After they are bailed out by the Feds (aka all 300mm taxpayers), nothing will change. Chrysler had Iacocca, and today, Ford has Mulally to force the company to change. GM has no one.

I worked with a guy who worked at GM and left within 18 months because, as he put it, they don’t want to hear the truth about who they are.

GM is a terminally ill organization. Keeping a feeding tube attached hides the real problems. GM needs to die. The sooner the inevitable happens, the sooner a suitor can break it apart and save the few productive pieces.

me too.

i’ve lived in san diego since 1982, but i was born in flint michigan [the birthplace of general motors]. i grew up in mott park [named after charles stewart mott; at the time one of the world's ten wealthiest men and the single largest stockholder of gm] – only two blocks from the general motors institute of technology. i attended durant-turri-mott school. my father worked for gm his entire life. my brother just recently retired from gm after 35 years on the job. his wife too, after more than 30, herself. as did one of my uncles and one of my cousins.

when and where i grew up, even fords and chryslers were considered foreign cars. almost everybody on my street either worked directly or indirectly for gm. and if you didn’t own and operate gm product you were, for all practical purposes, ostracized from the community. i know this very well myself because when i bought my last gm car – a ‘68 buick gransport 400 – in 1969 and then sold it later that same year in favor a ‘66 jaguar e-type coupe, i became persona non grata – even within my own family – for quite a long period of time.

despite that unfortunate turn of events, i have known and respected and appreciated gm for decades because of all that that company has meant to me and my family over the years. it put food on our tables and roofs over our heads. and it enabled us to get good educations.

but, in all honesty, one must admit that gm has had its chances. plenty of ‘em. and it blew ‘em, time after time after time. and i do not blame the employees, nor their union representatives, or even consumers for any of this. the highest echelon of gm management – at least as far back as roger smith and as recently as bob ‘he’s nuts’ lutz – these are the people who have destroyed this company; due to their ignorance, and their arrogance and their incompetence; and they are the people who should be held responsible for this impending disaster. because they were the people leading the charge and they were the people making the decisions.

Would this open up the company to a broader management talent pool?

Would it give the company a new cosmopolitan worldview?

If you were to start a completely new car company today would you situate its headquarters in a medium-sized city (<1 million citizens) far from the costal population centers?

Like much of corporate America, they self-select for blindly-loyal, arrogant herd animals who parrot their bosses’ propaganda and never challenge or threaten their smug worldview, while ostracising (”…not a team player”) and expelling any independent fresh-thinkers who remain, the very people they need most to turn around their dinosaur organizations.

Let’s grant this for the sake of discussion, particularly since Honda doesn’t actually have a full-size truck (I understand the Ridgeline to be on a car platform, distinguishing it from it’s look-a-similar Avalanche).

The follow-up question becomes: who cares?

Given Detroit’s financial, and market share, performance relative to that of Toyota and Honda, you’ve as good as said that the market hasn’t given a rat’s a** about “full-size truck”s “over these last 10+ years”, even though that time period includes the truck-based SUV craze.

Then I must be a friggin genius by Bob’s standards. The day before Katrina landed I took my old beater pickup out of the barn and loaded it up with jerry cans and bought as much gasoline as I could carry (and paid about $1.98 or so per gallon IIRC.. maybe it was $2.15… whatever it was, we’d call it “cheap” today!) I then parked the gas-powered pickup and haven’t run it more than 500 miles since. That gasoline has been feeding my lawn mower ever since (along with the occasional shot of “Sta-Bil”) I then geared up my homebrew BioDiesel setup and went into production. My goal was to have the ability to go fully independent from petroleum for daily driving by the time fuel prices hit $4 a gallon. So despite Bob’s assertion I KNEW, three years ago that we’d be paying $4 a gallon, or more by now.

Perhaps GM should just fire Bob and send me his salary because they’ve obviously been getting a crap return on the Bob Lutz investment.

If I had been running GM’s development group three years ago I’d would have said “Turn the ship around boys, we’re going for Fuel Economy!”

By the way, I’m not a genius. But Bob Lutz is a frigging moron.

–chuck

and as a litigator in a fancy law firm have sued and deposed many of them.

Andy777, I really want to switch jobs with you…at least some of the time.

1) Lutz is saying what they pay him to say. He’s no fool, but he has to toe the party line.

2) On the Tundra. Toyota could write off the entire $2B plant and still make a $13B profit this year. The thing is, Toyota will keep refining and improving the product until they get the results they want. Could GM write off $2B as cavalierly? Ummm, NO.

One has to leave Southeastern Michigan for a few years to be able to see the truth. Believe me, I’ve been there.

I don’t have a problem with loyalty. In fact, I applaud and respect it. But to guilt the rest of the country/world into blindly following along just doesn’t make sense. That is the problem with Southeastern Michigan. All talk, no walk.

I’m with you on the Corvette. Not because its the best car in the world, because its not. But because it screams VALUE! It offers exotic performance at a reasonable price. Like having champagne taste on a beer budget. Nobody else matches that. It truly is “class leading”.

Respectfully, how many “other” vehicles have you driven in the last year? Or five? Or ten? If you haven’t driven any….ever….how can you speak of those GM products as being “superior”? And superior on what level?

I’ve driven the Caddy’s and Lincolns, the Cobalts and Fusions. They don’t stand up to my Acura OR Honda…let alone a Lexus, BMW or Benz.

Don’t forget….Pride is one of the seven deadly sins. And Southeastern Michigan suffers from it.

Detroit1701,
The Civic is Honda’s ONLY Golden Child?

And the Accord is chopped liver (surrently outsells the F150)? There are more acclaimed subcompacts than the Fit? The CR-V isn’t the best selling small CUV? The Odyssey isn’t the best minivan? What am I missing here?

Ok, we got it. GM did not focus on building quality small cars until 2006. GOT IT. We’ll stipulate to that.

The point is this: Where are we now? For all of the railing against the Cobalt, it is just as good of a design, fit and finish, and fuel efficient as the Corolla. The Astra actually blows the Corolla away (let’s not squabble about 2mpg hwy). The Corolla always has been a cheap, underpowered rattletrap, and the “redesign” simply masks the problem (I know — my roommate has one from 2004). Ok, the Honda Civic — but that is Honda’s really only golden child — GM has plenty of golden children, just not at that size (CTS, Malibu, Corvette, Escalade, etc.).

No surprise that Rick and Bush the Younger both got their MBAs from the same school :(.

How was this possible?

Because the forces ranged against him were honor and duty bound to follow the battle array of Friedrich the Great, whose principles of battle were obeyed with religious zeal by the Prussians, Russians and Austrians.

Napoleon, knowing exactly what his opponents were going to do, played them like fools on the day.

Toyota and Honda, when they saw that GM had hired a man who flew two trainer jets for fun to run their automotive development, must have been crying with laughter – they now definitely knew what kind of cars GM would be focusing its resources on during the crucial years when Toyota and Honda were going to be positioning their leaner offering.

For the world’s largest car company to have to take a retirement aged designer from a company that was always a year away from more financial problems because of the lack of breadth in it’s product line was breathtaking. For nearly 100 years GM was the place where automotive style if not always engineering prowess started. There problem in the past would have been, which of the bright promising in house people would we want to replace a Harley Earl, or Bill Mitchell.

In other words, it was a matter of whose great styling cues would dominate the next generation of GM products. (Never if there were going to be new great styling cues) This was the direct result of the purges GM went through in the eighties when the best and brightest of their design and engineering staff left or were forced out. GM came back to profitability, but the hole in the back office design studios was never to be filled.

As to where the money for design did go, it went to trucks and SUV’s. The elaborate balance that GM had in it’s product line from it’s origional five divisions was gone and a laser like attraction to the hottest segement at the expense of everything else ensued. (Remember Ford & Chrysler being much smaller were forced to go for the hot segements, GM could cover all the bases with it’s larger product line and mfg. size.) But they gave this advantage up to catch Ford in the truck and SUV business.

Toyota only augmented their truck business with a new pickup, and never stopped making competive cars. GM did stop making cars that sell buy starving the retooling cycles.The reason was obvious, they had lower profit margins than trucks.

The result is easy to see, they don’t sell the trucks or the cars because of fuel costs for the former, and obsolete product for the latter.

GM management should recognize they are the problem, and leave. They’ve had years, decades, and they have been incapable of adapting to market realities, provide proper custodianship of their brands, or of accepting responsibility for their mistakes.

In other words, they’ve been delusional, neglectful and irresponsible. That they’re still in place is beyond comprehension.

The company has to be broken up. Large portions of the operation have to be closed down – at present they’re kept running in the vain hope that gas will hit a buck fifty a gallon.

Sadly, quite a few of the brands have to be sent off to the Automotive Hall of Shame.

Whether GM can find outside management willing to take on the challenge, or whether this hypertanker of a company has to wreck itself against a rock first, is a toss-up.
What isn’t – is the fact that Lutz, Wagoner and their CFO are seriously delusional.

And yes – I know one has to sugarcoat and keep up pretenses – but when it’s clearly ridiculous to do so, as everyone (even the MSM) have begun seeing through your smoke-and-mirrors game, then you have to realize that the buck stops at your desk, ’cause it sure ain’t coming to your dealers.
And that state of affairs is the fault of management – to paraphrase Henry Ford: Detroit has been building bigger horses – and it turns out that’s not what people needed.

I was watching an interview with Bob Lutz and he said something which kind of summed up GM’s attitude:

(Paraphrasing) “What we need is consideration from the customer. We turned a whole generation off GM products, now we need those buyers back or at least the consideration…”

Even in the face of bankruptcy, GM refuses to admit that it’s their fault and their customers are their “God given right”. Why should customers consider you, Bob (if I may call you that)? Shouldn’t you be winning customers back rather than EXPECT their interest?

Another thing which was interesting on this interview was his VERY careful manipulation of statistics. In the interview, he mentions a JD Power survey in which Buick tied Lexus in reliability and Cadillac came third (Buick and Lexus joint first, Cadillac third, Mercury fourth and Honda fifth). “Where is Toyota in the Top 5? The acknowledged, masterful quality leaders…?” he opines. Well, here are my problems, Mr Lutz:

1. “Where is Toyota in these rankings?” Erm…they’re at number one, Bob! Where do Lexus get their engineering from? Chrysler?!

2. Lexus makes the same amount cars as Cadillac AND Buick put together per month and yet, Lexus cars still more reliable. That’s pretty good, wouldn’t you agree, Mr Lutz? Oh, no it isn’t because that would involve giving credit to Toyota, wouldn’t it?

3. OK, lets run with the theory that Buick has tied Lexus and that it’s all on an even par. Where’s Chevrolet on these rankings, Mr Lutz? Toyota may have come 7th, but like for like, Chevrolet is GM’s mainstream brand, so where are they on these rankings? That’s like for like, is it not?

Psarhjinian

GM have no problems comparing themselves to Toyota when it suits them (even if the logic is a bit dodgy). When the topic is something in which GM is well and truly beaten (e.g profitability) then GM will use the term “imports”.

I’m not completely down on Detroit. I believe Ford is making great steps to get back on track, but I don’t think their turnaround couldn’t have come at a worse time. When “imports” are tightening their belts, then you know that the economic climate is bad! The only thing which will stall Ford’s turnaround is the economic slowdown. Otherwise, they’ve been making the right steps.

Source: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ed9MyLDmFIM

Off topic but here in tampa I am told (I don’t watch much television as I cancelled my cable) that the local auctions which had previously been only accessable to those holding dealer licenses is advertising that they are now also open for the general public. Is this becoming more common due to the bad economy and the glut of SUV’s ?

On the same side of the coin, I would say that Toyota and Honda have done far worse with their full-sized pickups than Detroit has with their subcompacts over these last 10+ years. Other than Honda, I really don’t see any ‘Japanese’ company that has truly provided small cars that could be considered the gold standard of the North American market.

If you find one that isn’t named Civic or Fit, or isn’t owned by a company based in Michigan, let me know.

Uh, wrong. Tundra is a bomb.

Nope, I’m right. The current Tundra is selling in greater numbers than in it’s prior iteration. Considering that all three of the domestic truck makers, plus Nissan, are selling much worse than 2006 (even after June’s bloodbath, its still selling more than 2004, 2005 and 2006 June, and more than most other months from 2003-2006) I’d say Toyota is doing well.

You really have to take the 2008 sales and compare them to 2004-2006. 2007 was an exceptional year, and 2008 looks rough by comparison. To prior years, though, it looks damn good.

Yes, the net margin is probably lower, but they’ve taken a ugly chunk out of the domestic’s share. And Toyota has the necessary cash flow to further tighten the screws.

Wagoner finds it very easy to survive by sprinkling a little bullshit when he feels heat. The stock market is a joke as an indicator of anything. Look what happened with the bank stocks last week. Just do what it takes to get a downer expectation from the ‘analysts’ and beat that regardless of tons of disasters in your company, and surprise, the stock rockets up and the CEO is good to go for another few months.

An interesting contrast with Ford. According to the WSJ, Mulally is pushing through an early move to make small Euro Fords here overruling the views of other Ford execs. Evidently he gives a damn about the company instead of collecting his check while the ship takes on more water.