Thanks, I’ll be here all week. It’s a different show at 11 o’clock. Don’t forget to tip your waitresses, they’re working hard for you too…

BTW- That was a brainfart/typo. It’s supposed to be YuSuburbaHos. Hope that’s at least as amusing.

GM needs an outsider to clean house, but who would want to take the helm at this point…?

That’s The Plan.

It would have been even smarter had they also brought with them a few of the blue collar guys from the line (Joe the Riveter) and a couple of small business owners down the street from the plant (Joe the Bar Owner and Jill the Florist) so they could have shared their tales of woe, in order to hit the Main Street angle that’s so popular these days. The taxpayer in me would have mocked them, but the business guy in me would have been nodding my head, applauding whoever orchestrated the event.

To point #3 of your post…you knock GM for attempting to design a vehicle with high fuel costs in mind, yet that’s one of the very reasons they’re in the situation they’re in to begin with. Everybody has been critizing them for not planning and forecasting the future well enough (like when gas did go up dramatically, sales of trucks tanked and everybody bitched at GM for not having seen the writing on the wall). Now they’ve at least (sort of) discussed a vehicle to address that, and you knock them for it. Granted, the Volt is a ridiculous attempt at addressing fuel economy in light of it’s astronomic price tag, given you can go down to your friendly neighborhood Toyota dealer and pick up a nice Prius for almost half the cost of the Volt. And THAT’S part of the real problem…developing the right vehicles for their intended markets. Most people will by-pass the $40k Volt on their way to, oh, just pick any other vehicle in that price range.

The price of fuel will go up again, it’s only a matter of time. But will GM (and Ford and Chrysler) “get it” and roll out appealing vehicles with excellent fuel economy that the average Joe can actually afford? Get that right, and they’re on the road to recovery!

Revenue and market share will return with compelling new product. Wolfgang Bernhard s/be pursued like a invitation to the Playboy Mansion. The customers will readily pay premium prices when premium products are created. It’s that simple and that hard. It’s impossible if GM, in particular, cuts product development and/or relies on existing, in house talent.

Cost reductions can come from many sources, but having too many dealers isn’t the problem. It’s manufacturing-based: labor costs, too many lines, and inefficient engineering that doesn’t share platforms and components. Corporate jets may be more symbolic than costly, but Iaccoca flew commercial, and he knew a thing or two about selling to Congress.

I keep returning to it, but the core of the problem is producing vehicles people are willing to get in line for. Style, performance and fuel efficiency are not necessarily incompatible anymore.

I predict the domestics will receive aid, but they’ll be back for seconds after six months, or less. In this economy, the margin for error is thong-thin. My advice to the Detroit 3: Please surprise us with bold plans. Or C11 may seal an unwanted fate.

The best you can hope for is a temporary fix to avoid bankruptcy, followed by a continued decline in market share. A further increase in market share for Toyota, Honda and other foreign companies seems inevitable.

That’s just fine with American consumers and so that’s just the reality America will have to learn to live with.

That might have been an ok idea in 1970, but there is nothing to split up now. The brands only exist as marketing foo-foo dust and the quasi-independent divisions are long gone. Over the past several decades GM has cost rationalized itself to oblivion.

Never, ever let the bean counters run a manufacturing company over the long haul.

Have idiots pay you billions for crap cars that depreciate down to the value of their intrinsic steel, glass, and gasoline in their tank after 6 years.

Remove hundreds of millions of dollars of shareholder equity for yourself and your Board buddies while also enriching the unionista fatcats to keep their mouths shut.

Never set hard targets so you can never be held responsible for failure. Smile for the cameras at CNBC.

Tell your customers they’re idiots to complain about their crap cars; JD Powers initial quality is all that matters and it’s a perception gap, that’s all.

When the jig starts getting dicey, sell everything that’s not nailed to the floor. When the jig is up, go beg for more money, while preparing to unfurl your golden parachute and float away to retirement in style.

Greatest CEO in American history. They could make Wall Street II: Motown based on this man’s story.

The posts and comments listed below make it clear to me that, even if sensible plans like Farago’s or NOLAKen’s were to be enacted, the existing culture would ensure that the company would be back in trouble within a decade or two.

GM Mindset

Dysfunctional Power Dynamics

Stanford Student’s Talent Wasted at Ford

Ford is a prime example. They had a top-notch exec in Petersen in the 80’s & early 90’s, and a decade later they were back in trouble.

The only thing I can think of is to break the company up into its constituent parts and hope that some of them survive. Restructure GM, making separate companies out of Buick, Cadillac, Chevrolet, GMC, Hummer, Pontiac, Saab, Saturn, GM Asia, GM Europe, GM Powertrain (for engines etc currently shared across companies), and God-knows-what-else-I’m-forgetting. And don’t let the companies combine for 30 years or longer.

Besides (hopefully) destroying the company culture, it would be a convenient way to avoid having to shutter brands and/or dealerships. Instead, let the market do the dirty work.

There may be many better ways to change the culture, but that was the only one I could come up with.

I’m afraid I have to agree with Mr. Karesh here. Yes, given the current cost structure GM would only need to sell twice as many cars as they currently are. But since many factors will prevent that, including the overall market contraction, its not a likely scenario.

Throughout the deathwatch series it was clear to most that brand dilution was the nexus of GM’s decline. It was their desire to maintain 8 brands that lead them to so blatantly badge engineer. Why did they desire 8 brands? Could it be that the huge dealer network was the only way to park all they cars they were basically mandated to produce. In any event, cut dealer contracts in order to cut brands. Take every penny that you would spend on making a car like the Malibu or Cruze a multi-brand vehicle (i.e. rebadging) and spend it on making the vehicle the best in its segment.

I’m preaching to the choir here, but again, the nexus of GMs problems is the number of brands/dealers/overgrown size. They simply are not right-sized for the current and future market.

Now if they put that in a Dakota pickup or a Durango, that would really turn heads. Oh… yeh, ahhh, forgot for a minute this is Chrysler. The diesel will go in full size Rams?

“If he’s really desperate, and we’re really lucky, he’ll offer up Buick as a sacrifice.”

Whoa there. Isn’t Buick in the middle of a renaissance? This isn’t your father’s Buick, after all.

They even have a hip, young, inoffensive black athlete endorsing them. Lucernes and Enclaves should be flying out of showrooms!

Oh, wait a sec…

“Chrysler’s should be the best. What do you tell Congress when you have no product pipeline?”

http://www.allpar.com/model/upcoming.html

P.S. RF, you should collect the Death Watches on a single page as a monument to a bygone era.

Sad state of affairs that this guy should be the public face of GM. He is obviously not going to take one for the team.

Time for C11, then…

(1) Brand restructuring
He’ll say they’re axing HUMMER(how green of him) and possibly announce plans to sell SAAB, but that’ll be it, at most. If he’s really desperate, and we’re really lucky, he’ll offer up Buick as a sacrifice, which would make sense, because the over-65’s that buy Buicks are too concerned about their retirement accounts to shop for a new Lucerne.

(2)Labor
He’ll offer a massive cutback of the workforce, but not more than GM would have had to do anyway due to the drop in demand for vehicles across the board. We won’t see Wagoner acknowledge GM’s impending loss of market share.

(3)New vehicle design
Look at my shiny new Volt! Isn’t it pretty? Just ignore the fact that it’s over-priced, designed with the belief that fuel prices would be twice what they currently are, and that no one believes that GM can design such a complicated piece of equipment to function reliably.

(4)Management
I think we really will see meaningful pay cuts for management, but only because Jetgate focused national attention directly on management perks. But don’t expect these cuts to be drastic and don’t expect their golden parachutes to be touched. I’m sure the more sensible people in GM management are going to wait for the bailout money to come in and get out while the getting is good.

The only thing that Rick won’t address that he should: the dealer network. Furthermore, I have a feeling that Congress doesn’t really want to hear him address. If he starts shutting down unnecessary dealers, we’re talking about lost jobs and money in every electoral district in the country. I have a hunch that most of the members of Congress have a dealer or two on their donor lists. Furthermore, who wants a closed dealer in their district? A big, empty lot next to a busy highway to remind everyone in the district that government Congress failed to protect a powerful symbolic representative of American industrial might?

What I’d like to see? Here’s a wish list:

(1) GM is paired down to three brands: Chevrolet (family cars, econo-boxes, and musclecars), Cadillac (GENUINELY upmarket cars), and Isuzu/GMC (commercial vehicles).

(2) An even bigger cutback to keep them more in line with the smaller market share they’re going to have once they finish restructuring.

(3) An end to brand engineering, an infusion of cash into vehicle interior design.

(4) Upper management works for $1 until GM sees black ink, and a suspension on any payouts for retirement packages for upper management until the company sees 4 consecutive quarters of profitability. Or, preferably, most of management is replaced.

(5) All of this done in a pre-packaged CH.11.

After all, GM does not pay dealers’ costs. Dealers pay dealers’ costs.

What GM does need to cut, which in many cases means renegotiate, is anything that keeps it from being profitable at the current level of sales. This means workers, shifts, plants, and the guaranteed volumes in parts contracts.

The need a smaller, more flexible blue collar workforce that works for less money. And they need pay cuts for the white collar staff as well.

Sorry, Buickman, but a bunch of sales gimmicks isn’t going to suddenly get people to buy cars again. You view of the world is very much constrained by where you have lived it, in the showroom. You’re every bit as myopic as the GM execs you criticize. Some of your ideas are good ones, but none of them are game changers.