People in the US are still buying GM. My guess is that the same thing will happen in Europe and Russia.

Chapter 7 may very will be in their future, but their pensions are safe. Gotta love our gov’t.

The United States has not had free enterprise since early last century.

A oligopoly such as GM and Ford with a few other players “allowed” to stay in the game (to avoid having GM dismantled, mostly) also doesn’t qualify as free enterprise.

Neither does having one union representing all the workforce in the companies, by fiat (i.e. government decree – which is essentially what happened). That’s a monopoly.

It appears to me that GM never wanted to do the deal in the first place. It was driven by a lack of cash and its lack of options during the economic crisis, not by desire.

The problem here is that the presidential auto task force has been disbanded. Now that GM has been left to make many of its own decisions again, it’s going back to being the old GM. That includes the mentality of being a large, sprawling company for the sake of it, even if that is unprofitable.

We didn’t less government involvement, but more of it. The task force did a better job in a few months than GM management did over a few decades. The top of the company should have been turned over, but it wasn’t. So much for the wonders of free enterprise.

GM was desperate trying to off Opel to the Russians/Magna. That was a suicidal idea. It’s good for GM that they got out of that and are keeping Opel. The German government was breaking EU laws anyways by funding Opel for German jobs with taxpayer money at the expense of Opel’s other European plants in Spain and the UK.

Interesting saga.

What isn’t understandable is how this can be supported financially. I suppose that the US taxpayer will end up having to pay for it, because GM surely isn’t producing enough revenue or profit to support this.

So this new sub-par car is supposed to spawn a whole family (sedan, station wagon, jeep, pick-up). In the mission critical low price car market. That why I predict they’ll be losing more and more ground. I mean, when they launched Opel’s Corsa here, at the same time they did in Europe, it was a big hit. But that car impressed everyone and was pretty much state of the art back then. This new Agile is a throwback and so, despite the best efforts of GM’s hard-working people down here, I’ll bet the results will leave the big dogs in Detroit scratching their heads.

1)Pay back the German government’s bridge loan that kept this Opel “enterprise” afloat since GM folded into abject bankruptcy? That’s due RIGHT NOW.

2)Refinancing funds to replace what the German government and Magna were going to inject into the sale? GM says governments and others across Europe. Utter BS.

The money is coming out of Canadian and US taxpayers pockets. Nobody else is going to be stupid enough to lend money to this entity.

The new GM board appears to be as awake as the old one. The way I see it Stronach is lucky to get out of this porcine affair with his money intact.

Nothing GM says or does makes sense. Opel is screwed in Europe — no wonder that the workers are going on strike.

China is starting to sort out its many car manufacturing enterprises quietly.

Chinese automakers are starting to push their own “brands” (some cars of which aren’t even rip-offs of other manufacturer’s designs).

I suspect that paybacks are going to be a bitch with Magna, and that Magna will simply look to a deal with a Chinese company to actually manufacture and distribute co-developed cars.

My guess would be Guangzhou-Changfeng as a good candidate. Their self-branded Acumen car brand might just be viable in other countries. (Guangzhou works with both Honda and Toyota in China, and has learned very fast; Changfeng has worked with Mitsubishi and also has learned quickly). Gonow also has a JV with Guangzhou.

Brilliance, on the other hand, just hived off its loss making Brilliance/Zhongua self-developed car brand, which would be a great fit for Magna.

Instead of Chinese companies buying distressed European or US automotive properties, it would be a Canadian company buying into a distressed Chinese property.

Yeah, I know the Brilliance spectacularly, epically collapsed in a crash test in Europe awhile back; a mere few months later, Brilliance put an improved car to the test and it passed with 3 or 4 stars.

Perhaps recasting the cars as the Magna and building them in North America and Europe would give Magna a shot at an automotive empire.

There are plenty of p*ssed off dealers in North America ready to take on the big 3 after being rejected and left to die…

“Oh no! The Germans are mad at me. Ooh the Germans! ooh they’re so big and strong!”

- Workers to Strike, German Gov’t demands repayment. No further explanation required, its more than highly likely.
http://ca.news.finance.yahoo.com/s/04112009/2/biz-finance-workers-strike-german-government-wants-bridge-loan-gm.html

- What happens to Opel sales? Are any Europeans going to buy an Opel, meaning, willing to do business with GM? Would you? Maybe if you were a close relative depending on an Opel employee’s salary, or other wise memory challenged. Otherwise, NO. Oh, and are any Russians going to buy from GM in future?

- After seeing once again (and another final straw) how GM “does business”, will anyone in North America agree to buy anything from them? Why? Other than the “Wavey da flag” types? Uh, looks good on ya, you are next to get screwed!

Chapter 7 can’t come soon enough, and I hope these bozos lose their pension along with it.

So there won’t be any cash coming. Legacy costs and the thousand and one other problems affecting GM that this site has been documenting over the years still exist, so now what..

Well, congratulations Opel. You have not been set free. But you are part of a global company with a long-standing history. Good times are a coming… or probably not.

Frank Stronach? Vladimir Putin? Barack Obama? You guys can suck it, too.

Now, on the whole, GM maybe be stupid, about many things. I’ll grant that. But in this particular situation, they played it absolutely pitch perfect. Couldn’t have been better, really.

Bravo, GM! Well done!

“Toyota certainly has a presence in Europe including factories in France, UK, Poland, the Czech Republic, Portugal and Russia.”

Well, Toyota had a 5.3% market share in Europe in 2008. So, is your point that 5.3% is a strong presence, or that Toyota’s not a global powerhouse? ;-)

There was never a plan to sell Opel, only a plan to make the PTFOA think that they were trying to sell Opel.

We haven’t heard the last of this; a Delphi-style transfer of US taxpayer cash can still make this deal work, helping create the illusion that Washington is executing a free-market exit strategy from the car business.

The current Malibu is based on the Epsilon chassis, which was designed and engineered at Opel.