By accessing this website, you acknowledge that Edmunds and its third party business partners may use cookies, pixels, and similar technologies to collect information about you and your interactions with the website as described in our
Privacy Statement, and you agree that your use of the website is subject to our
Visitor Agreement.
Comments
The GM CEO also weighed in on alternative powertrains, suggesting that the plug-in extended-range electric Chevrolet Volt will be "old, old technology and old news" five years from now. :lemon:
I didn't need a WSJ article to tell me that the REAL costs of the GM bailout would be about 3 to 4 times the amount published by the media and Obama administration. Take what they tell you about the costs of the GM bailout and multiply by 3 or 4. That gives you the real and true costs of the bailout more or less. GM was extremely expensive to save!
This equation is on par with anything Albert Einstein came up with.
As we've all said in these forums, if all consumers had the same experience you've had with GM cars, then here would be our world of automotive industry:
A. GM would be the only car maker in the entire world.
B. GM's warranty and recall costs and budget would be less than their personal corporate jet expenses yearly.
C. GM would have extremely high customer satisfaction.
D. GM would have extremely loyal repeat buyers.
Frankly, in the real world, if GM were the only manufacturer of automobiles, I'd buy a motorcycle! :P
With the Big 3, it was not a choice, but a forced theft, with the threat "the auto industry will collapse," if you don't help us. Lies, deceit, and failure.
facebook connect
I'd be riding a horse;)
It does seem like just one side of the story. I don't think it's practical/possible to audit ALL buyers of imported cars in Korea. He offers no proof, just one person's take on it. Even that person says it stopped when the US complained.
Dunno, it's a stretch to say the least.
All of the people responsible for coming up with a false "worst case scenario" should have been immediately fired and sent to Pakistan right by the Afghan border with no weopans. It was a horrible worst case scenario prediction if real life and the real world made it look foolish and inaccurate. Worst case scenarious are exactly that, always worse then what really happens. If it isn't, then someone was foolish and incompetent.
Yes, but GM's mild hybrids didn't sell well, so they were reluctant to invest too much. They tried, though it was a half-hearted effort.
Nothing GM was making was selling well, thanks to previous quality and reliability issues they were losing former customers.
They did hybrid trucks and acquired Daewoo to build small cars, the catch is they got crappy ones.
Who made the decision to buy the crappy ones?, and then try to sell them? Oh yeah, that was GM and GM management too. Guess 100% of the blame lies on GM itself, thanks for making my point.
GM was so big they simply could not be nimble enough to respond to a 29% contraction in the overall market. I think they got hit hardest largely because of ... how large they were.
I believe Toyota was just as big as GM as the crash came, so why didn't Toyota get hit so hard?
Hyundai and Kia were learning the business and the path to make quality cars along the way. They are not like the Big 3, the Big 3 were undeserving of bailouts.
1) They've existed longer than most people have been alive.
2) They've been making horrible cars longer than millions have been alive.
3) They've chosen on purpose to make bad quality for short term gains and profits at the expense of long term customers.
Hyundai and Kia were just guilty of being rookies learning how to do it right.
It's money that would otherwise not have been collected at all, and jobs that would otherwise not exist at all.
Yes, they get tax breaks, but the alternative is stagnation and unemployment.
So the tax rate is lower.
The taxes collected are higher, though, than the alternative (no factory, no jobs).
Toyota was #3 behind Ford, no?
I think they did many things well (pickups for instance), but the crash nearly took out their competitive advantage because pickup sales took a nose dive.
Hm, Kia started making cars 67 years ago and Hyundai has been making cars for 44 years. Not exactly newcomers to the auto scene, even if they haven't been in the US since day one.
Conversly, Toyota had 8 models with V8 power being sold in the U.S. while having (and still having) the most fuel efficient lineup out there including a 50mpg Prius and having more hybrid models than anyone else. Paid off big time for them... :shades:
Lastly, what helped Toyota gain the foothold that they have on the market is they have a very good understanding of their customer base. Any segment they enter, they land smack dab in the middle of their competitors, exceeding them in efficiency, exceeding them in ride quality and having some of the best engines on the market at the time. The 3.5l V6 and the I-force 5.7l V8 come to mind... Government Motors (General Motors at the time) was still weeding out the dinosaur pushrods, 4 speed automatics and the shoddy, cheap interiors that they had been known for for the decades before with newer, more refreshed product which was a little too late.
GM's arrogance finally came back to bite them in the [non-permissible content removed] as well. They finally got a dose of reality that they were not/are not the center of the automotive universe that they believe they are/were. Otherwise, they would have seen the crash coming and made adjustments instead of peddling HUMMERS and a dozen full size trucks and SUV's.
So regardless of the amount of $$ given to an industry, or whether it is fully repayed, the simple fact that these bailouts are all over the news for months, leaves a distaste in most citizens mouths (those are aren't getting, but are being forced to give). Bailouts are a moral and ethical disaster; all domestic and international bailouts of all form and shape.
http://money.cnn.com/2011/06/07/real_estate/walk_away_mortgage/index.htm?hpt=hp_- - t2
True about taxes, for the state that offered the deal. Not true on a macro level, as the company would have then built the factory in another state. States are in competition with each for their interests, which may not jive well with the national-good. It is the same problem when congressmen get that defense contract for that shipbuilder or aerospace company in their state, when we really don't need that ship or airplane. Those sorts of deals are a net LOSS for the country.
The states cannabilize each other, whether it's auto-factories or building sports stadiums for professional sports teams. The wealthier end up wealthier, work gets shoved to the unions, and the wealthy support those politicans. A nice system for the wealthier, political, and unions to get a share, of the ever declining economic pie.
The day of reckoning is coming at us much quicker.
If we look back thru the 90's and 00's when GM had many so-so years, were they still giving annual bonuses to their 100K employees? stock options? flying in corporate jets? giving pretty good wage increases? giving stockholders dividends?
That sounds like a lot of $ that GM needlessly spent, and could have stuffed in Treasury bills, and had many, many billions more in cash. So they lived well, and didn't save.
Are you living in LALA land ?
TATA will be a bigger company than GM in next 10 years - already it is top 100 in world. TATA will have a bigger market cap than GM in next 5 years.
The dreams of your American buying powers are OVER. Wake up lol>
TATA will buy GM and Ford soon - not vice versa.
Chinese and Indian companies will go on a massive buying spree in next 10 years for American companies and turn around the wastage and white man's rule on corporate America.
Your day are over white old bald men - Asians have come now !
How dare you! I may be old and white but I still have most of my hair.
But seriously I think that India and China will have a very hard time keeping
2 plus billion people working in the future. When their bubble breaks it won't be pretty.
Nobody looks to anything designed and made in Chindia when they want something good. Deal with it.
Looks like another deranged Indian nationalist who just joined because one of his low quality national companies was bashed. Have fun with the Pakis and their nukes...
Everyone's gotta laugh at that.
I think industry is starting to wake up to the fact that there are wide margins of differences in Indian college grads in professions such as engineering and computers. Hopefully, industry is also waking up to the Chinese tendency to disregard patents and steal from its western partners.
Does anyone understand how he figures a $1/gal increase in the gas tax wouldn't throw the country into recession as it did in 2008, and the effect it's had this year? I think a monkey with a dartboard might be an improvement.
http://money.cnn.com/2011/06/07/news/companies/gm_gas_tax_hike/index.htm?hpt=hp_- t2
Wow wow wow, you registered today just to start a war?
I'm an Asian American and I don't think China and India will overtake the world any time soon. Cheap labor and copy cats can only carry you for so long. Even Japanese could not become the leader because their lack of innovations.
Cool down, please. We are talking about cars for fun.
There are many signs that point to OLD GM. Hence, closer to the C-11 II prediction....and, of course, bailout to save the jobs. Forget about the product.
Regards,
OW
For a second there I thought you were talking about the U.S. 150 years ago.
Remember, we did exactly the same things in our early years with technology and works from Europe.
I dunno- an awful lot of industrial technology and products were developed by inventors in the US during the 19th century, so I don't think its quite the same as China.
And good night, Mrs. Calabash, wherever you are.
And almost all of that was used by simply taking what we wanted from others and improving upon it.
Then the lawyers got involved and you can't do even that any more. So of course China ignores us. It has to be able to invent new things and survive.
If China can make an attack sub that can surface in the middle of U.S. naval exercises as a "mistake" and do so while being completely undetected, it can invent things.
We're just getting the cheap and worthless crap that's easy to make money off of. Sure, there's a lot of copying, but it also allows them to invent and create in other areas other than exports as well.
I'll have to see these innovations to believe them. In the sense of what enables them to survive, they are not creating and innovating - in fact, they are using our tech against us.
Do you have data for that? I haven't heard of any Hyn/Kia plants closing or laying people off. Seems like they are employing lots of staff and buying a lot of goods and services in the local areas.
You'll see cheap embedded computer parts, car parts, consumer electronics, engineering components, and on and on... things that were normally made in the U.S. because of quality issues with Chinese made goods.
I'd say that horse left the barn a long, long time ago.
Our politicians are as self-serving and corrupt as anything that was ever seen in ancient Rome.
No arguments there.
They do that in baseball. The players that aren't excellent play on the minor league teams. I hear Fresno is looking for good minor leaguers. They can play against other teams of similarly mediocre players. Sort of a walled garden where the 140 attendees can cheer at the game. Not the major leagues, where the BEST play against the BEST.
Are you saying GM is a minor league player?
Does anyone understand how he figures a $1/gal increase in the gas tax wouldn't throw the country into recession as it did in 2008, and the effect it's had this year? I think a monkey with a dartboard might be an improvement.
He's an idiot.
But I'm sure he's being well compensated for it.
Do you think if I shed 50 IQ points I could get the job?
They aren't going to lay off people, but the idea that they sold the politicians that they would continue building NEW plants, well, there's no incentive, really. And a lot of political pressure at home to build there.
I'd say that horse left the barn a long, long time ago.
I was talking about mostly higher-end embedded type devices and specific high-tech components that aren't seen by normal consumers. A lot of it is used by heavy industry, advanced robotics, aerospace, and so on - the really high tech stuff that was *LEFT* of those industries (the U.S. still makes the best bleeding-edge high tech components on the planet). It's now going to be crushed even further.
But stock prices will be up. Yay.
We're turning into the U.K. It's a nice place to live, make no mistake. It's not like it fell apart. But it was hell through the 60s and 70s for many people as they also had to just simply DEAL with their global empire being gone - and the 30% reduction in everything that came with it.
Are you living in LALA land ?
I was only joking, nightmare boy. Take a bite of an American Snicker's bar, a sip of American Coca-Cola, turn on some Mariner baseball and watch them dispose of Chicago's White Sox.
And relax. And watch those Tata's burn...I mean...I...mean those Tata's take off, dude.
2021 Kia Soul LX 6-speed stick
The new GM is smaller, quicker and more profitable. After $82 billion in losses in the four years preceding its bankruptcy, GM turned a $4.7 billion profit last year and earned $3.2 billion in the first three months of 2011.
But profits have disappointed analysts, who've focused complaints on high costs and high sales incentive spending in North America. GM has promised to keep incentives around or below the industry average for the rest of the year. But neither that promise nor a few one-time balance sheet cleanups, nor Akerson's personal purchase last month of 30,000 shares, has boosted the shares.
The government cut its GM stake in half during the November IPO and now owns 26% of GM. To break even on its $49.5 billion investment, the government must sell the rest at about $53 each. The Treasury is expected to wait until it can price its remaining stock at least above the IPO's $33. Anticipation of those new shares on the market, possibly later this year, also has helped to hold down GM's stock price.
Regards,
OW
Yep, from gunpowder to the world's most powerful supercomputer. (link).
Number 2 is at Oak Ridge. Number 3 is in China. (link).
Now if they'd just bring one to Walmart for a grand or two. :P
What will make it here are GM innovations that got their start in China.
Even if true, that's one thing in the past what, 1500 years? :shades:
Any hints about those GM innovations? Or should we just have blind faith and let "free trade" allow them to flow in?
GM has gained U.S. market share so far this year, even in the face of rising gas prices. It has the best selling compact car in the country, the Chevrolet Cruze, which was introduced to showrooms in November.
Anyone who thinks that the economy did a 180 and is on the right track, line up with D W-S, the dim party chief. Who recently voted that way? 11% in a recent poll. We are led by unethical liars. Thankfully, 89% now think we are on the wrong track. $4.80 gas will remove the last of the restaurant goers.
A bit pre-mature to make that claim. YTD, both the Civic and Corolla are still ahead of the Cruze. Looks like the Focus, Cruze and, Elantra will be in a tight sales race the rest of the year.
It's probably best stated as "crony capitalism".