Will GM make cars folk want to buy in the future?

[Ford Jellymoulds]

Daily Telegraph reports........

LINK

 

 

 

By 1954, GM controlled 54pc of the US car market, having sold 50m cars in less than 50 years.

 

GM became so entrenched in the American psyche that it led outgoing GM president Charles Erwin Wilson to famously comment that he thought "what was good for the country was good for General Motors." And so it seemed, especially when GM became the first American company to pay $1bn in taxes in 1955.

 

By the late 1970's – the company's hey-day – GM's US employment peaked at 618,365, making it the biggest employer in the whole of America, with the bulk of its employees in the Mid-West. Around the world, it employed a further 235,000 people.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

But with the rise of some of the large Asian manufacturers, it was in that era that the seeds for GM's demise were also sown. After losing $750m in 1980 after its car and truck sales fell 26pc that year due to high fuel prices, GM set about work on the new Saturn marque, a smaller type of car to be made largely by robots and computers by non-unionised staff at a new plant in Tennessee. In spite of initial strong sales when the first car rolled off the assembly line in 1990, the Saturn brand quickly dwindled, as a result of under-investment and much lower fuel prices, with consumers instead demanding bigger trucks and powerful 4X4's.

 

The sheen on GM's bumper was definitely beginning to fade by the start of the mid 1990s. Not only did it waste time and money buying up a number of non-vehicle subsidiaries – such as Hughes Aircraft and outsourcer Data Systems (EDS) – which it would later go on to sell, it also began to start having renewed troubles with the UAW which led to tighter contracts and better benefits for its US workers.

 

A year after it closed 11 plants across America in 1986, the union forced the company into a contract which stopped GM from closing a plant unless its sales – rather than its profits – fell.

 

With increased costs, not least due to greater safety standards, GM posted what was then a record loss of $4.45bn in 1991. Soon after it shut 21 factories, made 24,000 staff redundant, and, in 1999, span off its part supplier Delphi, in a move that would trigger Delphi's own bankruptcy and further financial woe for GM.

 

In 2004 then chairman Rick Wagoner took some drastic decisions, closing Oldsmobile, GM's oldest marque. He began to cut white-collar workers, and buy factory workers out of their expensive contracts. But it was not enough.

 

The company's unwieldly cost base was too large to be serviced by declining sales and greater costs, even after raising $14bn from the partial sale of its financing arm. While GM's average hourly labour cost was in excess of $80, rivals like Honda and Toyota were paying roughly $30-an-hour less, and so could produce the same or arguably better cars for less. By 2007, GM lost $38.7bn, the largest loss in the history of the US car industry, and one that led it in part to its doomed aforementioned September 2007 contract with the UAW.

 

The reason the 2007 UAW contract was such a drain on GM's finances was because it made a commitment to pay $20bn directly to the UAW to set up the healthcare trust. Although a reduction in the total sum owed, previously GM had been servicing the healthcare costs at around $5bn a year, but now was being forced to make a lump-sum payment.

 

GM's balance sheet at the end of March 2009 shows it had $172bn of debts and just $82bn of assets. Those debts include $24bn of pensions, $22bn of union-related long-term healthcare costs, not to mention $28bn of long-term debt. It even owed its suppliers $18bn.

 

 

 

 

The new GM will consist of three of its strongest car brands – Chevvy, Cadillac and Buick – as well as its GMC truck brand by 2012. Gone will be the Pontiac, Saturn and Hummer brands. It will also cut the number of manufacturing sites across North America, including Canada, to 33 within three years, from 47 at the end of last year.

 

Earlier this month, it placed 1,100 dealers across the US on notice that they are risk of losing their franchise, and in total plans to lose 2,300 from its 6,000-strong network. The number of North American employees will fall to 72,000 by 2012 from 92,000 at the end of March, and as parts of its global operations – such as its European assets – are sold to the highest bidder, its total workforce will fall drastically from the 235,000 on the payroll at the end of March.

 

Of those, factory workers will be cut by 61,000 at the end of last year to 40,000 next year. Even more importantly, as a result of last week's agreement with the UAW, onerous rules regarding breaks, vacation and overtime have been changed; some retiree benefits such as dental and optician payments have been cut; and the UAW cannot strike against further job cuts until September 2015 at the earliest. The deal brings $1bn of savings a year to GM's costs.

 

Of course key to all this is whether GM will be able to make cars that people want. Interestingly??????????????

LINK

WHEN?

 

Gotta say you will get much the same - Lutz boring bland dull Jello cars with Classic Silverado propping up the boring car junk, nothing will change at GM they are clueless to what the buyer wants. Lutz's new "Tony" car in Europe was the one car that help start the decline in the 80's, and GM slippery slope also started at that time as its market share plunged bigtime, as boring dull & bland was their idea of what the buyer wanted.

 

GM slippery slope and declining marketshare timeline

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2009/05...M_TIMELINE.html

Edited June 1, 2009 by Ford Jellymoulds

[Roadrunner]

Lutz' Tony car? You talking about the Scorpio? (Just was reading about it yesterday on Wikipedia).

[tommy8768]

Daily Telegraph reports........

LINK

 

 

 

By 1954, GM controlled 54pc of the US car market, having sold 50m cars in less than 50 years.

 

GM became so entrenched in the American psyche that it led outgoing GM president Charles Erwin Wilson to famously comment that he thought "what was good for the country was good for General Motors." And so it seemed, especially when GM became the first American company to pay $1bn in taxes in 1955.

 

By the late 1970's – the company's hey-day – GM's US employment peaked at 618,365, making it the biggest employer in the whole of America, with the bulk of its employees in the Mid-West. Around the world, it employed a further 235,000 people.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

But with the rise of some of the large Asian manufacturers, it was in that era that the seeds for GM's demise were also sown. After losing $750m in 1980 after its car and truck sales fell 26pc that year due to high fuel prices, GM set about work on the new Saturn marque, a smaller type of car to be made largely by robots and computers by non-unionised staff at a new plant in Tennessee. In spite of initial strong sales when the first car rolled off the assembly line in 1990, the Saturn brand quickly dwindled, as a result of under-investment and much lower fuel prices, with consumers instead demanding bigger trucks and powerful 4X4's.

 

The sheen on GM's bumper was definitely beginning to fade by the start of the mid 1990s. Not only did it waste time and money buying up a number of non-vehicle subsidiaries – such as Hughes Aircraft and outsourcer Data Systems (EDS) – which it would later go on to sell, it also began to start having renewed troubles with the UAW which led to tighter contracts and better benefits for its US workers.

 

A year after it closed 11 plants across America in 1986, the union forced the company into a contract which stopped GM from closing a plant unless its sales – rather than its profits – fell.

 

With increased costs, not least due to greater safety standards, GM posted what was then a record loss of $4.45bn in 1991. Soon after it shut 21 factories, made 24,000 staff redundant, and, in 1999, span off its part supplier Delphi, in a move that would trigger Delphi's own bankruptcy and further financial woe for GM.

 

In 2004 then chairman Rick Wagoner took some drastic decisions, closing Oldsmobile, GM's oldest marque. He began to cut white-collar workers, and buy factory workers out of their expensive contracts. But it was not enough.

 

The company's unwieldly cost base was too large to be serviced by declining sales and greater costs, even after raising $14bn from the partial sale of its financing arm. While GM's average hourly labour cost was in excess of $80, rivals like Honda and Toyota were paying roughly $30-an-hour less, and so could produce the same or arguably better cars for less. By 2007, GM lost $38.7bn, the largest loss in the history of the US car industry, and one that led it in part to its doomed aforementioned September 2007 contract with the UAW.

 

The reason the 2007 UAW contract was such a drain on GM's finances was because it made a commitment to pay $20bn directly to the UAW to set up the healthcare trust. Although a reduction in the total sum owed, previously GM had been servicing the healthcare costs at around $5bn a year, but now was being forced to make a lump-sum payment.

 

GM's balance sheet at the end of March 2009 shows it had $172bn of debts and just $82bn of assets. Those debts include $24bn of pensions, $22bn of union-related long-term healthcare costs, not to mention $28bn of long-term debt. It even owed its suppliers $18bn.

 

 

 

 

The new GM will consist of three of its strongest car brands – Chevvy, Cadillac and Buick – as well as its GMC truck brand by 2012. Gone will be the Pontiac, Saturn and Hummer brands. It will also cut the number of manufacturing sites across North America, including Canada, to 33 within three years, from 47 at the end of last year.

 

Earlier this month, it placed 1,100 dealers across the US on notice that they are risk of losing their franchise, and in total plans to lose 2,300 from its 6,000-strong network. The number of North American employees will fall to 72,000 by 2012 from 92,000 at the end of March, and as parts of its global operations – such as its European assets – are sold to the highest bidder, its total workforce will fall drastically from the 235,000 on the payroll at the end of March.

 

Of those, factory workers will be cut by 61,000 at the end of last year to 40,000 next year. Even more importantly, as a result of last week's agreement with the UAW, onerous rules regarding breaks, vacation and overtime have been changed; some retiree benefits such as dental and optician payments have been cut; and the UAW cannot strike against further job cuts until September 2015 at the earliest. The deal brings $1bn of savings a year to GM's costs.

 

Of course key to all this is whether GM will be able to make cars that people want. Interestingly??????????????

LINK

WHEN?

 

Gotta say you will get much the same - Lutz boring bland dull Jello cars with Classic Silverado propping up the boring car junk, nothing will change at GM they are clueless to what the buyer wants. Lutz's new "Tony" car in Europe was the one car that help start the decline in the 80's, and GM slippery slope also started at that time as its market share plunged bigtime, as boring dull & bland was their idea of what the buyer wanted.

 

GM slippery slope and declining marketshare timeline

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2009/05...M_TIMELINE.html

How much excitement do you need from a car? They're transportation! Most people want dull boring cars because they cant or dont want to pay for an exciting one. Want an exciting car? Ship an old Chevelle or Camaro or Mustang over to the UK...that is if it will fit on the roads and you can afford to fuel it. Thank the EU for getting rid of EXCITING cars over there.

[Ford Jellymoulds]

How much excitement do you need from a car? They're transportation! Most people want dull boring cars because they cant or dont want to pay for an exciting one. Want an exciting car? Ship an old Chevelle or Camaro or Mustang over to the UK...that is if it will fit on the roads and you can afford to fuel it. Thank the EU for getting rid of EXCITING cars over there.

 

We did use to have exciting cars in the UK the Capri-Cortina-Escort kool Fords killed off & wiped British Leyland off the car manufacturing map as their boring dull bland cars as they went in and out of Bankruptcy and watched them drop from 40% in 1968 down to zero. Ford market share was 32% when Lutz decided to bring in "Tony" it's market share then halfed down to 16% by the mid 1980's.

 

American Leyland (Government Motors) are going the same way they now sell about the same as British Leyland in the next to nothing in the UK as they have sold of everything they own in Europe. EU has not banned exciting cars last time l looked the local Aston Martin, Ferrari, Porsche, & Lambo etc dealers are still in my area and their companies are still making billions in profits.

 

Please take the trouble to please read the "G.M.''''s road from Prosperity to Crisis" link that l have provided, it claims GM were building "Exciting" cars folk wanted to buy up until the mid 1980's about the same time as Lutz "Tony" arrived at Ford in Europe. GM also had the biggest drop of in market share ever in the 1980's when they introduced boring dull and bland, and today American Leyland have disappeared to almost with zero sales in Europe today.

 

Read the link we had exciting up until GM cars ended in the 1980's and a lot of GM's worlds market share went with it boring range of jello fridges arrived on the scene, when a cars become nothing more than a boring souless fridge on mass Toyota king of souless reliable fridges own the US car market, Classic Old Skool kool styled F-Series & Chevy Silverado have not let the Japs in yet Tommy Toyota but given time as models have to change every 5-7 years some idiot at Ford & GM make the jello pick-up and that will be the end of pick-up as bland boring dull Honda & Yota take over the markets as folk get pissed off with American Leyland jello fridge pick-ups.

 

"G.M.'''''''s road from Prosperity to crisis"

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2009/05...M_TIMELINE.html

American Leyland started to sink in the 1980's from then onwards GM posted their first ever loss in the 1980's as the boring dull bland junk arrived on the scene for the first time, it has been a real success for American Leyland they have next to zero sales in Europe in 2009 so Fridge design has really worked well for them as they become a much smaller company they look like a bit of BL history repeating itself?

Edited June 2, 2009 by Ford Jellymoulds

[NickF1011]

Knew it wouldn't be long before you started a thread on this.

 

The answer is: They already are.

 

Last month, General Motors sold more vehicles than any other company in the United States. Gee, you think people were FORCED to buy vehicles from them? No. They bought them because they WANTED them.

 

End of argument.

[Ford Jellymoulds]

Knew it wouldn't be long before you started a thread on this.

 

The answer is: They already are.

 

Last month, General Motors sold more vehicles than any other company in the United States. Gee, you think people were FORCED to buy vehicles from them? No. They bought them because they WANTED them.

 

End of argument.

 

You are a bit sloooooooow Nick this thread was around before GM anounced they were bankrupt

 

How many will GM be selling in Europe in the future?

Close to Zero from now on

 

How many sales will 4 brands that are left bring in this month in the USA and in the future Nick?

We shall see today.

 

GO GO GO Old Skool Kool Classic Silverado show them junk GM jello cars how its done.

Edited June 2, 2009 by Ford Jellymoulds

[NickF1011]

You are a bit sloooooooow Nick this thread was around before GM anounced they were bankrupt

 

How many will GM be selling in Europe in the future?

Close to Zero from now on

 

How many sales will 4 brands that are left bring in this month in the USA and in the future Nick?

We shall see today.

 

GO GO GO Old Skool Kool Classic Silverado show them junk GM jello cars how its done.

 

So are you saying GM should sell the Silverado in Europe?

 

There's nothing more "Old Skool Classic" about the Silverado than there is about the Malibu, Impala, Camaro, or any other vehicle GM currently sells. It has adopted all of the same aerodynamic and styling principles as every other vehicle in GM's lineup.

[tommy8768]

Silverados wouldnt even fit on most of the roads in Europe ....I was in Ireland a few years ago driving a Peugeot and a front end loader was going the other way. He had to pick the bucket up so we could get by!! Besides at 1.30 euro per LITER who the hell could afford to drive one anyway?

[630land]

"GM set about work on the new Saturn marque, ... made largely by robots and computers by non-unionised staff"

 

Not true at all, the UAW was always involved with Saturn. How much other incorrect data is in the 'report'?

[Anthony]

The only thing worse then copying and pasting an entire article into a post is quoting it. :rolleyes:

[guesswhoscomingtodinner]

It depends on how Obama wants to run his newly acquired company. Look at other dictatorships that had car companies. The people didn't have much choice, they had to buy the people's car.

[NickF1011]

It depends on how Obama wants to run his newly acquired company. Look at other dictatorships that had car companies. The people didn't have much choice, they had to buy the people's car.

 

:rolleyes:

 

Really??