Bailout Watch 38: GM President Does His Own Spinning
Troy Clarke, President of GM’s North American operations, decided answer back on some issues plaguing GM while addressing students at Southern Methodist University (home of the George W. Bush Presidential Library). Clark started with the usual PR blurb; GM is one of the largest auto manufacturers in the world, and that they bring us household brands, like Chevrolet, Buick, Saturn, Pontiac, Hummer and Cadillac. Well, until they kill Pontiac and sell off Hummer. And Buick slips in the shower and dies. While we could read into Clarke’s reference to GM as “one of” the world’s largest automakers rather than calling it “the largest,” there were other gems from the presentation. Clarke went on to trumpet GM’s phenomenal fuel economy stable: they have 18 models that get 30 mpg or better. Ray Wert trashed this myth previously: these 18 cars represent 30% of GM’s overall line up, whereas Toyota’s and Honda’s 30+mpg club represents 55 and 60%, respectively. Then came the thorny issue of “the bailout”. Or not. Because it’s not a bailout. Is it? Clarke told the crowd that actually, it’s not a bailout. It’s just a return for the taxpayer. Nice! “Congress has mandated an industry average of 35 mpg or better by 2020,” Clarke said. “This was the figure that they thought was reasonable and would not bankrupt the car companies, but it just depends on how valuable sooner results in this facet are to the American taxpayer.” Fancy that! Even though, I’m not a United States’ taxpayer, I’d hazard a guess that citizens would want their taxes spent on things like roads, defense and fixing social security, rather than a company run into the ground by clueless executives.
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- Oberkanone Tesla license their skateboard platforms to other manufacturers. Great. Better yet, Tesla manufacture and sell the platforms and auto manufacturers manufacture the body and interiors. Fantastic.
- ToolGuy As of right now, Tesla is convinced that their old approach to FSD doesn't work, and that their new approach to FSD will work. I ain't saying I agree or disagree, just telling you where they are.
- Jalop1991 Is this the beginning of the culmination of a very long game by Tesla?Build stuff, prove that it works. Sell the razors, sure, but pay close attention to the blades (charging network) that make the razors useful. Design features no one else is bothering with, and market the hell out of them.In other words, create demand for what you have.Then back out of manufacturing completely, because that's hard and expensive. License your stuff to legacy carmakers that (a) are able to build cars well, and (b) are too lazy to create the things and customer demand you did.Sit back and cash the checks.
- FreedMike People give this company a lot of crap, but the slow rollout might actually be a smart move in the long run - they can iron out the kinks in the product while it's still not a widely known brand. Complaints on a low volume product are bad, but the same complaints hit differently if there are hundreds of thousands of them on the road. And good on them for building a plant here - that's how it should be done, and not just for the tax incentives. It'll be interesting to see how these guys do.
- Buickman more likely Dunfast.
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monkeyboy: Check out what happened (or didn't happen) at a recent military march of a holiday in N. Korea recently. blindfaith : An American family-owned business the rights to an additive that a number of German machines needed and managed to make a lot of money off of that during the war.