Bob Lutz Communicates About Communication

by Edward Niedermeyer

Published: September 23rd, 2009

Edward Niedermeyer

More by Edward Niedermeyer

Comments

Join the conversation

4 of 18 comments

Happy_Endings on Sep 23, 2009
Rebates are how all companies – not just GM – do business right now. But we single out GM for doing it. Why? We all know the answer: resentment of GM. GM loses money on every vehicle they sell, on average. The only hope they have of paying back the money the US Gov't lent them is if they start selling their vehicles at a profit. Continuing to sell vehicles at bigger and bigger losses, through the use of excessive incentives, will only hasten their destruction. So talking about GM's reliance on using incentives, and the difference to some of it's competitors in this regard, to sell their vehicles is a very appropriate talking point.

Like Reply
50merc on Sep 23, 2009

FreedMike, I didn't know the Cobalt was built on a new platform, not the one used by the Cavalier. The Cobalt gets little praise, at least from the writers I've read. Does the new platform suffer from much the same deficiencies? Did the engineering, new dies, etc., consume a lot of money yet achieve little?

Like Reply
Commando on Sep 23, 2009

If all of GM's failings is due to public misconceptions, prejudice, and bias, as GM wants you to believe, I have one question: Why wasn't anyone at GM all those years intelligent enough to PREVENT that from happening? Smugness and arrogance, that's why. You sow what you reap.

Like Reply
Chuck Goolsbee on Sep 24, 2009
FreedMike: "but letting hundreds of thousands of people suffer because we’re pissed at a few executives is the wrong thing to do…and because it’d have stuck a knife in the side of the economy, it’d have been the foolish thing to do as well." So we prop up a private enterprise with public money? We pour billions into GM and we'll NEVER see a dime returned. Mark my words. As for the "thousands who would suffer" I posit that the very industry is suffering worse due to this life support being given to Detroit. Had GM died its natural death other automakers would have filled the gap left behind. A GM propped up with Federal cash acts as a huge barrier to entry for any potential competition. Had GM died, I imagine many smaller, leaner, and potentially amazing automotive startups could have sprung from the ashes, but so long as the zombie stumbles that can and will never happen. America is too large a market to not support a domestic industry but the continued presence of GM and the UAW prevent any industrial renaissance from happening. Instead we'll get more of the same... which is, and has been crap for the past 40 years. --chuck

Like Reply