Jhart2838

What happened to GM? How did things get soo bad? When and what is causing their demise right now? Does it have to do with how they pay their labor? What about how they purchase their production factors? How can they ever get back to where they were? ---Im really curious what people have to say about this.

kaptain cap

It started with too much reliance on suvs and trucks

Lutz and others have helped Pontiac rediscover performance with the Solstice.

check this link for gobs of pictures and information on the new Solstice

Pontiac's Solstice

Pontiac has more than 15,000 orders for the new Solstice.

The Pontiac Solstice has won Automobile Magazine's 2006 Design of the Year award.

"No need to beat around the bush: the best attribute of the Pontiac Solstice is its brilliant Franz von Holzhausen styling. Even if its appealing appearance were all the Solstice had going for it, the car still would have been a strong contender for this award, because it possesses all the visceral appeal that made the original 2002 concept so desirable. It's cool, it's smooth, it's exciting, and, thanks to some clever engineering under its skin, it's a good drive, too."

- Automobile Magazine

sb427f-car

With my new job...(I work for an accounting firm in Maryland that has a team, of which I'm part of) that specialises in auto dealerships. Yesterday, we had our monthly team meeting and yearly update on industry items, and got info from some team members that attended a few conferences.

Several analysists said that GM and Ford's financial problems are worse than Chrysler was in the 80s. They also said that too many people in the "front office" come from the accounting office. (Granted, not all of us accountants don't have issues with creating a good product ). They aren't saying it will take a merrical for GM to get saved, but, it'll take damn near one.

Also, the industry average right now for designing and production has come down to about 3.7 years (give or take). I'd like to know where the general stands right now with it's Camaro project as well as some other things that need to be straightened out.

Other things I learned from the update...start making plans for the feunerals forPontiac, GMC and Buick (Chevy, Caddy, Hummer, and Saturn survive) now (as well as others from Ford).

GM's market share will probably be 20% in the next 5~7 years (or less).

kws87

iTrader: (6)

A lot of the problems have to do with union pension plans set up long ago. Most of these workers have been retiring the past 10 years or so and GM is getting hit hard, between benefits of current and past workers and all the pensions. Also with suv and truck sales taking a dive GM has found itself out of the loop with the new V8 RWD sedan niche. They made some bad decisions long ago that are catching up to them, and the unions are sticking it to them hard. The thing these unions don't realize is that if they push too hard GM will fall and they will all be out of jobs.

TriShield

Producing consistently mediocre or flawed cars, spreading the company too thin on supporting an empire of similar brands that the US market doesn't care about, bloated US production capacity, bloated dealer network, and making agreements with labor they can't afford.

GM will go bankrupt without a complete and thorough restructuring including eliminating more plants and labor as well as more car brands like Buick and Pontiac.