I sent them a math model in ExCel that demonstrates that a 4800 pound vehicle should get 50+MPG as a Hybrid… My interest was in helping them to make an informed decision. The interest was in getting information that was NOT from a source with, ‘ a dog in the fight’.

It just, incidentally, demonstrates that the car companies should have even MORE pressure to develop competitive vehicles applied to them. The Senator already opposes any bailout, so this, I hope, will fuel his opposition.

The vacuum created by the car companies ‘collapse’ would be filled nearly overnight.

The true criminals in all of this is the Board of Directors that rubber stamp operations without the slightest clue or care of their decisions. This could be said of the Banking industry or any other group clamoring for a bailout.

Well, from what I gather this site has been are around long enough to span times when all major OEMs and Tier 1 suppliers were hiring. Politics are more fickle – it seems much more time is required to enter positions of political influence… so I’m not sure what could have been accomplished in that arena since this site’s inception.

TTAC could have encouraged interested individuals who wanted to try to make a difference to actually get into the industry. Or, if the interest were to exist – there is enough intelligence on this site to act as an outside consultant.

We see many “thanks to you know who you are” people leaking news here. And I’m sure there are plenty more people already in the industry who visit the site passively. There could be an attempt to pass resumes along or to advertise external hiring positions.

The auto industry would have received a great benefit to having the progressive thinking that people could have brought to the table. If you had these types of people in the companies, then maybe some things could have turned out for the better.

Unfortunately, it seems that there is complacency in claiming to be a bunch of Cassandras. Rather than having contacts that they developed over time, you have a relentless claim that the auto industry and political arena never listens to the advice or to the message that their companies are in trouble.

I’m sure some believe that the automakers in Michigan were already so screwed in 2004 that it wasn’t worth anyone’s time to work at trying to fix it. So if that were the case, then it’s a bit silly to claim “… could have saved Congress a ton of time and billions of dollars if…” The Big 3 knew they had that outlet, and the Government has been more than happy to act as generous philanthropers with taxpayer money.

I’m sure that many of use who don’t work in the auto industry would love to help. That’s why there is so much passion on this board discussing these issues. I for one have been hoping that someone, anyone really, at the D3 reads these threads and thinks, hey, this is a good idea that we need to try.

Reality is that in the case of GM and ChryCo, they are sick companies that will NEVER be profitable with their cost structure in current state. They lack the leadership and structure to become different companies. Shooting the messengers doesn’t solve their problems either.

Common wisdom says that the Prius was a triumph of technology, turns out it REALLY was a triumph of marketing, being right there with the product that was green, and more importantly showed the world that YOU were green, and without giant HYBRID tattooed all over your vehicle. The big 3 didn’t lose the technology battle, they were just a little behind and have now caught up.

Oh really? So GM sells a midsized sedan, that seats five, that gets 48 MPG city, 45 highway? If they’ve caught up technology-wise, and the Prius is nothing special technology-wise, they must have such a product.

Oh wait, they don’t, because the Prius is, in fact, a technological showcase.

Unfortunately (for the most part), you have a cluster of people who love to see their words float around on the Internet; but they are not motivated to take any action. Rather, they sit back and just “watch” because that’s much more novel and poses less risk. Which is a shame since it seems there is a large quantity of knowledge and motivation pent up in your audience. I think it’s disappointing the result of your efforts is just a bunch of “I told you so” statements. So the question remains, would you rather be right – or would you rather try to make a positive change?

GM’s ONLY R&D center is in Warren MI. They have satellite operations in India, and are developing some in China.

GM does engineering work in the US, Canada, Germany, Sweden, Brazil, Mexico, Korea, India and China. The US is still by far the largest of those, and will be for some time if GMNA survives.

@Ken E.: “Making more hybrid vehicles– 15 models by 2012-– when the current GM hybrids barely sell today, makes no sense.”

The ONLY hybrid that “makes sense” is the Prius, It still commands over 50% of the hybrid market, even with the new players. Common wisdom says that the Prius was a triumph of technology, turns out it REALLY was a triumph of marketing, being right there with the product that was green, and more importantly showed the world that YOU were green, and without giant HYBRID tattooed all over your vehicle. The big 3 didn’t lose the technology battle, they were just a little behind and have now caught up. But the fact that they got spanked in the marketing battle…..THAT is embarassing.

Who took my TTAC, and when can I have it back?

Because buying the shares doesn’t put money in to GM’s coffers. GM already sold the shares and got the money. All this does is move money around outside of GM, sort of like how buying a used GM car doesn’t help GM.

What it can do is give the buyer the right to votes. They can then replace the BoD and install new management. But at this point a new BoD and management won’t have anything to work with.

Cash is the life blood of business. Bottom line, GM needs to find a way to stop the hemorrhaging AND find new cash. Or they die.

They have found the new cash…. taxpayers. But they have not found a way to stop the hemorrhaging. So they will die.

So move the jobs bank from the UAW to the Fed? No dice. Do it for the auto industry and soon every industry with layoffs will be demanding the same treatment.

“GM’s market cap (that is, the cost to buy every share of stock) is currently about 3 billion dollars.

How about the UAW buying GM with their pension fund? Seriously.”

Yeah right. The UAW members know just how corrupt and lazy of an organization they’ve got, they wouldn’t WANT to work for a company run by themselves. It’d be like an alcoholic owning a bar.

GM is producing a lot of vehicles like the Chevy Cobalt and Trailblazer, that nobody wants to buy. So the government is going to give GM billions to keep piling up these lemons?
Makes no sense.

How about the following plan:
They need to stop producing vehicles that aren’t selling. You do that by idling the factories. Suppliers need to be idled as well. The government should pick up the tab and health benefits for the idled workers.

After that we can start talking about the future and how the government can help with R&D for new, better vehicles.

GM’s market cap (that is, the cost to buy every share of stock) is currently about 3 billion dollars.

How about the UAW buying GM with their pension fund? Seriously.

Of course, the bailout is, at least in theory, merely a loan. But the 34 billion dollar number is also a theory. It doesn’t count the 25 billion already approved, nor does it count any supplemental loans that will be needed six months from now. Plus, if the companies go out of business anyways, that loan never gets repaid, now does it?

I think the plan from GM says a lot about their mentality – they truely believe “we’re too big to fail”. They highlighted the knock-on effect of them not getting the money. They basically said – forget Chapter 11, it won’t work for a car company, so if we go it’s straight to Chapter 7 and “a plague of all your houses”.

Ford at least looks like it’s fighting to survive. They see that the old model doesn’t work any more so they’ve bet the farm on getting through to when the new models get in. They are the American car company, at least as I understand America “if we go down, we go down fighting”. GM is more like one of those people who wear those special vests in places like Iraq “I’m gonna take you all out with me”. Crysler, perhaps best not to talk about.

My vote – they’ll get the money and that will jst buy ChryCo & GM a few more months and maybe by then Ford will be able to demonstrate the difference between having a plan and having a begging letter. Else it’ll be American Leyland.

Problem is, there’s almost no R&D left in America.

GM’s R&D centers are Germany and Korea, Chrysler got rid of almost any R&D and even Ford is looking more into Europe for their future developments.

But even beyond that, if you look at who builds the machines that go into American plants, then you won’t see many American companies that are capable of building those.

And the suppliers? Well, to be honest I don’t know the situation there. There are still three American companies among the top 10:
Delphi on 5, Johnson Controls on 7 and Lear on 9.

Of course size alone isn’t the best indicator and we all know that Delphi isn’t really healthy either. But I can’t say anything on Johnson Controls and Lear. Maybe someone else can fill us in on how much potential there is?

Without Chapter 11 the big-3 have no money to spend on design and engineering. They will get rid of all of those non-union employees, keeping only the debt, dealerships and UAW employees that they are legally bound to.

Perhaps the difference in his request (”we may not need this”) vs. the desperate panic from the others will do it.

Can congress see that they are not all one lump?
Hope so, but not gonna bet on it.

Bunter

THIS^^^^is what the majority of people on the coasts as well as the ass-masters on Capitol Hill don’t seem to understand. Richard Shelby seems to think that the Hyundai plant in his home state of Alabama just builds cars out of thin air with no regard to the planning, R/D, and engineering needed to go into making that plant operable.

After all, Mazda has won itself a huge reputation for reliability and quality recently, unlike Volvo.

One American auto manufacturer about the size of Ford would probably balance world wide production capacity at least for the next few years.

I think you don’t understand OUR Congress. It exists solely to spend our tax money and the fact that GM management and BoD are complete and utter nincompoops shall not deter Congress from spending, wasting tax dollars. What is obvious to fifth grader (complete incompetence and greed of GM management) will take 5-6 years for illustrious congress to figure out. Then they will change management, and give it another 5-6 years. Unless members of Congressional committee will die of natural causes or will not be re-elected (my bet is on forces of nature).

Sadly, however, I believe that the politics will play out such that we construct an American Leyland, with the interesting twist that some significant fraction of the money will be used to purchase or develop factories and markets overseas…

-S5

http://www.counterpunch.org/weissman12032008.html