New Cars from GM
live.pirillo.com – here’s a front row seat to GM’s product announcements at IAA 2007 in Frankfurt, Germany. If you look real close, you can see a few industry superstars sitting in the audience (when I turn the camera away from the stage to point it at Ponzi for a moment). In essence, the environmental strategy of General Motors Europe is to reduce CO2 emissions in the short term and introduce new propulsion technologies in the long term. The goal is to offer customers vehicles that can operate on many different energy sources. “The multi-tiered approach includes accelerating the development of electrically powered vehicles, stepping up efforts to replace fossil fuels and increasing the efficiency of gasoline and diesel engines,” explains Carl-Peter Forster, GME President. GM Europe will invest 700 million euros in new engines and transmissions in the next five years alone, with the first models already at the IAA. Carl-Peter Forster continues: “Opel’s surprise for this year’s IAA also symbolizes the versatility of our extensive environmental initiative. A concept car which combines electric propulsion and a turbo diesel engine in a way that is fundamentally different to previous hybrid propulsion designs.”
we want small, well made, fuel efficent cars.
NO GAS Guzzlers please, we wont buy them no more.
What the United States needs is a new significant American automaker that operates outside of the Detroit establishment, out of the reach of Ford, Chrysler, and General Motors.
Some independent automakers, such as Tesla Motors, could help pave the way, but they make products for a niche and not necessarily for the mainstream.
G.M. got to go away for good, you know what we should open the Toyota Factory in the United State, because G.M. are suck, they ask for money from the government and ask for more and more, and then they don’t use it wisely
Unfortunately, this is true.
… and with boardmembers who do not care about long term viability, there is absolutely no incentive.
It is so hard to find good executives. So what do they do? They decide to pay executives obscene amounts of money in order to attract the best, but only the greediest get in.
RCA could adapt if given leadership that would lead, even enough to be competitive against the Japanese.
But, they lost leadership after David Sarnoff left. What ended up being there was revolving door management, some of which involved some serious scandals. Check the history of the company from the early 1970s onwards.
You can’t develop and stick with a single long term strategy if you keep changing leadership like that.
The problem with RCA was they could not adapt to the changing marketplace. During the 1950s, they were almost (but not quite) a monopoly. They became fat and bloated, reliant more on their own size than on innovation.For example,electronics stores were forced to buy up unwanted RCA 45pm-only gramophones if they wanted to sell sought after RCA Televisions.
Once cheaper Japanese TVs came in, they could not compete.
When Mr. Sarnoff left, no one who took the reigns was capable of leading RCA and things deteriorated starting with inappropriate diversification from electronics (greeting cards, frozen foods, auto rentals, and so on), showing a company that lost focus.
We’re seeing the same thing from GM, even after the bailout; no long term goal, no focus. If anything, the bailout has only preserved the status quo; real change would be GM being held to answer for its failure to their stockholders and debtors.
That’s essentially what it is; the problem starts at the top and blame must be placed on leadership.
My biggest gripe about the automakers are executives who aren’t working there for the company.
It’s happened before with RCA and that was a great American company that many felt was too big to fail … until it actually did in 1986. And RCA’s failure started the moment David Sarnoff retired, who was the individual responsible for leading RCA to its success.
That is the whole problem. Short term profitability is NOT a good reason for cutting costs, but for the executives, it is a VERY good reason.
The only ones who won out are the very executives involved, along with short term shareholders.
Everybody else lost out – workers, shareholders, customers, everyone.
There is nothing wrong with cost cutting so long as you know what you must cut, and if there’s a good reason for it. Usually, a positive way to cut costs is to make processes more efficient and reduce waste; that’s one of the important things that “The Toyota Way” advocates.
Of course, short term profitability doesn’t count as a good reason because short term actions are usually done at the expense of long term viability.
But, sacrificing customer support is one of those seemingly little things that’ll cost you in the long run.
In the movie business, there’s a thing called “legs,” which is word of mouth. That’s a powerful element that can totally undo your advertising and PR for the simple fact that people will listen to their friends and relatives more than they would a car company.
Further, if a customer has a good experience, he might tell a few. But, if a customer has a bad experience, he WILL tell MANY.
Bad customer support is part and parcel of the cost cutting that boosted short term profit at the cost of long term viability.
It has happened in so many of the corporations that have collapsed. Cost cutting, sending the call centres to Bangalore, scrimping on quality control, and on and on and on.
Of course; the relationship between labor and employer is symbiotic.
I never claimed that GM was in the clear, but the UAW is every bit as responsible by being uncompromising to the point where GM is unable to competitively act to the changes in the marketplace.
The UAW treats GM as their adversary instead of treating them as their partner.
That, along with inept leadership at the top and no long term goal and strategy are factors.
Another which I think you’ve missed: bad customer support.
It is a two way street.The US car manufacturers were costcutting at a time when they were very profitable.
This cost cutting in order to secure higher short term profits resulted in the underfunding of pension and health plans,along with R&D,engineering,quality control and so forth.Result:GM cars stopped developing, and the Europeans and Japanese and South Koreans took over in terms of fuel economy,quality, and styling.
Meanwhile, paying for the underfunded pension plans madde it worse.
“Unions are strong in Italy and France, and at the moment Citroen, Renault, Peugeot, and FIAT are not doing nearly as badly as the US car industry.”
This may be because the unions in Italy and France are focused on maintaining a symbiotic relationship with their employers. The union leadership there likely understand that their duty is to represent the members of their union to ensure fair treatment and fair pay.
The UAW, OTOH, is corrupt, trying to take more than is fairly due to them.
GM Rips off Veterans. Do a search under LyingScumBags on the internet or CleanUpFlorida both are dot coms.
The UAW is the parasite that killed General Motors!
I had a 97 Firebird V6 and the build quality was just atrocious. The alternator went at 30k miles. The headlight motor at 36k miles. The differential started leaking soon after. Just bad quality.
A day late and a dollar short
Chevrolet, just a few years ago used to be the best anywhere, especially in America. I own a 2000 Blazer with 100,000 miles on it and is still going strong . But I recently purchased a 2007 HHR, and has 33k and is falling to pieces and the warranty wont cover half of it. It is sad to see such a good automobile company fall in just a few short years to what it is now.
Ha
I don’t mean to be offensive to anyone, but I love how he’s all like, Chevrolet is so great, Chevrolet is so great in so many countries including the US. Now it’s almost gone….
they all look the f***** same,like pumped up matchboxes.Tasteless without personality.
hONDA=FAG GM=cool.
The best thing GM did in recent years is to make the SAAB not look utterly ridiculous.
Sadly, they have made SAAB look anonymous. And what the heck is the attraction in Europe for ugly, tiny wagons. A Cadillac wagon, no less.