I dunno, looking at how much we've been spending (aka debt making) over the past 60 years to keep others safe and to keep a few industries healthy, it's sometimes hard to tell what we won exactly - infinite deficits and debt hidden by fading victors ego?
Lauren Weinstein excerpts the most interesting part of a BBC story about the safety hazards associated with the Chevy Volt — specifically, the risk that its battery pack could catch fire after even a minor impact. While it might be unsurprising that GM was reluctant to shout out safety warnings that would dampen early sales of its much touted hybrid, according to the linked story the NHTSA was as well, and for the same reason: "Part of the reason for delaying the disclosure was the 'fragility of Volt sales' up until that point, according to Joan Claybrook, a former administrator at NHTSA."
Another example of why it is bad for the US Government to be in the business of owning companies. Then conflicts of interest start affecting the safety of the public.
Well, there's another way to look at it: Did we win the war or did Hitler lose it by out running his logistics? Germany certainly seemed ahead on the technology side. I'm thinking Hitler over extended by going into Russia along with all of his other fronts. As for GM, I think America had a very good manufacturing base back then. Today - it's a worry.
Another example of why it is bad for the US Government to be in the business of owning companies. Then conflicts of interest start affecting the safety of the public.
Or, as over the last few years trying to pick winners and failing. The Solyndra fiasco. But, on topic, the US President and his Admin essentially firing a ceo (Wagoner of GM) is unprecedented and dangerous.
...the US President and his Admin essentially firing a ceo (Wagoner of GM) is unprecedented and dangerous.
In my opinion the issue was giving out the bailout loans in the first place. I don't have a problem with Wagoner being fired (and was a good idea IMHO), because if any lender is going to make a high-risk loan to a failed company, they are free to dictate terms. The company could have chosen to say no, but they would not have survived. Nobody was holding a gun to their head- they agreed to it.
Some CEOs should be thanking their creator that they haven't been hanged by the government instead of merely canned...
We should include a few politicians. The state I reside in, just put one more governor away for a while. Prison seems be a fraternity for Illinois governors.
Funny state Illinois. Only state I can think of that had multiple governors in the slammer at the same time. Had more people exonerated from death row on DNA evidence than executions one year....
We folks in New Jersey are happy that someone else takes a turn now and then at being a whacked out state...
2015 Mazda 6 Grand Touring, 2014 Mazda 3 Sport Hatchback, 1999 Mazda Miata 2004 Toyota Camry LE, 1999.
Great writeup about Akerson at GM. I'm actually more impressed now that I've read this. Good that he's really challenging the status quo and shaking things up.
Just read it. I'm impressed. Here is the part that says it all, afaic. GM doesn't change until it makes actual changes and Akerson is making them.
“I guess being new is both an advantage and a disadvantage because I kind of look at things a little bit differently than everybody else,” he said. “I don’t have the history.”
Mr. Akerson is aware that G.M. still carries a stigma of being slow and unresponsive. To accelerate decisions, he has eliminated about 30 internal boards and committees. And he is characteristically blunt in describing how G.M. was run before it was bailed out by the federal government.
“This place lacked a lot of vision,” he said in his 39th-floor office at G.M. headquarters. “They were all over the map. Where was the vision? Where do you want to take this company?”
Until they admit they had failure baked into their systems, they could not improve. Now they can.
A good number of our politicians and corporate executives make organized crime syndicates look like minor leaguers. It's nothing to them, to lost a billion $ here or there.
Anyone hear what's going to happen the Volts that are being bought back. Reworked? Crushed? Sold with salvage title? How do you think sales will be next year? They can't get much lower right?
Didn't they have a Congressman also go to jail. Rostenkowski:
"indicted on corruption charges for his role in the House post office scandal. He was forced to step down from all Congressional leadership positions. In elections later that year, Rostenkowski lost his seat and retired from political life. Charges against Rostenkowski included keeping "ghost" employees on his payroll, using Congressional funds to buy gifts such as chairs and ashtrays for friends, and trading in officially purchased stamps for cash at the House post office.[7] While the stamps-for-cash allegation received the most media coverage, those charges were dismissed on the recommendation of the prosecutor."
Anyone hear what's going to happen the Volts that are being bought back.
It seems like one of GM's missteps with the Volt is that at $40K, all of us in this forum saw it as a halo car, but GM with their numbers projections actually thought of it as somewhat of a volume car like the Prius started out. But with that price it's a non-starter. Here in CA I've probably seen 10-15 Leafs or so, total, since they came out. I've seen 1-2 Volts in the same time period.
If they could get the price of the Volt down to the high $20's then I think you'd see much better sales.
Yes, I"ve lost a bill or two in my years, maybe even a $50 dollar video game once was misplaced, but I'd have a hard time losing over a billion dollars.
Even in hundred dollar bills that takes up a lot of room.
'18 Porsche Macan Turbo, '16 Audi TTS, Wife's '19 VW Tiguan SEL 4-Motion
That's good - if they can keep that up for 6-12 months then perhaps the Volt will outsell the Leaf overall. But they'll need to do that, anyway to get remotely near their next year projections.
With the purported $30 billion GM has in cash, the aggressive efforts to cut mfg costs for the Volt - GM should be selling it below cost at a lower price to encourage sales. Then if sales go way up, more economies of scale can be applied and the car might actually become profitable. Isn't this what Toyota did with the Prius?
AFAIR the Prius used to start in the low $20's, and there were debates on whether Toyota was making any money on them or not. But look at the volumes of cars that enabled Toyota to make, and then they raised the price as they got economies of scale. Plus with all those cars out there, the brand reputation for the Prius became very known and positive.
It seems like one of GM's missteps with the Volt is that at $40K
Do we really know the problem is specifically GM's fault? Lithium Ion batteries can be inclined to occasionally catching fire. There have even been incidents of laptops that start smoking and burning on airline flights.
As for price, its relatively new automotive technology so besides gremlins there is probably initially high start up costs. I don't personally see this vehicle and wonder if R&D dollars aren't better invested in hydrogen and natural gas, but I also wonder if Washington foisted early roll out of the Volt in the BK deals?
Well, there's another way to look at it: Did we win the war or did Hitler lose it by out running his logistics? Germany certainly seemed ahead on the technology side
I think we won the war, fair and square. At the beginning of the war, US military strength was ranked No. 17 in the world behind Romania, thanks for decades of isolationism. But with our industrial might and a system which gives the front line commands ultimate power of making critical decisions (an extension of our democracy), we fought and won in both Pacific and Europe.
Hitler out ran his logistics? US had to send troops and equipment half world away from home over the water to fight Japanese and German in their neighborhood.
German technology edge? It's UK's radar and US's A-bomb helped us to win the war.
Poor US weapon quality? Compare the military death during the WWII here:
German: 5.5 million Japanese: 2.1 million Russian: 10 million US: 0.4 million
Consider all the other 3 countries only fought in one theater, US fought in both theaters (Pacific and Europe), the US casualties were very small. The superior weapon quality should be a major factor here, including GM made vehicles and tanks (to be relevant to the thread topic.. )
Some good points and I forgot about the UK radar advances. But the US got the A bomb from German defectors and Germany was on the verge of getting one too along with jet engined aircraft to deliver it. Hitler really was the german general's worst enemy. Those high casuality counts came from over aggressive tactics resulting in too many fronts, and further exacerbated by over extension of its logistics capability. Now logistics was (and still is) a major American advantage. I don't think anyone does it better. My big worry today is that we are losing our industrial base. Not just manufacturing of things like cars, but critical capabilities and skills like electronics, machining, etc. It is going to affect business and national security, but as a nation we seem to be too greedy and near sighted, be it business and political leaders or consumers.
Not to mention Germany technically fighting in two and a quarter theaters itself (Russia, Europe, Africa) and being vastly outnumbered and out naturally-resourced by the allies, if not at times out strategized (man, those static defenses sure work). I think the end result was a lot closer than some can admit.
And today, Germany dominates the EU and either owns, powers, or designs a huge amount of cars "made in UK", and I won't even touch on Japanese industry...funny how history works out :shades:
Becoming a "service economy" will create one hell of a future indeed...look what it is doing now...
My big worry today is that we are losing our industrial base. Not just manufacturing of things like cars, but critical capabilities and skills like electronics, machining, etc. It is going to affect business and national security, but as a nation we seem to be too greedy and near sighted, be it business and political leaders or consumers.
Totally agree. We cannot lose more manufacturing capabilities and skilled workers anymore. Enforce balanced trade, reduce the tax and government spending, ditch the minimum wages, train the workers to be employable again, make the US factories competitive again.
You wrote our consumers to be near sighted.... did you mean those import lovers and domestic haters?
Not to mention the blind consumers who bought GM products despite full greed mode over multiple decades...
I'd change GM to domestic;)
I want and try to buy domestic made products when ever I can. But I'm not going to buy something I'm not satisfied with just because it's made here.
I [non-permissible content removed] and moan about the domestics as much as anyone, but I have two domestic vehicles in my driveway that were assembled with UAW pride. Well, I know they were built by the UAW, but I fail to see any pride taken in their assembly. My wife's '11 Taurus fit and finish is so bad, I'd expect better from a 3rd world factory.
My '07 Expedition isn't much better. The assembly quality isn't to bad, but in typical Detroit fashion, as the years and miles pile up things are falling apart and failing that shouldn't be. Most of which I won't blame those who built it, but the boned heads who engineered and thought costs needed to be cut on a $40k+ vehicle that was already overpriced.
I can write a book about my experiences with GM vehicles and how that explains my feelings towards GM. Chrysler is the only domestic that really hasn't burned me, but I've only owned one Chrysler product and I only had it for 2 years, so while it wasn't 100% reliable, it never cost me much to keep running and I was fairly satisfied with it.
We cannot lose more manufacturing capabilities and skilled workers anymore. Enforce balanced trade, reduce the tax and government spending, ditch the minimum wages, train the workers to be employable again, make the US factories competitive again.
I agree, it seems we are often our own worst enemy and their is plenty of blame to spread around.
It looks like GM (add Ford and Chrysler) has learned if you build a competitive product, it will sell. As apposed to the old way of building as much crap as possible and then putting money on the hood until enough suckers customers come around to snatch it up.
You wrote our consumers to be near sighted.... did you mean those import lovers and domestic haters?
Well, I never understood blind allegiance. On cars, I try and go with domestic content over company base. But what I'm talking about is all products and those who always buy what's cheapest (usually China) even if something similar made by a US or real ally is slightly higher.
C'mon Circlew - let the GM hatred go, its better for your health. Look at the new stuff objectively, then get what you like. But get rid of past history bias because too often it will lead you to a bad decision today. I'm not saying don't be cautious, but you need to focus on more recent events. It's in your best interest really.
My wife's '11 Taurus fit and finish is so bad, I'd expect better from a 3rd world factory.
And I was worried that when she finally got to turn the Pontiac in that you'd run out of stories.....
Of course when you look at those casualty numbers you have to remember whose turf the war was being fought on. Of course a ton more Germans were being killed. It was in their yard! Japanese? 100,000 just in Hiroshima.
2015 Mazda 6 Grand Touring, 2014 Mazda 3 Sport Hatchback, 1999 Mazda Miata 2004 Toyota Camry LE, 1999.
This is not about GM, but I was surprised to read it, and since Hyundai is always presented as the 'one to watch' (oops, didn't AMC/Renault use that?!)--
I was in a drugstore yesterday and looked at Motor Trend and Automobile magazines on the shelf. I believe it was 'Automobile' that had their long-term test results of a new Sonata. While they liked it, they said it had an unprecedented four recalls during its time with them. Sheesh. Four recalls in a first year car is bad enough, but four on the same serial number car?! Gotta love that quality control.
2024 Chevrolet Corvette Stingray 2LT; 2019 Chevrolet Equinox LT; 2015 Chevrolet Cruze LS
And I was worried that when she finally got to turn the Pontiac in that you'd run out of stories.....
LOL, the Taurus is a lot better than the GP, but I'm not going to sugar coat the fact I'm disappointed with some of the fit and finish issues it has. I know Ford can do better.
I DVR'd "100 Years of Cheverolet" on Velocity (a discovery channel) the other night and it was interesting to watch.
On a side note, I saw a new Camry yesterday and it looked more bland than in photos. Looks awfully stale to me, but it will likely sell well to those who want to blend in.
No hatred intended. GM is a monolithic entity. Either products are good or bad. Before, their products were mostly poorer than the competition but now they are better.
I still want a 'Vette and the new Regal is a nice import-based car. LeCrosse and CTS are very good as well.
Totally agree. We cannot lose more manufacturing capabilities and skilled workers anymore. Enforce balanced trade, reduce the tax and government spending, ditch the minimum wages, train the workers to be employable again, make the US factories competitive again.
For a change this country's leadership should enact policies that are in the interest of this country and its population. I find it hard to disagree with what Donald Trump keeps saying about our disastrous "Free Trade" policy. I say bring on the tariffs.
I cancelled my subscriptions to 3 major car magazines a few years ago along with Consumer Reports (along with a poignant letter) because of what I perceived as anti domestic bias. Since then all 4 have begun sending me their magazines for free. I did a quick survey of Car and Driver, Motor Trend, and Road and Track and discovered articles about foreign branded cars outnumber articles about domestics by around 4 to 1.
These are American magazines published for the American population. Being as Domestic vehicles outsell foreign brands the ratio should be much closer....somewhere near 1:1.
"......You would think that the formerly bankrupt GM would have learned a lesson. No. They are doing another Cimarron with the Buick Verano, which is based on a Chevy Cruze. Wasn't GM supposed to more tightly focus their remaining 3 car brands on their market segments? How can Buick be luxury or near luxury with a Verano badged small Chevy?"
How is this any different than Toyota foisting a Camry with leather as the original ES????
The difference is that what was wrong with the Cavalier was magnified tenfold with the Cimmarron. What is right about the Cruze will bode well for the Verano. I would just get rid of the 2.4 in it. I drove a Regal with the 2.4 and it is too cheap sounding and thrashy for such an expensive car.
discovered articles about foreign branded cars outnumber articles about domestics by around 4 to 1.
Interesting observation. I guess people tend to have romantic feelings about import. Here in the US, many people love import and hate the American products. In China, people love import from America and hate Chinese products. It's kind of universal. The two major exceptions are German and Japanese who think their products are superior. But they have tremendous respect for the US, possibly due to their being defeated by the US in the WWII.
Back to the trade issue, as long as we enforce the balanced trade, there won't be massive Chinese holding on the US bonds, won't be massive layoffs in the US, most importantly, won't be massive Chinese military buildup with our dollars. The free trade should have the balanced trade as a condition.
"......BTW, Corvette sales should hit 13,000 units in 2011...the avg for 2002-2007 was 32,000 per year"
I would thank the Camaro for that.
However, with the Mustang popularity, it is foolish for GM to just completely cede the ponycar market to Ford and Chrysler.
Unfortunately, Ford and Chrysler have nothing above their ponycar to stop them from upping the ante w/ more V8 hp. The higher hp Camaro just bangs into the base Vette, cutting into it's sale.
I did a quick survey of Car and Driver, Motor Trend, and Road and Track and discovered articles about foreign branded cars outnumber articles about domestics by around 4 to 1.
These are American magazines published for the American population. Being as Domestic vehicles outsell foreign brands the ratio should be much closer....somewhere near 1:1.
I disagree with your logic as there are far more foreign brands than domestic to read about. More trucks are purchased than cars, do you want to read more articles about trucks than cars? That would be pretty boring for car enthusiasts.
Then consider most US consumers buy vehicles from foreign makes than domestic. The D3 currently has about 45% of the market. Take away trucks and it's really ugly. YTD the domestics combined only have 32% of the US car market. Considering how many more foreign makes are available vs. domestic, then consider foreign makes sell 3x more cars than the D3 do, and considering these are primarily car magazines, it's not a shock to me the car mags have 4 to 1 foreign to domestic articles.
Check out a magazine like Trucktrend or DieselPower magazine. I'm sure you'll be happy to find more articles about domestics than foreign;)
You think the Camaro SS eats-into base Corvette sales? The Camaro is much heavier, not as well optioned, doesn't have standard removeable roof and doesn't have IRS. I think what is slowing Vette sales down is the economy. When middle-class people get squeezed, the first thing that goes is the toys, and the Vette is a toy. On top of that styling is important in this class of car, and while the Vette is nice enough, we've been looking at the same vehicle since 2004 when the '05 models came out.
The D3 currently has about 45% of the market. Take away trucks and it's really ugly. YTD the domestics combined only have 32% of the US car market. Considering how many more foreign makes are available vs. domestic, then consider foreign makes sell 3x more cars than the D3 do
Your data is pretty close: D3 has 47% of the vehicle market and 33% of the car market YTD. But your math is wrong. Foreign makes sell 2x the number of cars as the D3, or 1x more cars than the D3, not 3x more.
Your data is pretty close: D3 has 47% of the vehicle market and 33% of the car market YTD. But your math is wrong. Foreign makes sell 2x the number of cars as the D3, or 1x more cars than the D3, not 3x more.
Oops. I did get that wrong, I don't know what I was thinking. Thanks for the correction.
Okay, to be exact. The D3 has 32.9% of car market share. What's strange on the overall market share is, I simply added each of the D3 individual market share percentage from the WSJ which adds up to 45.6. But when I went back and added up all of their vehicles sold, then compared to the total vehicles sold, it actually comes out to the 47% number you had.
Okay, my math was off a bit (no surprise there;)) Doesn't really change what my point was. Just look at the main page of Insideline and you'll find out of the 18 articles, 11 are related to foreign makes. I don't know why that would be a surprise or put anyone off.
I do; the trucks include the SUVs and crossovers, very exciting vehicles.
I don't find them overly exciting, but since I need a truck or SUV for towing/hauling, I like to keep up on them. Granted, I don't expect the standard car mags to be overly excited about SUVs and Trucks. That's why motortrend also has a mag called Trucktrend that only includes trucks and SUVs.
You think the Camaro SS eats-into base Corvette sales? The Camaro is much heavier, not as well optioned, doesn't have standard removeable roof and doesn't have IRS.
The Camaro does have an IRS (if you mean an independent rear suspension).
Ironically, my BIL has been talking about trading his corvette in on a Camaro SS convertible. Having small kids, he rarely drives the vette, and he would like to have something the whole family can ride in. The only reason he has the vette in the first place is he bought prior to being married. Now it's just taking up space, collecting dust.
Family dynamics have changed, dad having his $60k toy doesn't make a lot of sense anymore. That's why we have a boat, camper and a PWC etc (a corvette would be economical in comparison). I can't justify tying up that much money in something only I'll enjoy. My wife and daughters couldn't care less about something like a Corvette.
Once the kids are gone, I can see having a 4 wheeled toy to enjoy. Until then I'll be loafing around in a 6k lb SUV
Foreign makes sell 2x the number of cars as the D3, or 1x more cars than the D3, not 3x more.
I just checked Inside Line Long Term Blogs. Current imports in the fleet outnumber domestics by a 3.17:1 ratio. The ratio of the older vehicles listed for the past few years was 2.5:1. So total for old and new is 2.6:1.
Considering that this also includes some trucks and a bunch of SUV's the ratio is nowhere near the 1.13:1 that it should be based on total U.S. sales.
I'm not ready to to say Edmunds is import biased, (although some of the editors seem to be), but they should buy a few more D3 for their long term tests.
The difference is that what was wrong with the Cavalier was magnified tenfold with the Cimmarron. What is right about the Cruze will bode well for the Verano. I would just get rid of the 2.4 in it. I drove a Regal with the 2.4 and it is too cheap sounding and thrashy for such an expensive car.
With GM's significant improvements, this seems to be one of their continued problems where they should focus. They do an awful lot of things right. Take the Cruze - really nice car, good looking, very nice interior for the class. The biggest criticism I've read is the engine/tranny combo. So we have a car that could almost be class-leading, except for one area of poorer performance. Other GM cars might have great trannys, or smooth engines, but cheap plastic interiors. And take the Corvette - best in the world in a bunch of ways, but with Cavalier steering wheel, etc.
GM is sort of like Microsoft, and BMW is more like Apple. GM should focus on the details. Don't put out 80% vehicles, put out 100% vehicles. If everybody knows where the one weak spot is, .... well then fix it!!! Imagine the Cruze reviews if they just had a better engine/tranny combo. And now the Buick division has the same issues in a "more upscale" car. They are really so close... why stop short of greatness?
Back to the trade issue, as long as we enforce the balanced trade, there won't be massive Chinese holding on the US bonds...
Not sure we should be blaming China for that. It's our own out of control spending -- we NEED to sell those bonds to finance our debt. Why don't we fix the debt problem instead? Oh, that's right, I forgot - Congress couldn't agree on the approach, so they appointed a super-committee, which also couldn't agree on the approach. :mad:
And yet anybody competent at budgeting in a family could make the decisions easily.
Based on history, why is it a crime to be import-biased? Did GM (or the other D2) make the best cars in the world between 1972 and 2008?
Is their loss of market share, along with Ford and Chrysler so much of a surprise? I would love to support US-Only but not when their products don't deliver what I expect. Perhaps there is some truth to the bias because it's not biased in fact but reality in the present? Cars were so much a forgotten product of the D3 it hurts!
The D3 need to continue to improve and so will their sales. Tlong is right. Forget about sales leader. Make the best products. Long way to go for the D3 but at least they are performing better despite the lingering old habits....
Take a look at what Akerson says. He is inside and knows there is much work to do. He is focused on the present.
Comments
Another example of why it is bad for the US Government to be in the business of owning companies. Then conflicts of interest start affecting the safety of the public.
Or, as over the last few years trying to pick winners and failing. The Solyndra fiasco. But, on topic, the US President and his Admin essentially firing a ceo (Wagoner of GM) is unprecedented and dangerous.
Some CEOs should be thanking their creator that they haven't been hanged by the government instead of merely canned...
In my opinion the issue was giving out the bailout loans in the first place. I don't have a problem with Wagoner being fired (and was a good idea IMHO), because if any lender is going to make a high-risk loan to a failed company, they are free to dictate terms. The company could have chosen to say no, but they would not have survived. Nobody was holding a gun to their head- they agreed to it.
We should include a few politicians. The state I reside in, just put one more governor away for a while. Prison seems be a fraternity for Illinois governors.
We folks in New Jersey are happy that someone else takes a turn now and then at being a whacked out state...
Great writeup about Akerson at GM. I'm actually more impressed now that I've read this. Good that he's really challenging the status quo and shaking things up.
“I guess being new is both an advantage and a disadvantage because I kind of look at things a little bit differently than everybody else,” he said. “I don’t have the history.”
Mr. Akerson is aware that G.M. still carries a stigma of being slow and unresponsive. To accelerate decisions, he has eliminated about 30 internal boards and committees. And he is characteristically blunt in describing how G.M. was run before it was bailed out by the federal government.
“This place lacked a lot of vision,” he said in his 39th-floor office at G.M. headquarters. “They were all over the map. Where was the vision? Where do you want to take this company?”
Until they admit they had failure baked into their systems, they could not improve. Now they can.
Regards,
OW
" I have no idea where the money went." Typical Ponzi response.
Regards,
OW
A good number of our politicians and corporate executives make organized crime syndicates look like minor leaguers. It's nothing to them, to lost a billion $ here or there.
Anyone hear what's going to happen the Volts that are being bought back. Reworked? Crushed? Sold with salvage title? How do you think sales will be next year? They can't get much lower right?
Didn't they have a Congressman also go to jail. Rostenkowski:
"indicted on corruption charges for his role in the House post office scandal. He was forced to step down from all Congressional leadership positions. In elections later that year, Rostenkowski lost his seat and retired from political life. Charges against Rostenkowski included keeping "ghost" employees on his payroll, using Congressional funds to buy gifts such as chairs and ashtrays for friends, and trading in officially purchased stamps for cash at the House post office.[7] While the stamps-for-cash allegation received the most media coverage, those charges were dismissed on the recommendation of the prosecutor."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dan_Rostenkowski
2014 Malibu 2LT, 2015 Cruze 2LT,
It seems like one of GM's missteps with the Volt is that at $40K, all of us in this forum saw it as a halo car, but GM with their numbers projections actually thought of it as somewhat of a volume car like the Prius started out. But with that price it's a non-starter. Here in CA I've probably seen 10-15 Leafs or so, total, since they came out. I've seen 1-2 Volts in the same time period.
If they could get the price of the Volt down to the high $20's then I think you'd see much better sales.
Even in hundred dollar bills that takes up a lot of room.
That's good - if they can keep that up for 6-12 months then perhaps the Volt will outsell the Leaf overall. But they'll need to do that, anyway to get remotely near their next year projections.
With the purported $30 billion GM has in cash, the aggressive efforts to cut mfg costs for the Volt - GM should be selling it below cost at a lower price to encourage sales. Then if sales go way up, more economies of scale can be applied and the car might actually become profitable. Isn't this what Toyota did with the Prius?
AFAIR the Prius used to start in the low $20's, and there were debates on whether Toyota was making any money on them or not. But look at the volumes of cars that enabled Toyota to make, and then they raised the price as they got economies of scale. Plus with all those cars out there, the brand reputation for the Prius became very known and positive.
Do we really know the problem is specifically GM's fault? Lithium Ion batteries can be inclined to occasionally catching fire. There have even been incidents of laptops that start smoking and burning on airline flights.
As for price, its relatively new automotive technology so besides gremlins there is probably initially high start up costs. I don't personally see this vehicle and wonder if R&D dollars aren't better invested in hydrogen and natural gas, but I also wonder if Washington foisted early roll out of the Volt in the BK deals?
I think we won the war, fair and square. At the beginning of the war, US military strength was ranked No. 17 in the world behind Romania, thanks for decades of isolationism. But with our industrial might and a system which gives the front line commands ultimate power of making critical decisions (an extension of our democracy), we fought and won in both Pacific and Europe.
Hitler out ran his logistics? US had to send troops and equipment half world away from home over the water to fight Japanese and German in their neighborhood.
German technology edge? It's UK's radar and US's A-bomb helped us to win the war.
Poor US weapon quality? Compare the military death during the WWII here:
German: 5.5 million
Japanese: 2.1 million
Russian: 10 million
US: 0.4 million
Consider all the other 3 countries only fought in one theater, US fought in both theaters (Pacific and Europe), the US casualties were very small. The superior weapon quality should be a major factor here, including GM made vehicles and tanks (to be relevant to the thread topic..
And today, Germany dominates the EU and either owns, powers, or designs a huge amount of cars "made in UK", and I won't even touch on Japanese industry...funny how history works out :shades:
Becoming a "service economy" will create one hell of a future indeed...look what it is doing now...
Totally agree. We cannot lose more manufacturing capabilities and skilled workers anymore. Enforce balanced trade, reduce the tax and government spending, ditch the minimum wages, train the workers to be employable again, make the US factories competitive again.
You wrote our consumers to be near sighted.... did you mean those import lovers and domestic haters?
Not to mention the blind consumers who bought GM products despite full greed mode over multiple decades...
Regards,
OW
I'd change GM to domestic;)
I want and try to buy domestic made products when ever I can. But I'm not going to buy something I'm not satisfied with just because it's made here.
I [non-permissible content removed] and moan about the domestics as much as anyone, but I have two domestic vehicles in my driveway that were assembled with UAW pride. Well, I know they were built by the UAW, but I fail to see any pride taken in their assembly. My wife's '11 Taurus fit and finish is so bad, I'd expect better from a 3rd world factory.
My '07 Expedition isn't much better. The assembly quality isn't to bad, but in typical Detroit fashion, as the years and miles pile up things are falling apart and failing that shouldn't be. Most of which I won't blame those who built it, but the boned heads who engineered and thought costs needed to be cut on a $40k+ vehicle that was already overpriced.
I can write a book about my experiences with GM vehicles and how that explains my feelings towards GM. Chrysler is the only domestic that really hasn't burned me, but I've only owned one Chrysler product and I only had it for 2 years, so while it wasn't 100% reliable, it never cost me much to keep running and I was fairly satisfied with it.
I agree, it seems we are often our own worst enemy and their is plenty of blame to spread around.
It looks like GM (add Ford and Chrysler) has learned if you build a competitive product, it will sell. As apposed to the old way of building as much crap as possible and then putting money on the hood until enough
suckerscustomers come around to snatch it up.Well, I never understood blind allegiance. On cars, I try and go with domestic content over company base. But what I'm talking about is all products and those who always buy what's cheapest (usually China) even if something similar made by a US or real ally is slightly higher.
And I was worried that when she finally got to turn the Pontiac in that you'd run out of stories.....
Of course when you look at those casualty numbers you have to remember whose turf the war was being fought on. Of course a ton more Germans were being killed. It was in their yard! Japanese? 100,000 just in Hiroshima.
I was in a drugstore yesterday and looked at Motor Trend and Automobile magazines on the shelf. I believe it was 'Automobile' that had their long-term test results of a new Sonata. While they liked it, they said it had an unprecedented four recalls during its time with them. Sheesh. Four recalls in a first year car is bad enough, but four on the same serial number car?! Gotta love that quality control.
LOL, the Taurus is a lot better than the GP, but I'm not going to sugar coat the fact I'm disappointed with some of the fit and finish issues it has. I know Ford can do better.
I DVR'd "100 Years of Cheverolet" on Velocity (a discovery channel) the other night and it was interesting to watch.
On a side note, I saw a new Camry yesterday and it looked more bland than in photos. Looks awfully stale to me, but it will likely sell well to those who want to blend in.
I still want a 'Vette and the new Regal is a nice import-based car. LeCrosse and CTS are very good as well.
Just responding to the import-critics!
Regards,
OW
For a change this country's leadership should enact policies that are in the interest of this country and its population. I find it hard to disagree with what Donald Trump keeps saying about our disastrous "Free Trade" policy. I say bring on the tariffs.
I cancelled my subscriptions to 3 major car magazines a few years ago along with Consumer Reports (along with a poignant letter) because of what I perceived as anti domestic bias. Since then all 4 have begun sending me their magazines for free. I did a quick survey of Car and Driver, Motor Trend, and Road and Track and discovered articles about foreign branded cars outnumber articles about domestics by around 4 to 1.
These are American magazines published for the American population.
Being as Domestic vehicles outsell foreign brands the ratio should be much closer....somewhere near 1:1.
How is this any different than Toyota foisting a Camry with leather as the original ES????
The difference is that what was wrong with the Cavalier was magnified tenfold with the Cimmarron. What is right about the Cruze will bode well for the Verano. I would just get rid of the 2.4 in it. I drove a Regal with the 2.4 and it is too cheap sounding and thrashy for such an expensive car.
Interesting observation. I guess people tend to have romantic feelings about import. Here in the US, many people love import and hate the American products. In China, people love import from America and hate Chinese products. It's kind of universal. The two major exceptions are German and Japanese who think their products are superior. But they have tremendous respect for the US, possibly due to their being defeated by the US in the WWII.
Back to the trade issue, as long as we enforce the balanced trade, there won't be massive Chinese holding on the US bonds, won't be massive layoffs in the US, most importantly, won't be massive Chinese military buildup with our dollars. The free trade should have the balanced trade as a condition.
I would thank the Camaro for that.
However, with the Mustang popularity, it is foolish for GM to just completely cede the ponycar market to Ford and Chrysler.
Unfortunately, Ford and Chrysler have nothing above their ponycar to stop them from upping the ante w/ more V8 hp. The higher hp Camaro just bangs into the base Vette, cutting into it's sale.
These are American magazines published for the American population.
Being as Domestic vehicles outsell foreign brands the ratio should be much closer....somewhere near 1:1.
I disagree with your logic as there are far more foreign brands than domestic to read about. More trucks are purchased than cars, do you want to read more articles about trucks than cars? That would be pretty boring for car enthusiasts.
Then consider most US consumers buy vehicles from foreign makes than domestic. The D3 currently has about 45% of the market. Take away trucks and it's really ugly. YTD the domestics combined only have 32% of the US car market. Considering how many more foreign makes are available vs. domestic, then consider foreign makes sell 3x more cars than the D3 do, and considering these are primarily car magazines, it's not a shock to me the car mags have 4 to 1 foreign to domestic articles.
Check out a magazine like Trucktrend or DieselPower magazine. I'm sure you'll be happy to find more articles about domestics than foreign;)
Yeah, but Saddam's dead. Only $500 bil.
I think what is slowing Vette sales down is the economy. When middle-class people get squeezed, the first thing that goes is the toys, and the Vette is a toy. On top of that styling is important in this class of car, and while the Vette is nice enough, we've been looking at the same vehicle since 2004 when the '05 models came out.
Your data is pretty close: D3 has 47% of the vehicle market and 33% of the car market YTD. But your math is wrong. Foreign makes sell 2x the number of cars as the D3, or 1x more cars than the D3, not 3x more.
I do; the trucks include the SUVs and crossovers, very exciting vehicles.
Oops. I did get that wrong, I don't know what I was thinking. Thanks for the correction.
Okay, to be exact. The D3 has 32.9% of car market share. What's strange on the overall market share is, I simply added each of the D3 individual market share percentage from the WSJ which adds up to 45.6. But when I went back and added up all of their vehicles sold, then compared to the total vehicles sold, it actually comes out to the 47% number you had.
Okay, my math was off a bit (no surprise there;)) Doesn't really change what my point was. Just look at the main page of Insideline and you'll find out of the 18 articles, 11 are related to foreign makes. I don't know why that would be a surprise or put anyone off.
I don't find them overly exciting, but since I need a truck or SUV for towing/hauling, I like to keep up on them. Granted, I don't expect the standard car mags to be overly excited about SUVs and Trucks. That's why motortrend also has a mag called Trucktrend that only includes trucks and SUVs.
The Camaro does have an IRS (if you mean an independent rear suspension).
Ironically, my BIL has been talking about trading his corvette in on a Camaro SS convertible. Having small kids, he rarely drives the vette, and he would like to have something the whole family can ride in. The only reason he has the vette in the first place is he bought prior to being married. Now it's just taking up space, collecting dust.
Family dynamics have changed, dad having his $60k toy doesn't make a lot of sense anymore. That's why we have a boat, camper and a PWC etc (a corvette would be economical in comparison). I can't justify tying up that much money in something only I'll enjoy. My wife and daughters couldn't care less about something like a Corvette.
Once the kids are gone, I can see having a 4 wheeled toy to enjoy. Until then I'll be loafing around in a 6k lb SUV
I just checked Inside Line Long Term Blogs. Current imports in the fleet outnumber domestics by a 3.17:1 ratio. The ratio of the older vehicles listed for the past few years was 2.5:1. So total for old and new is 2.6:1.
Considering that this also includes some trucks and a bunch of SUV's the ratio is nowhere near the 1.13:1 that it should be based on total U.S. sales.
I'm not ready to to say Edmunds is import biased, (although some of the editors seem to be), but they should buy a few more D3 for their long term tests.
With GM's significant improvements, this seems to be one of their continued problems where they should focus. They do an awful lot of things right. Take the Cruze - really nice car, good looking, very nice interior for the class. The biggest criticism I've read is the engine/tranny combo. So we have a car that could almost be class-leading, except for one area of poorer performance. Other GM cars might have great trannys, or smooth engines, but cheap plastic interiors. And take the Corvette - best in the world in a bunch of ways, but with Cavalier steering wheel, etc.
GM is sort of like Microsoft, and BMW is more like Apple. GM should focus on the details. Don't put out 80% vehicles, put out 100% vehicles. If everybody knows where the one weak spot is, .... well then fix it!!! Imagine the Cruze reviews if they just had a better engine/tranny combo. And now the Buick division has the same issues in a "more upscale" car. They are really so close... why stop short of greatness?
Not sure we should be blaming China for that. It's our own out of control spending -- we NEED to sell those bonds to finance our debt. Why don't we fix the debt problem instead? Oh, that's right, I forgot - Congress couldn't agree on the approach, so they appointed a super-committee, which also couldn't agree on the approach. :mad:
And yet anybody competent at budgeting in a family could make the decisions easily.
Is their loss of market share, along with Ford and Chrysler so much of a surprise? I would love to support US-Only but not when their products don't deliver what I expect. Perhaps there is some truth to the bias because it's not biased in fact but reality in the present? Cars were so much a forgotten product of the D3 it hurts!
The D3 need to continue to improve and so will their sales. Tlong is right. Forget about sales leader. Make the best products. Long way to go for the D3 but at least they are performing better despite the lingering old habits....
Take a look at what Akerson says. He is inside and knows there is much work to do. He is focused on the present.
Regards,
OW
A Corvette never had a Cavalier steering wheel.
Just trying to keep it real here.