David E. Davis, Jr......October, 1988

[evok]

Okay, while others rush to their dictionaries, I want to make one last point here about market rationalization.  North America has been an anomoly on the world stage for about 60 years.  While Europe was pretty much bombed into the Dark Ages 60 years ago and then endured years of rationing, Europe and Japan rebuilt their industrial foundations on being frugal and smart.

  America went another way:  bigger is better.  Why go for large when you can go for garish?  Witness the excesses of the '50s and '60s.  So, Toyopet learned to make small cars.  VW learned to make small cars.  The Big Three did not.

  The trouble is, GM and Ford do know how to make small cars.  They make them over in Europe.  GM and Ford enjoy a strong market position over there where Toyota is having a harder time making inroads.  I wonder why that is?

  Could it be because GM knows how to make what Europeans want - small, fun to drive vehicles that are great on gas?  While on this side of the pond, where it is written into the Constitution, or something like that, that Thou Shalt Drive Big Gas Swizzling Trucks, GM and Ford never figured out how to build small, fun to drive cars and trucks.  They never had to.

  Now, in the new reality of emerging China and India, we are facing world wide gasoline shortages of a real nature.  $5 a gallon gas will be a reality soon.

  GM needs to stop treating Americans as stupid and start bringing the real Opels and Vauxhalls here.  I understand they propose to do that with Saturn.  Good.  Just don't "Americanize" them.

  The truck bubble of the last 10 years lulled the Big 2 into complacency once again.  It isn't entirely their fault.  If Wagoner etc. had spent a fortune on the Cavalier in 1995, Wall Street would have been all over it for blowing money on an unprofitable vehicle when truck sales were soaring.

  GM already has the vehicles it needs.  They are in Germany and Brazil.  Just get them over here.            QUICK.

Getting back to the point of this thread, the lip service from GM management is not new. In one form or another it has been going on for years.

Hell I did quick seraches the other day and game aross numerous quotes from GM management stating,

"We are turning the corner." over the past 20+ years.

The real issue is, to the public, they have not.

At times, they have almost turned the corner but there is never a consistent follow through in the US market.

Even the Cadillac example used above is not truthful. There has been no successful follow up at Cadillac since the CTS was launched.

The STS and SRX have been duds in the market. The DTS is still recycling the same buyers. Not a bad thing but it is not moving the brand forward. Lexus and BMW have done a lot more in the same time.

The new Escalade is a great effort but in this climate we shall see what happens.

But as you point out, GM is consistent in dropping the ball in the US with your Cavalier example.

An article that I posted earlier from Roger Smith talked of brinking Opels to the US as Saturns. It will be almost 18 years before that comes to fruition. The original LS does not count for various reasons.

The point of the Davis article with regard to this thread is that as far as the public is concerned, nothing really has changed at the general when it comes to the product. The public does not care about legacy cost, the UAW, VDP, NAO, etc, they only care about spending their good money on what they like or think they will like or need.

GM has not delivered consistently, and it is just that simple.

It is not what I know or see about GM and the industry that is important, it only matters what the public thinks.

They are always turning the corner but never really do!

[Mr.Krinkle]

class leading is a cop out too, in my opinion.

not everything needs to be class leading to be successful. there are maybe a handful of cars that are not only class leading but also sales leading.

if you think it is always the best product that sells the most, in any walk of life, you are seriously deluding yourself.

you want to equate timid sales with inferior products and by your logic they, a company, will only be successsful if they have better product. while this is true to a large extent its not absolute. im pretty sure this argument has been made before, here or elsewhere.

[Mr.Krinkle]

Getting back to the point of this thread,

It is not what I know or see about GM and the industry that is important, it only matters what the public thinks.

They are always turning the corner but never really do!

thats the point. it IS what the public thinks. you brought up the roger interview. two things aside from opel/sturn connection that stood out to me were

price of imports, the supposed sticker shock

and the bi-line of the article describing the yen

i though that important because since then the yen has been rather stable and the price of imports has come down some what. there is no more of that sticker shock, so in a way a once positive higher prices has been reduced to a non factor.

and thus opening the door a little wider.

the public perception is a big factor still. with every successful new product a small piece of the import loving crowd dies.

the cts', the sol/sky, vette 06-tahoes...even the caddy line as a whole. the cobalt has even had relatively successful numbers. these are the baby steps that are taking us in the right direction

i dont thinh the 80/90s saw this much good product with the sales to back it up. if you dont want to believe there is a corner coming up, i completely understand as it is gm must have walked around the block completely several times already.

id argue that the last revolutionary product, truly innovative was the grand national. its been realy hushed for a while until recently.

[evok]

i cant stand it when someone quotes every line and has a reply for every single line of a post, or an opinion, or something i may have wrote.

Every word of your is important to me!

have no time for that, largely, and i dont even read it for the most part, just for future reference.

That does go along way in understanding your posts better.

i could do likewise but id be here forever and does little to advance the conversation.

Really it does not take all that long.

please try to follow better without having a retort for every syllable.  and i may suggest reading comprehension addjustment because the first thing you quoted makes complete sense in the context and is why i stopped reading this time.

No one prior mentioned perfection and you needed to be corrected.

just for your benefit,  no one wanted the definition of 'entire'  it was 'some large portion' that needed clarification.  i think you can put the other pieces together from there.

Entire was re-examined.

what does market share mean anyway.  besides being the easiest way to gauge a companies saturation it provides little insight to anything else.

Well your insight into the business is evident by that statement.

[Mr.Krinkle]

entire/whole/complete suggests perfection.

how can you say it doesnt

[Mr.Krinkle]

do you really want to debate entire equalling perfection. you provided us with the defintion, you should have learned what means not says

[evok]

class leading is a cop out too, in my opinion.

not everything needs to be class leading to be successful.  there are maybe a handful of cars that are not only class leading but also sales leading.

if you think it is always the best product that sells the most, in any walk of life, you are seriously deluding yourself.

you want to equate timid sales with inferior products and by your logic they, a company, will only be successsful if they have better product.  while this is true to a large extent its not absolute.  im pretty sure this argument has been made before, here or elsewhere.

Yup - GM should continue the course. They have everything under control with their current fleet of product. Mediocrity and excuses have gone a long way in turning the publics perception of GM around. Your right.

[Mr.Krinkle]

and whats your insight?

maybe youd like to share the capacity at which you say you worked at gm.

or maybe you can share with us why you dont any more. then perhaps ill uderstand your insight a little better.

as it is i have formed my own opinions already.

[Mr.Krinkle]

Your right.

i think you meant yourre. its a contraction of the two words you and are and i think i am right. competetive and class leading are worlds apart.

do you really believe it is the best product that is number one? if you do companies wouldnt undercut others on prices and could then sell whatever they want for ever how much they want.

[evok]

entire/whole/complete suggests perfection.

how can you say it doesnt

Because Webster does not use that word (perfection) in its definition. I believe that is the purpose of a dictionary to define words . Correct me if I am wrong! shrug

Edited May 10, 2006 by evok

[Mr.Krinkle]

now you lost me. that made zero sense. good bye now.

[evok]

i think you meant yourre.  its a contraction of the two words you and are and i think i am right.

Actually Mrs. Krabappel it is you're.

[Mr.Krinkle]

(annoyed grunt)do'h and ive been calling her krandal... its ms.

and sorry. your're still wrong.

[evok]

(annoyed grunt)do'h and  ive been calling her krandal... its ms.

and sorry.  your're still wrong.

http://www.m-w.com/cgi-bin/dictionary?va=you're

http://www.m-w.com/dictionary/your're

http://www.thesimpsons.com/characters/home.htm

and actually it is Mrs.

Edited May 10, 2006 by evok

[Mr.Krinkle]

hahah you actually pulled out the dictionary for that one...thats funny.

ms. krabappel (crab apple) prefers ms., especially when shes been drinking and is hitting on her students parents. she is divorced so...

[evok]

'Marketshare' is greatly overemphasized and almost without fail taken out of context. What do I mean? Only the investor would compare current marketshare to the modern historical peak instead of the historical average.

Since this is a giant do loop, here it is in a nut shell.

http://www.cheersandgears.com/forums/index...20entry136992

True retail market share.

[Mr.Krinkle]

everybody has got an opinion on this mess, like boeing a few years back, delta, chrystler...now gm and ford.

go nuts.

http://today.reuters.com/business/newsarti...-WAGONER-DC.XML

http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/for...69111/index.htm

http://www.forbes.com/home/markets/2006/04...1markets08.html

http://www.carofthecentury.com/answer_to_g...hare_plunge.htm

http://www.antara.co.id/en/seenws/?id=12457

http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/artic...100406/1148/BIZ

http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/artic.../603290375/1148

here you go. knock yourselves out.

if you want to see it as an end, thats your perogitive.

it seems to me the potential to be a begining.

"Considering the crowded nature of the American market, where more than 30 brands and close to 300 different models compete, no one expects GM to regain the awesome 50-percent share it commanded at peak. But at some point, the giant's business case no longer remains sustainable."

something else to pontificate.

not an excuse, rather a reality. the sheer amount of choices available now that werent then can not be excluded.

any company whether its tvs, or cell phones/service plans, or computers etc etc etc

are going to lose customers for a plethora of different reasons as there is more and more competition. life aint far and the best team doesnt always win either.

[The O.C.]

and whats your insight?

maybe youd like to share the capacity at which you say you worked at gm.

or maybe you can share with us why you dont any more.  then perhaps ill uderstand your insight a little better.

as it is i have formed my own opinions already.

I don't know if you are asking about Evok or myself that posted this thread, but I graduated college from GMI Engineering & Management institute in Flint, MI. I worked for GM for 11 years, ten of them at Buick Motor Division. I worked in just about every single department within Buick including Product Planning and Marketing and I had a large hand in developing the launch plan for the 1995 Riviera...a product I also was involved in it's development in a few certain areas.

I also worked for GM/Buick in Philadelphia, San Francisco, and most recently, Los Angeles.

I also have retain experience as a Sales Manager at Irvine BMW, one of the largest BMW dealerships in the country....and I spent six months on the floor of a Suzuki dealership out in Riverside to gain experience selling cars (the Suzuki dealer was a friend....otherwise I wouldn't have picked Suzukis to sell....although it WAS an interesting experience.)

I left General Motors in 1999 due to a few factors. One was that they wanted to move me back to Detroit, where I would "most likely spend the rest of my career" and I had no desire to leave Los Angeles.....being single, leaving by the beach, etc. I knew southern California to offer a wide variety of automotive-career choices as well.

Most importantly, however, I left GM because I just really lost a good portion of my confidence that they WOULD turn the corner....and in the last 7 years since I quit, my life, job, career have never been better. And I see that today....GM hasn't gotten really any better than when I left in '99....and in many ways, it's worse.....

SO....yes I'm still a GM enthusiast....and I do want them to succeed....but I approach GM from a realist standpoint because I've SEEN the inside of GM and I'm now seeing the outside of GM.....and let me tell you, it really doesn't look like they've changed their corporate culture, or the way they approach the auto market in their products and decisions, at all.

[Mr.Krinkle]

i certainly appreciate your openness about your credentials and history with gm.

in many ways i can fuly understand your rational and i never once get the slightest sense of maliciousness in your unwavering critiques about cars or gm itself.

you seem very confident and happy in regard to the decisions you have made about your career.

i wish others were as forthcoming about this the way you are right now.

i dont think you have anything to hide or lose.

the corporate think and business as usual definately robbed the company of decades here and there throughout the century. it is not something that changes all that often, or it does then quickly changes back.

the best times for gm have always been led by the best people. i happen to think that this latest set of people are the right people for right now.

from lutz instinct and passion to create quality cars with proven results to yes, even wagoners business sense and genuiness to restore profitibily, i believe anyway...to the disgruntled members on the board who dont want to go broke...even they can prove to be an impetus for change.

i truly want to believe that the team is an assemblence of the right people with the right qualities. time will tell, no person can do that.

harley earl was able to do it (for a while) and i think these here people now, while may not match earls zest, few could, they will at least be formidable.

we all know these are big wheels with many spokes and take a long time to make a revolution.bloated cost structures dont disappear over night and many of these issues at heart are being dealt with right now, currently for all to see. unions, legacy cost, etc. this is being handled, finally, like it never really was before now. it has to be and hopefully it will be constructive and the best for all parties involved. we will find out together, and real soon, too i might add.

corporate ceo speak is just that and always will be that. spokespeople get paid to say the right things. no president has ever been elected by promising to raise taxes and reduce employment. thats just the way that is, and should be taken with a grain of salt. (check the asian marques thread re: hyundai ceo arrested to get an idea of what not to say)

the proof is in the pudding, so to speak, but not from speak itself.

im liking the enclave ex and interior, the upcoming impala has me holding my breath, the camaro, caddys improving in many ways, style/desirability/interiors ng teasers hummers doing well..saabs improving sales as is saturn...

the 900's clearly.

the z06 putting the lowly chevy up in the face of everyone including cars at twice the cost.

zeta & theta are looking promising...

i can almost see another corner coming up through all the crap...