Actually, from what I understand (I own a Saturn and am on their mailing list) it sounds like Saturn is being spun off. They apparently will only have a short-term contract that requires them to use GM as a supplier for their models and then after that they can do whatever they want.
Yeah, that was kind of my point. Heh.
Adding to the confusion is that Saab (which IS owned by GM) makes a car (the 9-2) which actually is just a rebranded Subaru Impreza WRX… aka “The Saabaru.”
A friend of mine owns one. :)
So the Vue is a Mexican-built version of a Korea-built car designed by Germans but owned by Americans?
OK, I am here with the REAL ANSWER on the car companies.
FACT: Bailing out a particular car company will not make Americans buy more cars in total
FACT: The cars sold in the US will, in large part, be fabricated and assembled here
THEREFORE: No bailout will significantly change the amount of auto manufacturing located here
AND: No bailout will preserve a significant additional number of assembly/fabrication jobs in the US
HOWEVER: A bailout of GM could hurt profitable US car manufacturing by firms like Toyota
AND: It would also prevent a sharp drop in the fraction of US auto labor that is unionized
THEOREM: This bailout is about unions, regional games (midwest vs south) and veneer-deep protectionism
COROLLARY: I am so sexy it hurts.
Also, those plants were unionized once, they can do it again.
Hello! If my grandma did it, so can you!
Yep. And until they started using GM’s Ecotec engines last year, it also used a Honda engine. So, Mexican-built version of a Korea-built car with a Japanese engine designed by Germans but owned by Americans
GM no longer has any manufacturing facilities dedicated to Saturn. The ones that are built in the US are made using existing GM or Opel platforms in plants that also produce other GM cars. So if you were looking to end a GM brand with the minimal impact on American workers and manufacturing, Saturn is as good a pick as any.
which is why Saturn went to shit. They made good alternative cars in the beginning, when GM said it would be a “new way of doing business.” Apparently too new, as they rapidly choked it to death.
Then why is Toyota saying that it hopes GM isn’t forced into bankruptcy and talking about how the failure of GM, Chrylser, or both would not be beneficial? My understanding is that they share suppliers and that Toyota couldn’t keep those suppliers busy on its own, so they’d close, and Toyota would be dicked.
GM, and corporate America in general, only know one way of doing business. It’s a completely top down model that assumes that a select few elites make all the decisions and everyone else is a robot who will carry out those decisions. It’s no surprise to me that a lot of companies in the US are drowning in the bile vomited up by their own bureaucracies.
Can anyone tell I’ve had a lot of bad encounters with corporate BS lately?
I am curious about this too Steve. My local paper today run a story that quoted the Toyota president saying that it would be best if GM stayed in business.
GM needs to go into full survival mode, and I still think it hasn’t hit them. They need a master plan, and they don’t seem to have one. It’s time to sweep away the old organization and each product line needs a distinct and unique mission.
High End: Okay, that’s easy. Cadillac.
Middle Ground: Chevrolet has the broadest appeal and name recognition. Roll Pontiac and Buick into this or maybe a specific high end model into Caddy.
Entry Level: I’m not convinced this is needed. Saturn has served this function, but Saturn has never really worked - perhaps because GM has treated it as the red-headed step-child from the word go, but at this point, why reinforce failure. I’d be more prone to keep Pontiac around back in it’s roll of more youth-oriented and performance division.
Utility: In Chrysler (and AMC before that), Jeep has that function. GMC and Hummer can be rolled together. But then, GMC could go to Chevrolet and Hummer could go to Cadillac.
So there’s the four product line, but it could be boiled down to three or even two. Keep the best models from each line that are not really competitive with each other within the structure, jettison the rest. Sell Saab.
Such as shut down completely.
Because they know that people are xenophobic enough already without the American car industry being completely taken over by furriners. What Toyota wants is a permanently stupid and uncompetitive big American industry that is just barely profitable, they don’t want it to wind the whole thing down to Toyota vs. Honda vs. Hyundai vs. Volkswagen.
I’m not sure that makes much sense. If the American car industry is taken over by furriners, then why would the American public’s xenophobia even matter? Their options at that point are buy foreign or walk.
For a second I thought you were talking about the auto industry being taken over by furries.
I think Toyota is sensitive to the media and to the general tide of ignorance and hatred that exists in all countries, but which the media promotes to an especially high degree in the US.
Secretly they may be smiling about GM’s failure, but it’s simply impolitic to do it publicly. Similarly in the Honda boardrooms, where the entire officer and executive group makes less collectively than Wagoner made individually, I think there are few tears being shed.
Now that makes sense to me.
Toyota could simply refrain from commenting at all. Even if the tone of their comments has some root in PR, I really don’t think their sole reason for making these statements is to stem the tide of “ignorance and hatred” that apparently in your view, Americans in particular are prone to. If this was 1992 and Rising Sun had just released, I might listen to an argument about xenophobia, but I think you’re at least 15 years late on that one. It’s also somewhat ironic that you seem to be holding up a Japanese company as some paragon of anti-xenophobia considering Japan is one of the most insular and racially uniform societies on the planet.
See that is why those Japanese companies simply can not complete. They do not know how to celebrate success and they don’t know the real value that those risk-takers and decision makers add to the company.
They need to get with the program.