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142 Comments
- optimus008, on 07/02/2009, -13/+58No GM just make's ***** cars and trucks. It was GM's lack of marketing that did them in, they didn't innovate like the other Japanese car company's. Plus the unions didn't help with there outrageous demands for money. But mostly there products are ***** and not worth the high price they demanded. $15,000 dollars for a car with no power locks or window', no cruise control, bad gas millage, default safety features that only go has high as government standers demand. Along with recall after recall of parts and two years of minimal wear and tear and it's already falling apart.
- jaytek13, on 07/04/2009, -3/+45Oh, so THAT's what's killing GM.
Wait... maybe it's just me, but I thought GM filed for bankruptcy long before 2016 when these standards take effect? - RevLoki, on 07/04/2009, -7/+36Or you could just stop making cars that are pre-designed to fall apart at 100k miles. That might help your brand.
- bombula, on 07/02/2009, -16/+38This is actually an interesting article, since it points out how changing production standards in the US while still allowing imports simply shifts the problem of inefficient gas-guzzlers offshore. And since our markets will continue to demand those gas guzzlers unless other rules (like gas-guzzler taxes) change, Americans will just end up buying the same SUVs and trucks from foreign companies instead of GM, Ford and Chryser. It's a lose-lose for both our economy and the environment.
I'm surprised to see a WSJ article calling for more taxes, but that's what this one does - and it's spot on. A 25 cent tax isn't going to do it though. We need a $1+ tax per gallon to make a real dent in demand.
Lastly, this IS the WSJ, so you know there had to be at least one asinine statement in there. Here it is:
"The company can't possibly afford to scrap billions of dollars of equipment used to produce its best vehicles simply to please politicians who would rather see GM start from scratch, wasting more taxpayer money on "retooling" to produce unwanted and unprofitable subcompacts and electric cars."
Wrong. None of GM's vehicles were 'profitable'. If they were, the company wouldn't be bankrupt, would it? And to say that subcompact and electric cars are "unwanted" in terms of consumer demand is retarded. - spriggig, on 07/04/2009, -9/+31Crappy cars, greedy unions, insane health insurance and pension obligations probably had a little to do with it too.
- samew, on 07/04/2009, -1/+22GM had a zero emissions vehicle with the EV1. Not a prototype, but a production electric vehicle that consumers were driving. Had they kept that vehicle in production, they'd have something viable to compete with. Enough electrics, and they would be able to sell all the Hummers and pickups they want, although I'm sure demand is way down.
Electric vehicles require less maintenance (no oil changes, no oil filters, etc), which means less profits for GM per vehicle, so they canceled the program, even though there was definitely consumer demand for a plug-in electric vehicle. That demand still exists today, which is why the major automakers are now focusing on plug-in hybrids.
GM shot themselves in the foot. - samew, on 07/04/2009, -0/+14How often do you drive more than 80 miles from your primary place of residence in a given month? It's not a perfect fit for everybody, but for a daily driver, it would serve the needs of plenty of consumers.
Charge it at night, drive it to work, drive it home and plug it back in. - inactive, on 07/04/2009, -2/+16So a company that can't/refuses to adapt might fail? Where's the problem?
- MWeather, on 07/04/2009, -3/+16So they've had plenty of time to compensate.
- kalvinb, on 07/04/2009, -6/+19Not everyone can afford a new fuel efficient car. All you're doing by taxing gas more is further hurting the poor and middle class.
And who can forget how great food prices were when gas prices were high? So again, the poor and middle class are further hurt. All because the government wants more money. - Aroundtown27, on 07/04/2009, -3/+15I can't believe that a gas tax is only starting to enter into the debate. It seems like the easiest way to get consumers to move over to more efficient, smaller vehicles. Look at Europe for example, their gas taxes are higher and they all drive small fuel efficient cars (yes I understand there are other contributing factors but it is so god damned expensive to drive a gas guzzler that no one can afford it).
- ZenMojo, on 07/04/2009, -4/+16Ah, Wall Street Journal. No wonder they didn't want to sell to Murdoch.
So let me get this straight. GM is just now suffering from fuel standards which haven't been changed significantly in 30 some odd years while other car companies forced to adhere to higher fuel efficiency standards, like Toyota, are kicking their ass. No, actually, it's fuel efficiency standards that take effect more than half a decade from now that are retroactively destroying this car company, not the fact that they produce cars no one actually wants.
In fact, the fact that their sales are down has nothing to do with the quality of their cars or their research and development or the fact that they have historically destroyed cars with high consumer interest rather than sell have them on the secondary market and everything to do with the overhead costs unions have forced upon them. Because if the unions would take a cut in pensions, then Americans would start wanting more GM cars and GM wouldn't have to keep delicensing and closing dealerships who still have cars on the lot they haven't gotten rid of yet.
Just because you're anarchocapitalist doesn't mean you can deregulate common sense and temporal reality. GM is obsolete. Maybe they can fix their *****, but they definitely won't be doing it on their own and they have already shown that for the last twenty years through several recessions and corresponding near bankruptcies over the decades. - PWoT, on 07/04/2009, -6/+16Spend five minutes researching it (outside of right wing hack blogs, that is) and you'll find out it's not fictitious.
- pinetree, on 07/04/2009, -1/+11"None of GM's vehicles were 'profitable'."
I don't know the specifics about GM, but I remember reading somewhere, years ago, that car makers were getting $5k-$10k profit per SUV, while only getting $1k-$2k for a sedan. Companies like GM were getting a lot of easy money during the SUV craze, and they squandered it instead of reinvesting it in research or developing products that would thrive if gas prices went up. When gas prices went up and the economy tanked, the easy money went away and they went bankrupt. Thus, I have no sympathy for GM. - obrien317, on 07/04/2009, -6/+16Fuel standards aren't killing GM, GM killed GM
"What Killed the Electric Car"
http://www.cbc.ca/documentaries/docplayer2.html?pl ...
This Documentary shows that thousands of people wanted these cars, even as GM took them off of the road to be destroyed. **** GM, they deserve to no longer be a car manufacturer. In fact, anyone who buys a new car should demand that it be electric. Gas ends up costing people $5,000+ each year. We're paying a gas tax every time we step on the gas pedal and it's GM and other car manufacturer's fault. - choopie911, on 07/04/2009, -1/+9Yeah, but in America taxes automatically mean hellbound socialist government at play, right?....right?
- IHeartNY, on 07/04/2009, -1/+9CAFE regulations have been around since 1975.
- Tyrghast, on 07/04/2009, -2/+10I doubt you represent Ron Paul's take on this matter.
In any case, GM had their chance. The market wanted affordable cars with great gas mileage, and GM refused to cooperate. - Tyrghast, on 07/04/2009, -5/+12Let GM die. They made their bed now let them sleep in it. If you're not going to listen to consumers that's your own damn fault. People want cheap cars with good gas mileage, not 15k cars with no features or comforts AND bad mileage.
- FAT_PIGGY, on 07/04/2009, -0/+7GM makes great trucks.
- bigteebo, on 07/04/2009, -0/+7The first computers weren't that great, but the industry didn't give up. Look at where we're at now. Battery innovations that came after the EV-1 could have made the car better.
- NidStyles, on 07/04/2009, -0/+7So it had nothing to do with the gobbling up of various other motor firm's in an act to reduce the competitive nature of the auto industry. Thusly, reducing the quality of said motor firm's by removing most of the vetted engineer's at these firm's, and installing their already under-manned imported engineer force. This having the effect of reducing the over-all quality of the workforce, and the vehicle's they did produce. /s
The GM bankruptcy is not a result of the poor economy. This has been something they have been fighting off since the 70's, and the import war during the first fuel crisis. GM has been dying for nearly 40 year's now, and it took high fuel prices and a crashing economy to finally break them.
On the market their main competitor has been Toyota, and Toyota has been killing them worldwide.
For those of you that will say Ford had a hand, your mistaken. Ford will always be safe, as it has a rather large division in Europe. Ford also has never really been on the gobble up all of the competition band-wagon. If you look at GM, none of it's biggest seller's were ever an original GM product. Cadillac, Corvette, Chevy, Saturn... They are all product's of GM's former competition.
It's the business practice's that did GM in, and not just the crappy product line, which in turn is a result of their poor business practice's. - samew, on 07/04/2009, -0/+5Jets still use fossil fuels. I know that wasn't your point, but switching from gasoline to kerosene really isn't going to solve any problems.
Liquid fuels are the only economical choice for energy storage when you need to travel a significant distance (> 200 miles), as batteries can only store so much energy (this is getting better and better) and they take much longer to recharge than it takes to pump more liquid into your vehicle.
I'm not advocating liquid fuels, just stating why they are the industry's focus is on liquid fuels. - Khast, on 07/04/2009, -1/+5Hmm, Cobalt, Silverado (Base model) I think the rest of the vehicle lines started around $19,000.
However you could get a fully loaded Aveo for $18,000 (*cough* Daewoo *cough* ) - Loki101, on 07/04/2009, -2/+6If a company can't adapt to something, it deserves to die. Period. Government doesn't need to go soft on standards just to save a company.
- Mship, on 07/04/2009, -1/+4I hope to god that my sarcasm detectoring is working.
- what5987, on 07/04/2009, -0/+3Too bad the Op-Ed section of the WSJ lost all credibility when Murdoch bought it.
- cowsgonemadd3, on 07/04/2009, -3/+6What car does GM sell that has none of those options for 15k?
- devophl, on 07/04/2009, -0/+3Its ludicrous to think that the Federal gas tax is only something like 18 cents per gallon. I would phase in at least a 50 cent/gallon tax over the next two years. Then I would look at pushing it higher.
The problem with going for a dollar per gallon is that so many people in this country live at least a 30-45 minute drive from work so this would likely force people to relocate closer to work. And this gas tax would have to be coupled with a serious upgrade in public transportation so that people could get to work.
But I do support a gas tax as a way to get people either to conserve or buy more fuel efficient cars. - samew, on 07/04/2009, -6/+9I call ***** on this. You can buy a mid 90s Honda/Toyota for like 2 grand that gets 30+ MPG, as long as you don't drive it like an *****.
- obrien317, on 07/04/2009, -3/+6GM killed GM
"What Killed the Electric Car"
http://www.cbc.ca/documentaries/docplayer2.html?pl ... - illinest, on 07/04/2009, -0/+3this guy = misinformed. If he actually read the article he'd stumble across the bit at the end about 'over-regulation', and that's part of the problem. The rest of the issue is as follows.
Following world war 2 nearly every industrial nation had been bombed to ***** aside from the U.S. Therefore the US auto industry faced no competition aside from other US manufacturers. Riches flowed. The unions (rightfully, some would say and I'm not about to make an argument out of it) were then empowered by the politicians to get a big slice of the pie.
As foreign nations recovered, the big 3 naturally lost market share, the oil crisis of 73 created knee jerk politician response which further damaged the US companies, and the japanese companies that were previously just trying to create a niche market suddenly found themselves desireable.
This was also about the time when the union contracts started to really hurt the US car makers. Those contracts were reasonable under the old conditions since they were applied equally between the big 3, but the new japanese companies could produce (relatively speaking) the same product for less money.
The Japanese were able to price their civics and their corollas for a bare profit, whereas the american companies would've lost money producing the same car. Labor costs.
Relatively speaking, a larger percentage of the cost of an SUV is tied to material cost. The bigger the vehicle, the less disadvantaged the american companies were regarding cost to produce.
Given this dynamic, it's no wonder they all turned their eyes toward mini-vans, trucks and suvs.
So to recap, the seeds of the US auto industries collapse were sown in Washington over half a century ago. Every step taken by the big three subsequent to that is understandable in light of the information presented. These three companies were not particularly mismanaged, although like any company there were good and bad decisions made.
They were simply saddled with a higher cost structure than what their competitors had to deal with, and given decades of relatively slimmer profit margins it was inevitable that their competitors would catch up to and surpass them. - ghatid, on 07/04/2009, -2/+5:( I like reading WSJ. I think they're pretty reasonable.
That aside, I'm normally one to want lower taxes, etc (Ghatid is a fiscal conservative)...but I would be up for raising gas prices. Obviously, the only way to make people stop buying extremely wasteful cars (Hummer) is to have really high gas prices. I don't mind paying more for gas to get some SUVs off the road.
Also, I think you forget that even though all GM cars were unprofitable, (including their best vehicles) their best selling ones wouldn't fall in the range of being fuel efficient. The writer didn't mention anything about any profitable cars:). - paulmer2003, on 07/04/2009, -0/+3This is digg, let me remind you.
Still surprised? - Witchboy, on 07/04/2009, -0/+3160 mile range not viable? Are you kidding? Here in the city, on the average day, I drive <20 miles. These cars would have helped a lot; GM had a chance to lead and they chose not to. In business, that has consequences.
- dexter311, on 07/04/2009, -0/+3Surely there's other companies that are affected by the new CAFE standards other than GM - BMW comes to mind. North America is one of their biggest markets and they don't really have a "subcompact" or extremely cheap, high mileage car that will sell enough to bring their average mileage up either. CAFE just seems like another thing GM and the US motoring press can use to make the GM bankruptcy feel better - the underlying truth is that they didn't run a car company that looked to the future. The world (or more specifically, the US) won't buy big SUVs and "gas guzzlers" forever while the next fuel crisis looms it's ugly head.
Call me pessimistic, but I don't see the Volt saving GM. You can't rely on one car to save your decrepit business, the whole range has to suit the market, the regulations, and the fuel/energy situation. - fucter, on 07/04/2009, -2/+5digg this man up. we are a capitalist nation, let free market prevail, keep government away from business - i.e. don't bail them out, don't raise taxes just to pretend it will help make greener cars - we all knwo it's to line your pockets
- Crass22, on 07/04/2009, -1/+3My GM-built Oldsmobile Cutlass Ciera is still crusing along with 220k+ miles. I think alot of it is ***** who dont know how to maintain their vheicles, and get regular oil check ups though. But yeah GM makes mostly *****, I dont deny that.
- SkittlesUSA, on 07/04/2009, -3/+5Spoken like somebody who doesn't have a CLUE what is happening in GM right now.
- rizzo2008, on 07/04/2009, -0/+2we have a 2000 Yukon XL with close to 300,000 miles on it (which we all put on it). I dont understand what they hell that is supposed to mean.
- joegibes, on 07/04/2009, -0/+2"Equinox... if it can tow less with more HP, some bits are obviously made weak and cheap"
From what I've read, the Equinox *is* a class-leader in quality. It also gets 32mpg with the four-banger, and there's always the V6 engine if you'll be using it to tow.
"Volt - Twice as expensive as already existing competition for next to no benefit."
Aside from the fact that IT DOESN'T NEED GAS (well, until you drive 40 miles). If you drive less than 40 miles per day (charging it every night) and take a few weekend trips and such, it'll still use a power of 10 less gas than even a hybrid.
As far as selling abroad goes, GM is doing quite well in LAAM (Latin America, Africa, Middle East), having shown growth in Q1 2009, not to mention China where it is the market leader. - Crass22, on 07/04/2009, -0/+2Although the unions probably didnt help, some of their demands seem justified when you look at the fact that the Execs running the buisness made like 50x as much as they did while doing a horrible job (obviously, otherwise they wouldnt be in the problem they are now). Seems like a good excuse to demand a MAXimum wage. No?
- Digger1123, on 07/04/2009, -0/+2Then go to ***** Canada in the middle of nowhere. It is not the governments place to be slanting the ***** playing field to the point where it is almost vertical.
- ghatid, on 07/05/2009, -0/+2@bombula I read your rant but I didn't understand your point...
Either way, if you shredded me and fertilized your "organic farm", it wouldn't be organic any more. I don't eat only organic things...so you'd be contaminating your soil. You wouldn't be able to pay the company that proves that your farm is organic.... - TheMachine1, on 07/04/2009, -0/+2http://www.gm.com/corporate/investor_information/s ...
"GM management strongly believes all such claims will not be fully satisfied, leading to its conclusion that GM common stock will have no value."
Killing them? They are dead. - joegibes, on 07/04/2009, -0/+2GM's current small/cheap/eco car segment is probably its weakest. However, upcoming offerings like the Cruze, Spark, Viva (possibly in US?) and Orlando look pretty damn good.
All one has to do is look at GM's recent and upcoming launches to see that they build class-leading cars: Malibu, CTS, G8, Camaro, Equinox, SRX, Volt, Cruze, etc.
Not to mention its trucks which are far from ***** -- the GMT900 platform (all large GM trucks and SUVs from the past few years) has won numerous awards and is quite nice. - gr00vy, on 07/04/2009, -3/+5Wow, what a non-sensical article. Apparently GM has SUV only screwdrivers and CAD programs. And they are incapable of creating a product mix that makes small cars.
Shenanigans.
There is absolutely nothing magical about what the rest of the companies are doing. They do not have special small car pixie dust that is unavailable to the rest of the market place. It is not impossible to compete in the small fuel efficient market place. Just because there is competition, doesn't mean that you can't compete. Build interesting cars that people want that are fuel efficient.
And if GM fails, so freaking what, we will still be able to buy cars. If we force GM to win by continually redefining the rules so that GM wins, the losers will be the American marketplace.
I just want a Chevy Volt. They are right, this is the car for a west coast commuter. It probably won't save GM, but it is the car I want. - fooljoe, on 07/04/2009, -0/+2"the electric vehicles on the market now" -- what vehicles on what market??
uhh are you sure you watched the movie? because the whole "killed" part means that there hasn't been ANY electric car made by a major automaker since the days of the EV1. sure there are little NEV "golf carts" and conversions and the Tesla rich man's toy for $100k, but still not a single "real" electric vehicle for sale. - Loki101, on 07/04/2009, -0/+2Only if you don't mind customers getting killed over inferior products. To begin with...
- Konrad9, on 07/04/2009, -0/+2Made. MADE ***** cars. Look at their current line up WITH AN UNBIASED EYE and you will be extremely surprised.
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