The Detroit Three ... Two? One?

[Lichtronamo]

Posted elsewhere, but an important thought to those who might say "yeah the Cobalt/G5 suck, but wait for the Cruze!.

http://blog.macleans.ca/2008/11/20/t...-american-car/

Once again, GM looks to be promising the next best thing only to deliever something competitive with the last generation Honda or Toyota.

[Gm_Tooler]

Originally Posted by doh

WASHINGTON, TORONTO — The time has finally come to unload the old Toyota Prius you bought back in 2008.

So you take the plunge and get the new Version 2.0 of GM's wildly popular Volt electric car. It's faster, roomier and cheaper than the original Volt, and its plug-in technology is a generation ahead of the Prius.

But instead of heading to a car dealership, you use your iPhone to go to www.gm.com. A few taps and you've bought yourself a $25,000 Volt, ready for pick-up at your nearest Wal-Mart in two weeks.

Welcome to 2013. The dark days of GM's bankruptcy are a distant memory. Freed from rich union contracts and a bloated dealer network, the new General Motors Corp. is lean, mean and the king of green.

The rest of the industry is virtually unrecognizable..........

Another possibility:

"In the future, my son will lead mankind in a war against Skynet. A computer system programmed to destroy the world. It has sent machines back through time. Some to kill him, one to protect him. Today we fight to stop Skynet from ever being created. To change our future. To change his fate. The war to save man kind begins now."
.

[dracleath]

Originally Posted by Lichtronamo

Posted elsewhere, but an important thought to those who might say "yeah the Cobalt/G5 suck, but wait for the Cruze!.

http://blog.macleans.ca/2008/11/20/t...-american-car/

Once again, GM looks to be promising the next best thing only to deliever something competitive with the last generation Honda or Toyota.

"I didn't like the external looks of the car and there weren't enough breasts present at the unveiling" is hardly a convincing condemnation.

[Lichtronamo]

Originally Posted by dracleath

"I didn't like the external looks of the car and there weren't enough breasts present at the unveiling" is hardly a convincing condemnation.

SOunds pretty convince too me! ;-)

[Stéphane Dumas]

Originally Posted by Gm_Tooler

Another possibility:

"In the future, my son will lead mankind in a war against Skynet. A computer system programmed to destroy the world. It has sent machines back through time. Some to kill him, one to protect him. Today we fight to stop Skynet from ever being created. To change our future. To change his fate. The war to save man kind begins now."
.

Let's go for more food on the table

2015: with the US dollar who fallen to all-new low records and the yen who couldn't be lowered further along which drained lots of their revenues. And it wasn't enough, a devastating earthquake did major damages at their Japanese plants. Toyota and Honda had stretched the lifespan of their current Camry and Accord and now they decided to let them more bigger, longer and wider hoping then they'll attract more costumers, unfortunately, it was more edderly peoples then young folks. They begins to talks about merger.

Meanwhile Thomas Friedman who had been out of job since the NYT had signed chapter 11, begin to write his biography titled "How I have been double-crossed"

[1931Chevy]

Originally Posted by Stéphane Dumas

Let's go for more food on the table

2015: with the US dollar who fallen to all-new low records and the yen who couldn't be lowered further along which drained lots of their revenues. And it wasn't enough, a devastating earthquake did major damages at their Japanese plants. Toyota and Honda had stretched the lifespan of their current Camry and Accord and now they decided to let them more bigger, longer and wider hoping then they'll attract more costumers, unfortunately, it was more edderly peoples then young folks. They begins to talks about merger.

Meanwhile Thomas Friedman who had been out of job since the NYT had signed chapter 11, begin to write his biography titled "How I have been double-crossed"

[Saturn69]

Looks like I'm not the only one who sees a 2 division GM (although I think SAAB should be retained to compete against VW/Audi/Volvo since it actually IS a European car instead of the wanna-be Euro-Saturns, if GM still wants to try to compete on an even footing with the European cars). Bring it on.

[aa2]

Originally Posted by Blair1955

How would this GM pre-packaged bankruptcy work and what would become of the retirees?


Blair

Please correct me if I'm wrong on this anyone.

My understanding is that General Motors has much to its credit created an independent Pension fund that is seperate from the rest of the company. That fund I read has 100 billion dollars in it(at leat before the current market downturn). It is as funded as any other defined benefit pension plan out there.

The current retiries would get their normal pension. And current workers would get what the value of their contributions were now worth.

Now the loss as I see it in bankruptcy would be that the pensioners would lose their health coverage from GM.

[Lichtronamo]

Originally Posted by aa2

Please correct me if I'm wrong on this anyone.

My understanding is that General Motors has much to its credit created an independent Pension fund that is seperate from the rest of the company. That fund I read has 100 billion dollars in it(at leat before the current market downturn). It is as funded as any other defined benefit pension plan out there.

The current retiries would get their normal pension. And current workers would get what the value of their contributions were now worth.

Now the loss as I see it in bankruptcy would be that the pensioners would lose their health coverage from GM.

I believe you are correct.

[texassierradude]

Originally Posted by Buickman

this build 'em overseas and sell 'em on the net philosophy is exactly what Red Ink Rick has been up to and why he has purposely driven GM into the dirt. problem is, lying to investors about it happens to be a crime. therefore he belongs in prison.

more than 48 hours since your post and still no evidence that Wagoner has "purposely driven GM into the dirt". Evidence, and more importantly, motive. Motive is critical in proving a crime.

[stevecmh]

seems kinda scary.. interesting.. ideas though

[1993CrownVic]

I hate to admit it, but I too predict that if the automakers don't receive the $25 billion in aid, they will inevitably be purchased by foreign interests.

If indeed the assets and products went up for sale, wouldn't it be great if some of the workers pulled together and collectively bought out their own plant, hired some engineers and designers and went from there? Unless their vehicles were complete crap, I'll bet Americans would back this plan up, and buy the cars for the sake of the people, rather than the Big Three, which they seem to have snobbed.

Hell, even if it is a fantasy, wouldn't it be great to see Americans purchase the minivans from Chrysler LLC, the Chevy Malibu and the some good chunks of Ford?

If the man who wrote the article can dream up scenarios, I can too. I'd like to hope something positive comes out of this, but I'm afraid. I only hope Americans hang on to something of this mess. Do we really feel helpless enough to let ourselves be bought out and operated by another country. Can't somebody dream up an inspiring American idea to grasp the silver lining from this problem?

I guess what I'm saying is that if the assets go up for sale, I would like to see Americans of some walk of life rebuild a company out of this. We can do it. CEO's and Executives are just people like you and I, only they have a degree that says they are somehow better qualified to run companies than we are. But haven't they collectively proved their humanity by failing the people who work for them by bankrupting, embezzling, and wheelin' and dealin' their companies and it's assets?

I would rather see a dedicated Union worker who knows the ins and outs of the company he works for, take charge. They would have on-the-job experience, not a flimsy piece of paper he got from some snobbery ivy-league school.

[Joe in T.O.]

Originally Posted by 2002 Caddy

People who think the G5 is a good car have never driven a G5... People who think it is a great car have never driven anything else...

Actually, I drove my sister in laws 2000 Civic back to back with a 2001 Cavalier and the Cavalier was noticeably quieter on the highway than the Civic. My sister in law has since had a 2005 Civic which blew the rear main seals after two years, so that was their last Civic. They did get it fixed under warranty but they didn't want to keep that car. Both cars I drove were 5 speeds and basic models.

When the Cobalt came out, it and the Corolla were the only 2 vehicles that received 5 star side impact ratings (the Civic did not).

My point is this, as long as people keep over-hyping the imports, I will make the same case for the Cobalt and G-5. As a final note, the Cobalt SS rules in the performance department.

[ModerateRight]

Originally Posted by Joe in T.O.

Actually, I drove my sister in laws 2000 Civic back to back with a 2001 Cavalier and the Cavalier was noticeably quieter on the highway than the Civic. My sister in law has since had a 2005 Civic which blew the rear main seals after two years, so that was their last Civic. They did get it fixed under warranty but they didn't want to keep that car. Both cars I drove were 5 speeds and basic models.

When the Cobalt came out, it and the Corolla were the only 2 vehicles that received 5 star side impact ratings (the Civic did not).

My point is this, as long as people keep over-hyping the imports, I will make the same case for the Cobalt and G-5. As a final note, the Cobalt SS rules in the performance department.

This brings up an interesting point – the imports have had a lot of ups and downs quality-wise over the years. With Honda's overall reliability not doing great over the past few years, Toyota having some issues earlier in the decade, and Nissan and Mazda being questionable on and off.

It just seems like at any point in time at least one Japanese import was doing well enough to uphold the image. I wonder if the bad rap American cars got really just came down to bad timing – if the problems were staggered instead of hitting around the same time maybe things could have been different. :/

[buildacariwant]

Originally Posted by 1G6

I like how this article shrugs off the calamity that would result from foreign entities controlling even huger swaths of the country than they currently do.

agreed. i guess we better start to learn to speak chinese