By Robert Farago
January 25, 2008
I'm sure plenty of auto bloggers and erstwhile reporters will hail GM's decision to form a new engineering group to "focus on hybrid vehicles, extended-range electric vehicles and battery technology." It's easy enough to see the development (reported by CNNMoney) as proof that GM has, finally, put its chips on the alternative propulsion (alt prop) table. But I'd like to raise the red flag here. GM already has a 500-member team working on the electric - gas hybrid Chevrolet Volt. GM already has another team working on the plug-in Saturn Vue. GM already has vehicle development teams for all its eight U.S. brands, spanning some 49 models. GM already has boffins in Germany working on their products. GM already has a hybrid development team in China. In theory, consolidating all these efforts under one Alt Prop Czar– Robert Kruse, executive director of vehicle engineering for hybrids, electric vehicles and batteries– makes sense. But the fact that GM says it will be "based" in North America, Europe and Asia tells me that this new GM fiefdom will struggle within The General's Byzantine bureaucracy and competition fiefdoms, floundering within a culture known for product paralysis and financial profligacy. Just sayin'…
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January 25th, 2008 at 9:36 am
Do all those teams weigh out the sale of Allison… who were responsible for the two-mode hybrids’ core component?
January 25th, 2008 at 9:54 am
Why in 2007/2008 did it officially take GM the effort to create a dedicated hybrid engineering team, when in the early 90’s Honda & Toyota (much smaller companies at that time) developed theirs.
January 25th, 2008 at 11:03 am
Ok so nothing really changed? This is just an announcement of a new person for all the minions to have to report to. I thought Bob Lutz was intimately involved in seeing these new hybrids all the way to production. Seems like these guys are going the wrong way, they need to reduce the management bureaucracy not add more people and confusion to make it harder to get these things out.
January 25th, 2008 at 11:15 am
I see two possible reasons for this:
1. It’s just the Daily Announcement. With each Daily Announcement, GM further increase its lead in alternative propulsion. Or at least increases its lead in talking about alternative propulsion.
2. Maybe - and this is the preferred reason - certain individuals in top management are
being shoved out of the waybeing realigned in responsibility for the early alternative propulsion projects so the engineers can do their workwithout having their morale eroded by counter-productive blather from the topwith proper focus, priorities and incentives.January 25th, 2008 at 1:17 pm
“Why in 2007/2008 did it officially take GM the effort to create a dedicated hybrid engineering team, when in the early 90’s Honda & Toyota (much smaller companies at that time) developed theirs.”
In my opinion because back then GM’s false sense of pride, made it impossible to acknowledge that they would follow Toyota or Honda’s lead which led to them falling yet further behind. Hence the common refrain of hybrids are a fad from GM. They are not and that is why GM is in the predicament that they are in.
January 25th, 2008 at 1:45 pm
Well what did you expect them to do? This was the only way to add a new layer of GM management.