...What would you do to improve things for the long term? That's given the current "bridge loan" thing they are getting. What brands/cars would you get rid of, if any? Would you try to merge with Chrysler? Close more plants? Try to consolidate/reduce dealerships?

Personally, I think all this crap people have been saying about GM needing to make more hybrids is not going to help profitability.

[Edited on December 24, 2008 at 2:03 PM. Reason : we need to get a good thread going here]

12/24/2008 2:02:41 PM

file bankruptcy to get rid of the fucking unions first off.

12/24/2008 2:03:24 PM

What about the argument that bankruptcy would do more harm then good by reducing confidence in the brand?

12/24/2008 2:03:54 PM

the brand is fucked without bankruptcy.

and by brand i meant company..brand, everything.

[Edited on December 24, 2008 at 2:32 PM. Reason : asdf]

12/24/2008 2:16:34 PM

^^^totally agreed

^^confidence can be replaced by innovation and lower costs, two things being fucked in the ass by unions right now

take a look at the plant they just opened in brazil

one line can make like 15 different models*, instead of the american-line model where they can only make different levels of one model; so the new plant will have more flexibility in what you're building, so you therefore have less inventory backed up of certain models and can meet demand faster for popular models

but the unions are patently against that kind of innovation, because it would require the workers learn a trade rather than a specialization

fuckin george jetsons only want to push the sprocket button

(*it could obviously be a number lower than that, i'll try to find the article again)

[Edited on December 24, 2008 at 2:20 PM. Reason : ^this guy fucked my carats]

12/24/2008 2:19:20 PM

Short answer (more perhaps when I have time):
-Chevrolet: Get the Volt into production, replace the Aveo and Cobalt with cars that are actually competetive, get a redesigned Impala and Trailblazer into the marketplace.
-Cadillac: Get the CTS coupe into production, replace the XLR with a real "halo car", consider a serious upmarket model to challenge the likes of S-class, 7-series, LS600
-GMC: Envoy/Denali is old, get that redesign out.
-Pontiac: See what I said several posts above.
-Buick: Entry-luxury niche plan, similar to Pontiac in concept. Lucerne and Enclave are good cars, LaCrosse needs help.
-Saturn: Kill it.
-Hummer: Kill it.
-SAAB: Try to sell it, if no one wants it, kill it.

No to merger with Chrysler--you're taking on a sinking ship, and all that GM would get out of it would really be the Jeep brand and the minivans. While GM could really use a quality minivan, Chrysler isn't worth the hassle IMO.

Yes to close plants and dealerships.

12/24/2008 2:33:53 PM

from the point of view of working with them as a supplier they really really need to stop trying to save money up front on tooling for their programs.. it fucks them hard in the long run usually. we constantly have problems with all the tools they build because they try to save $10-20K (that's maybe 10%) when they have them built and in exchange they get a piece of shit. They have to blow hundreds of thousands over the life of the program (on each piece..think one radio button * all the interior pieces that exist..) to expedite parts around the country, send the tool out for repairs, ship it back, expedite fees, blah blah blah.

We work with some foreigh automakers a lot and they never seem to have this problem.. like, once a year maybe something will need to be repaired but generally speaking they save a shit load because of spending more up front.

Also.. when they transfer a program from Europe to the US and decide to build new tools with a different company in the US they need to actually give whoever is building any new tooling all the information, CAD Data, problems, etc about the existing tooling. The way it usually works now we have to start over from scratch even when the car is already being built and there is tons of data/work that has already been done..but instead we have to do it all over again. In the end we could have made something better than already exists with a lot less work if they weren't such a clusterfuck..or we could have copied the existing tooling and not had to pay any designers and they would have gotten a huge ass discount..

k that isn't exactly answering the original question but it's shit i notice everyday

/rant

[Edited on December 24, 2008 at 2:46 PM. Reason : asdf]

12/24/2008 2:45:26 PM

whoops, its ford's new plant in brazil, not GM

gm just opened another plant in china, but i don't think its that innovative

http://www.detroitnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070822/AUTO01/708220407/1148

its going to be odd when "american" car companies are getting better results out of their foreign production units while the american plants will be standing around asking HOW DO I SHOT WEB

12/24/2008 3:11:07 PM

oil companies would buy the shit outta that 200 mpg car and destroy it. they gotta make theirs.

12/24/2008 3:53:32 PM

hey heres an idea

lets stop looking at the future of cars as petroleum based

12/24/2008 4:17:26 PM

^never going to happen realistically, at least not for many many decades. i don't think a continuing future in petroleum based cars is a bad thing in addition to exploring other ideas, but we certainly need to at least loosen the death grip oil companies have on the manufacturers and the government. the technology is there do to a lot more, it's just withheld and stamped out.

Quote :

"file bankruptcy to get rid of the fucking unions first off."

AMEN. that's one of the top if not THE primary problem.

[Edited on December 24, 2008 at 4:55 PM. Reason : .]

12/24/2008 4:53:32 PM

make it so people don't have to go through hell and back at a stupid dealership in order to actually buy the damn things.

12/24/2008 5:56:10 PM

it really grinds my gears when people talk about unions being the downfall. i agree they have it a little too good( i.e. gm spending millions on viagra etc.) they are workers making a living to support their families. compare gm to honda/toyota . gm labors make double that of the average honda employee seems crazy until you see that despite never having a non profitable yr hondas ceo along with 35 other top execs make a combined 13 million and toyota's ceo takes home a mil/yr .... gm paid out almost 12 mill to their ceo the yr before last. i think shit like this has really contributed to the economic crisis u are either a peasant or elite . and companies can't pay their workers so low a wage tat they can't buy their products. pay the people who deserve to get paid . make the ceo salary =1$ and give him nothing but performance based bonues./ rant

12/24/2008 6:41:34 PM

you really didn't make a point at all. you admitted the union employees cost twice what other employees do and still think that's a good thing? you forgot to mention BMW..yea, they don't use unions and how much did they make last year? maybe it's not quite the same category of car, but saying that unions aren't a problem is asinine, ignorance..or both.

12/24/2008 6:56:40 PM

so you blame it on the union worker making double but not mention the ceo making 10x what other profitable ceos are making??

12/24/2008 6:59:15 PM

you need to do the math on how much every single union employee making twice the norm actually adds up to be. the 10x the "norm" on the CEO salary doesn't even compare to that number.

[Edited on December 24, 2008 at 7:03 PM. Reason : although i agree with you 100% on performance based bonuses only for the CEO's]

12/24/2008 7:03:21 PM

but it's not just the ceo u'd have to multiply my number by the collection of the high level execs that are all being grossly over paid just like the union workers. the difference in the ceo's alone(toyota vs gm) pay alone could pay the salary of 200 gm union workers.

[Edited on December 24, 2008 at 7:10 PM. Reason : .]

12/24/2008 7:10:03 PM

does GM pay healthcare? cause if obama nationalizes healthcare wouldnt that save them some money?

12/24/2008 7:11:12 PM

you do realize that there are 75,000 union workers, right?



[Edited on December 24, 2008 at 7:12 PM. Reason : question is to ^^.. just ignore downy, he'll leave sooner or later]

[Edited on December 24, 2008 at 7:13 PM. Reason : well, as of feb12 2008 there were that many..probably a little diff now]

12/24/2008 7:12:17 PM

Unions are a pain in the ass.

I know at my plant the old union members get paid Premium (i've heard guys making 6-figures including over-time); and for a lot of them as their age increases the amount of work they do decreases.

Almost a joke it is about a lot of the seniority guys that literally take cig breaks every hour and spend most the day sitting around. For a project I had this month I had two different calibrators at different points of the month working with me.

Calibrator #1- Is this old white guy (early 60's) charged 30 hours to install and calibrate 4 MFC's. Half the time i went looking for him he was not around and he seemed to be content with as taking as long as time possible to finish the job.

Calibrator #2- On the other hand was a black guy 50's luckily he has better work ethic than #1. He accomplished 3x the work 12 MFC's in 40 hours.

The worst part of #1 is I flat out caught him trying to lie and charge extra hours on days he most certainly did not work. One of them was for XMAS which he would have gotten 3x overtime. Sure nice of #1 though to use his Time Machine to help me with my project by traveling to the future.

Yet nothing is going to happen to him but a slap on the wrist b.c then his supervisor would have to do deal with the unions.

I agree with the concept though of unions in theory. What I don't agree with are closed-shops. Companies should not be restricted to solely employ members of the union and non-members should not face discrimination from the unionized employees at their job.



[Edited on December 24, 2008 at 7:24 PM. Reason : l]

12/24/2008 7:18:15 PM

wrist

and then

12/24/2008 7:20:29 PM

Quote :

"75,000 union workers, right? "

yeah but if gm doesnt have to pay their healthcare gm is more profitable

12/24/2008 7:22:07 PM

downy, please leave

12/24/2008 7:24:12 PM

and once again - its not just union pay levels that hurt the companies

unions represent the old way of doing things and fight tooth and nail to avoid the future, because the bulk of their membership is not equipped to advance, adjust, and accept new ways of manufacturing

i know its old and it was a comedy, but the movie Gung Ho is still very relevant to today's discussion

and you talk about non-union workers getting paid half, thats because the foreign car makers are operating in the south

everyone gets paid more in the industrial areas of the north, but mostly thats because we have a higher cost of living... i'm not saying the union hasn't had a part in getting higher than average increases over the regional difference, but don't just say "look at how much money they're making" without looking at where they're at compared to where the other group is

12/24/2008 7:24:32 PM

Alright then let's ignore how much they actually get paid..

GM cut all of it's orders from where I work for the next 8 weeks for obvious economic reasons.. How much are the employees at my (not mine technically but you know what I mean) company going to be paid in the next weeks to make GM products? $0. How much is the company going to be paid from GM? $0.

How much are union employees going to make? 90%+ of their normal pay. I've read 95% and I've read 90% so I quoted the lower of the two. The same is true for Chrysler and Ford...both of which are major customers of where I work..both of which have cut orders and production time but still have to pay union workers nearly their full pay for doing ABSOLUTELY NOTHING.

Now fucking explain that one for me.

12/24/2008 7:29:52 PM

Quote :

"Also.. when they transfer a program from Europe to the US and decide to build new tools with a different company in the US they need to actually give whoever is building any new tooling all the information, CAD Data, problems, etc about the existing tooling."

I've worked with GM bureaucrats (EcoCAR challenge here at NCSU to do a hybrid Saturn Vue) and I agree that they are really bad about giving you information you need. They wanted a plan for our proposed control architecture but would give us no information on the existing hardware, citing that it was proprietary info. Well no shit.

12/24/2008 7:34:50 PM

i guess to each his own since i come from the other side of the spectrum. i've worked at circuit city for the last few years . we hired our ceo from our competitor , paying him retarded $(more the bestbuys ceo)the first thing he did was fire our highest paid sales people... a yr later our stock had lost 80% of it's value (he actually could have bought controlling stake in the company with what they paid him to leave)

12/24/2008 7:35:27 PM

^^Yeah, they do that to us too.. like, they'll ask us to quote something using "preliminary data"..so, we do, put all over the quote that it was based on limited data that we had.. then 18 months later they just send us a purchase order and we're like what the fuck.. we don't even know the details of what they want us to do really. I mean.. the reality is we add a whole lot of "cover our ass" money into quotes like that. They'd be better off giving us every bit of information that they can instead of doing the bullshit that they always do.

and ^, your only real argument is that you worked at circuit city and the CEO was an idiot? jesus, get out of here.

[Edited on December 24, 2008 at 7:37 PM. Reason : asdf]

12/24/2008 7:36:27 PM

^^^^why cant the gov just get rid of the union then?

[Edited on December 24, 2008 at 7:37 PM. Reason : if that would be so helpful]

12/24/2008 7:36:36 PM

are you seriously asking that?

12/24/2008 7:37:28 PM

I mean, I'm sure everyone that is IN a union is fucking loving it.. they get paid to not do shit basically. It's like the most secured job ever and nearly impossible to fuck up..plus you get paid even if the factory isn't producing anything.

I would assume you can imagine just how much they want to KEEP that just the way it is..

[Edited on December 24, 2008 at 7:39 PM. Reason : asdf]

12/24/2008 7:38:56 PM

what is the garage's consensus on a merge with Chrysler?

I think it only makes sense if you basically dismantle the whole thing and only keep those few models we have been talking about like the minivans and jeeps

12/24/2008 7:40:07 PM

file for bankruptcy

shitcan (or at least strongly reign in) the UAW

close about half of the dealerships (there are agreements in place right now that make this difficult/impossible).



^ not as likely to happen, in my opinion, now that the first wave of bailout money has been promised.



[Edited on December 24, 2008 at 7:42 PM. Reason : asdfads]

12/24/2008 7:40:20 PM

^eh, forcing dealerships to close is a little too much imo. besides, how would you choose who stayed and who went? simply by profit margin? number of units sold? i can't think of a fair way off hand. i say let the unprofitable/excess ones will sort themselves out on their own as dictated by the performance of the manufacturers they represent and/or the economy in general.

lets remember that unions aren't just about wages. they are very controlling in what they allow their members to do on the job also. that can include GOOD things like additional training, taking on extra responsibilities/promotions, etc. this also puts restrictions on the company as a whole in terms of productivity. unions certainly had their place once upon a time, but no more.

12/24/2008 9:34:35 PM

Trying to fix GM is like trying to swim for land from the middle of the ocean.

12/24/2008 10:15:48 PM

lets just accept the fact that chevy sucks and it doesn't make you a real MAN/AMERICAN to buy a GM automobile versus a competitively priced and better engineered foreign car/truck

12/24/2008 10:34:21 PM

shitcan the UAW and never let another union form

12/24/2008 10:58:06 PM

Notice how Toyota sells right around as many vehicles as GM but they have far fewer brands? GM needs to ditch most of the redundant rebadged stuff and remove several brands.

12/24/2008 11:21:06 PM

Kill the rubber rooms, for one. Start hard-balling the union for more flexible hiring and firing of employees. Kill off unprofitable and redundant brands. Start merging lines of cars from different markets (i.e., quit producing a different car for every single market). Improve your reliability on your damned cars - it's one of the reasons people don't feel compelled to buy "American" anymore.

But a lot of the debate over GM and wages isn't really how much they're paying their line employees (although the difference is substantial) - it's the "legacy costs" of cushy pensions GM negotiated in the fatter years, where taking on the union was viewed as unnecessary brinkmanship. Which, interestingly enough, sure looks a lot like the exact same problem as our own entitlement structure - taking on the seniors. It's going to be awesome when the government rolls around for its bailout in 20 years.

12/24/2008 11:53:42 PM

Quote :

"eh, forcing dealerships to close is a little too much imo. besides, how would you choose who stayed and who went? simply by profit margin? number of units sold? i can't think of a fair way off hand. i say let the unprofitable/excess ones will sort themselves out on their own as dictated by the performance of the manufacturers they represent and/or the economy in general. "

They can't just let the unprofitable/excess ones sort themselves out--there are too many state law protections and contracts with individual dealers. Even if the individual dealer stays afloat, it ends up costing the automaker a lot.

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4188/is_/ai_n19342425

http://www.fastcompany.com/big-idea/general-motors-should-be-allowed-go-bankrupt

http://www.thenational.ae/article/20081213/MOTORING/63398636/1089/LIFE

12/26/2008 7:28:27 AM

bring all car sales online.

12/26/2008 8:02:43 AM

Quote :

"Notice how Toyota sells right around as many vehicles as GM but they have far fewer brands? GM needs to ditch most of the redundant rebadged stuff and remove several brands."

yep

consolidate everything. I don't need a chevy cobalt and a pontiac shitbird - one or the other. Why does Chevy make trucks when GMC also makes trucks?

Why is Buick still around? Entry-level luxury? Fuck that. You can differentiate luxury from regular across trim levels in a better represented brand - Cadillac.


Here's what I'd do, specifically:

Kill Pontiac and Buick.
Sell Saab back to Sweden.
Make Saturn the entry-level brand. Here's where you find your 2 door and 4 door cars.
Chevy - We make sports cars. period. Camaros, Vettes, etc.
GMC - We make trucks. You buy these trucks because they are hands-down the best on the market. We follow the John Deere model of building and retaining consumer brand loyalty.
Cadillac - Luxury line. 4 vehicles. A 2 door sports coupe. A 4 door sport sedan. A Luxury SUV. A Luxury Truck.

12/26/2008 9:44:10 AM

I think that Buick is pretty big in China.

As for everything else, I'm no expert on it...but maybe roll GMC and Hummer into Chevrolet, or maybe get rid of Hummer entirely.

12/26/2008 11:32:15 AM

Kill Saturn they suck.

I have never really understood why GM has so many fucking car labels anyway.

12/26/2008 11:58:39 AM

^^^ Buick is huge overseas....killing them off totally would be a bad idea

12/26/2008 12:46:05 PM

I'm talking US only. I don't know where Buick is big, but it damn sure ain't here in the US.

12/26/2008 2:55:34 PM

Quote :

"I'm talking US only. I don't know where Buick is big, "

With grandma's


I understand most of the GM brands

Saturn- cheap econobox to compete with honda/toyota
Chevy- your mainstream cars
Cadillac- the luxury divison
GM- the SUV/Truck focused brand

even somewhat Buick as teh "entry" level luxury; though i think its unnecessary.

What though is the point of Pontiac???

[Edited on December 26, 2008 at 3:41 PM. Reason : l]

12/26/2008 3:37:48 PM

Pontiac is the Plymouth of GM. Maybe at one time it was relevant, but now it's just time to kill that shit off. That whole generation of people who likes Buick here in the US is about to die off and be replaced by an even larger demographic that's used to driving more reliable foreign cars.



Honestly, that's going to be the biggest problem for the american automakers to overcome. there's a whole flock of people from the baby boomer and early gen-x generations who are getting older and not buying the cars that have typified the "old american" persona. The american automakers have depended on those generations to sell cars for years, and as a result haven't come out with anything worthwhile to offer to other people. They're just now realizing that the people who would buy a Cadillac or a Buick or whatever just because of the name are the same people who were familiar with the brand in the 50s and 60s and are set to start dying off in droves really soon.

12/26/2008 3:51:31 PM

Ignoring unions, I'd say that GM needs to come out with a 40mpg car for under $10k, and have 95% of their fleet averaging 35mpg or more highway.

12/26/2008 4:04:52 PM

40mpg is overkill. They currently have the must fuel efficient (EPA rated) sub compact ; cobalt xfe.

Maybe you should work for GM?

I will say a 2.2L engine in an "fuel saver" is retarded.

[Edited on December 26, 2008 at 4:44 PM. Reason : ECO TEEEEEEEEEK]

12/26/2008 4:34:58 PM