties in with your bang for the buck gripe, but that has nothing to do with quality. GM might be wise to be a little less greedy in that regards so as to move inventory.
Reliability is tied into quality, but it’s really a category all its own. I’ve seen “high quality” stuff break down when they shouldn’t have. And since GM offers a 100,000 mile warranty for all their vehicles, it seems to me that regardless of perceived lack of quality (or reliability in your case), you are covered.
The big three have already known how to make quality products; the fact that they dominate the truck and SUV markets are proof of that. And they implement it well (when they want to). They CAN do the same for their compact or smaller vehicles. It’s not voodoo, but it takes time to redesign and relaunch products. Their new Malibu / Lucerne and G6/G8 are the first salvo, but I think the shifting of gears has begun. Time will tell.
“And they implement it well (when they want to).” /// Didn’t you or somebody say they were an engineer and fought management/unions all the time to make changes?
Anyway, this sounds like RNC chair Steele saying he tricked Limbaugh into ripping him a new asshole. One can only imagine how much worse things would be if our governmental and corporate masters weren’t so smart and competent.
35, I did not make the engineer comment, but I have had my battles with unions. IMHO they served a purpose in our history, but I personally think they’ve outlived their usefulness.
Unions impede productivity and protect far too many useless workers. Don’t get me wrong, there are some really good workers who are members of unions (whether coerced into membership or not). But when it comes to trimming the fat, performance and skills take a back seat to seniority within the unions.
When GM collapses and China makes all the products we used to make, do you think they might convert a few of their plants to make a few airplanes and tanks for us when we have to confront their take overs.
Madtruckmen,
The responsibility is NEVER on the hourly workers. Never. It is the responsibilities of upper management and department teams to make it work. If it doesn’t work, the only reason and answer is because the teams don’t want to implement the changes; changes that have already been proven for most manufacturing environments.
We’re talking about the basics of not wasting a single sheet a paper to improving the assembly line for higher output in addition better quality. Oh well…
Thanks for your reply…
#36–Guyver==I agree mostly. Still, given the history and the unwillingness of government to enforce laws, I think the threat of unions does keep management more in line than they would be otherwise. Expensive and wasteful to do it that way, but maybe the best realistic balance.
37, Hard saying. COTS was a good idea for businesses in general, but when you throw it into national defense tech it doesn’t pan out so well.
We already use a lot of their stuff in our military and the military is not happy about the matter.
DARPA is already looking into kill switches and backdoors for many products we rely on that have parts from China.
The PLA are big believers in assymetric warfare and are actively looking for ways to exploit a technologically superior military. Cyberwarefare is a growing concern with the U.S. military especially since things are going very network-centric with FCS and UAVs.
But alas, China is the next big thing and anybody and everybody doesn’t want to be left out of the Chinese revolution. Businesses will make a deal with the devil so to speak in order to make tons of money at the expense of everyone.
Hopefully China will implode from all those Chinese wanting to look at Western porn and/or find out about things such as Darfur and Tiananmen Square through their great firewall of theirs.