GM Opens the Russian Front
Fresh off the financial success of, well, nothing, really, The General has laid down a bid of an undisclosed amount for Russian carmaker OVO AvtoVaz. Bloomberg reports that Russia, awash in oil money, will be a booming car market in the near future– and the General wants a piece of that action. GM has already joint-ventured with AvtoVaz since 2001, building the Chevrolet Niva SUV and Viva sedan. The bid comes despite the fact that The General has had "issues" with the Russian government's unique take on private enterprise of late– as in you enterprise and we profit– and the recent labor troubles at Ford's Russian factory. While analysts predict a hook-up with AvtoVaz could significantly boost GM's current 132k Russian-made cars per annum total, the American automaker is playing it safe (ish). They're also building a plant near St. Petersburg, set to open next year. хороший удача with that.
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GM is pulling a bone-headed move, here, IMHO. About as dumb as these Chinese 50% JV's. Sure, it looks like a smooth move now... but as was not so cryptically mentioned in the article, "Russian government's unique take on private enterprise of late– as in you enterprise and we profit" this also goes for the Chinese. As in blatant intellectual property theft. Constantly. Ongoing. And industrial spying, in person and via the internet. Besides, Lada's are built by vodka swilling drunks and ham-fisted Russian robots, and pretty much all Europeans know it (and thus, the car doesn't sell well - even in Russia, with new choices now available). I know, I've had two new Lada's (1987, 1990) when I lived in the UK (as it, it was all I could afford to buy new instead of buying used crapola). That is, if I wanted my family to eat. It was about 1/3 the cost of an equivalent Ford Escort at the time. The embarrassing thing for me as a Michigander, is that the Lada was as good or better than many cars I've owned which were built by the Detroit companies... ham fisted robots and vodka drunk workers building a car designed by Italian communists in 1966 notwithstanding.
In Soviet Russia, the car drives you! Sorry... I couldn't resist. Terrible joke. I know. Can I tell my favorite Russian car joke? It is a bit dated. Comrade Ivan decides that he wants to own a car. So for years and years he works hard and saves every ruble he can. Finally, after 10 years, he has saved enough. So he takes his suitcase full of rubles and takes a trip to People's Car Factory #1. He walks into a sales rep's office, plops the suitcase of rubles on the desk and places an order for a car. "No problem.", says the salesman. He counts the rubles and hands Ivan a receipt. "You're car will be ready to pick up on May 26, 1987". "But that is 8 years from now!" protested Ivan. "You gotta be be kidding me." "Sorry. That is the way it is.", answered the salesman, obviously used to such protests. "We are backlogged. Come back on May 26, 1987. Bring your receipt. Good bye". Ivan sighs with defeat. "Will that be in the morning or the afternoon?" he asks. "Why would it matter?!? That is over 8 years away!" demands the salesman. "Because that is the day my plumber is scheduled to show up"
In Russia, GM buys you!!
It is more proper to say "Удачи!" in that kind of contest. You can tell, person who was using Russian in that article has no idea about that language and used one of the online automatic translators. I hope the rest of information is credible enough.....