VenSeattle

I wonder what a turbocharged 4 would do in a Chevrolet Traverse in terms of performance & fuel economy?

You and I are hardly reflective of the vast majority of consumers out in the marketplace though.

And while I could envision cross-shopping between Enclave and MDX, I really, really don't see it for the car lines.

Well, Buick's average buyer's age was down to 55 for 2007... I think a lot of stereotypes used against Buick are becoming outdated. If Buick gets a sportly, well-thought-out compact (Alpha - or Delta II) I think we'll have another Buick cross-shopped with Acura. Both are already planned to support premium vehicles (Alpha - Cadillac; Delta II - SAAB.) I have a feeling the Invicta will be compared/cross-shopped with the TL to some degree.

We'll have to wait and see.

Following up Nissan's first set of U.S. buyout packages offered a year ago, employees at both the Smyrna and Decherd powertrain plants in Tennessee will be offered a lump sum payout along with medical and car purchase benefits to leave. Last year, the buyouts attracted 775 workers, though the payout at that time was just $45k plus an additional $500 for each year of service. This time, the lump sum starts at a heady $100k. Not surprisingly, Nissan is expecting more people to take the package this year than last. In fact, Nissan spokesman Fred Standish says that "market realities" mean that the Japanese automaker needs to shed some 1,200 excess employees. The packages are open for a three-year window, with the greatest sum being offered for workers who accept the packages this year. The Smyrna plant assembles the Frontier pickup, Altima, Xterra, Maxima and Pathfinder. Our bet is that the sedans will continue production as normal with the trucks and SUVs accounting for the lowered head count.

"We're ready. When (customers) want it (the option of smaller engines) - we'll do it." That's a (somewhat mangled) quote from Thomas G. Stephens, GM's executive veep for global powertrain and quality, speaking at the inauguration of the General's Powertrain Engineering Development Center last Friday. What Stephens is referring to is the possibility of equipping Cadillacs with smaller, turbocharged engines – specifically fitting the 260-hp (or more) 2.0-liter, turbocharged four in the CTS sedan.

Sounds like a Hell of an idea, but how – exactly – is GM going to determine when consumers are ready for it? How about now?

Prices at the pump may have peaked (for now), but consumers are still craving fuel-efficient rides that don't skimp on power and poise. GM is already making V8 levels of output with its direct-injected 3.6-liter V6 (see: Camaro) and that, coupled with Stephens' quote, means that GM isn't totally oblivious to the idea of offering smaller engines that balance fuel economy and thrust in packages that might benefit from them. But again, how will the market tell GM when it's open to the idea of fewer cylinders making just as much power? Ford is already ramping up to release its line of direct injected, turbocharged EcoBoost engines, BMW has proven that turbocharged sixes are the bee's knees and practically every other automaker is looking into forced induction as a means to a lighter, more powerful, more fuel efficient end. So why is GM stalling? If the General has the capabilities, it needs to step up and let the market embrace it. It will. If GM doesn't, it risks its own extinction.

Especially when Acura's uglies are on the way to market and Buick is still dragging along on Invicta production. I will tell you that I have two friends who opted for Enclaves over the MDX. And I am still considering those two choices. So there must be some cross shopping.

The Acura 3.5 RL was one of the primary cars I cross-shopped/tested/compared with the Park Avenue Ultra.

On a similar subject... a brief moment of silence for Steak&Ale and Bennigan's

I enjoyed going to both of them growing up in Dallas... But, times change...

Again... neither of these chains existed in the PacNW either.

What is rimming?

Whataburger..... Fantastically Delicious.

Okay... you got me... Whataburger... very good burgers (when I'd eat one), very food fish sandwiches, and the only fast food chain that understands why fries should be served in a cup (so you can eat them safely secured in your car cupholder while driving.)

Unfortunately, they're not in the PacNW either... you'd be surprised in the amount of chain restaurants that can not survive up here... We're too healthful in our diets. We don't have Long John Silver, Captain D's, or Sonic's either. A lot of the chain mainstream mid-class restaurants like Red Lobster & Olive Garden just survive in the suburbs... Chili's just closed all of their restaurants here...

I'll even agree that the 1990's was a golden age for Chrysler... they convinced me to buy one!!!! LOL

The LH sedans, Viper, Prowler, and concept cars turned the design world on their side. The 1st-gen Concorde could have debuted last year. The LH-based New Yorker & LHS made large luxury sedans "modern" and 'acceptable" to a younger generation. The new V6-engine family developed from their short acquisition of Lamborghini proved to be reliable. The 3.5l is still a modern and acceptable engine 10+ years later.

The 300M was a step in the right direction, but the rest of the 2nd-gen LH sedans failed to live up to their predecessors. As much as people want to laud the LX vehicles, their sales never overshadowed the LH-sedan sales. Their transaction prices were initially higher because enthusiasts will pay full price, but they’re not as practical as the LH sedans were and their discounts now reflect it. It's volume suicide to replace a mainstream vehicle with a niche product.

The cloud cars had so much potential but were cursed with a tri-diamond powertrain. It couldn't even compete with a near 10-year old Acura-borrowed powertrain on reliability that was shoehorned into the MCE Accord. Ford's Contour and Mystique (even GM's N-bodies) proved to be a better buy.

Just my opinion and observations... I'm not soliciting CMG, SMK, or Dodgefan backlash on this one. I'm strictly commenting as a former Chrysler fan who was extremely disappointed with what happened 1998-onward.

I'm betting it will be Regal or Invicta.

The Epsilon II Buick meant as the LaCrosse replacement (LWB) was promised to Fairfax and will begin production in 2009.

I can only assume that the Buick intended for Oshawa might be the Insignia-turn-Regal(SWB), as intended for China.... that is if Oshawa actually gets an Epsilon II Buick. It would be a boon for GM's intention for Buick, but nothing official has been stated.

Just thought of another one that I miss... BRAUMS

Unless they build or acquire a farm near here, they'll never make it to the PacNW by policy...

I don't really do much drive-through these days... nothing really interests me with the generic fast-food chains.

Unfortunately, they don't exist up here... well, not yet - Chick-Fil-A

I miss them a lot.

Oh... a future classic in the making. Chrysler sure knows how to guarantee its place in a collector's heart.

I'm not "defending" Plymouth. LOL Tell me where you jumped to THAT conclusion?

LOL!!!!

If you look, I'm not gonna suggest YOUR goat is hard to get, it's easy, the only difference is I can stick to logic, and fact.

Hah! - Twisted and selective perhaps...

I have no excuses... I'm not the one defending Plymouth... or Oldsmobile... your goat is just too easy...

Couldn't you have at least picked a Chrysler vehicle from a brand that still existed? Your point just validated that a brand's past doesn't have much, if any (in Plymouth's case), to justify its current existence. Once the Viper is gone, where's Dodge? Where is Chrysler's future $4 million vehicle? pehaps the 300 SRT8. Jeep will always have the Wrangler.

I thought ruffles were just a chip.

LANSING, Mich. - Discerning vehicle buyers in China are another step closer to experiencing what their U.S. counterparts have been raving about for the past year: the hot-selling Buick Enclave luxury crossover. Chinese officials visited the Lansing Delta Township Assembly Plant Thursday and Friday to observe operations in preparation for the manufacture of U.S.-built Enclaves crossovers for export to China. Pending approval, China-bound Enclaves could begin rolling off the assembly line as early as next month.

Buick announced last year it would expand its international reach following a four-year, $800 million (USD) agreement signed by General Motors and Shanghai GM (SGM) to export Enclaves to China beginning in the fourth quarter of 2008. Enclave will be imported by Shanghai GM and sold through a network of more than 400 Buick dealerships across China. The plant visit by Chinese Quality Certification Center and SGM officials is another step in this agreement.

Buick is one of the most well-known automobile brands in China, with more than 1.7 million Buick owners. Last year, Buick sold more than 300,000 units there and more than 567,000 worldwide, a 17,000-unit increase over 2006. Buick has a strong history in China, where Dr. Sun Yat-sen, a Chinese revolutionary hero, and Pu Yi, the last emperor of China, both owned Buicks.

"Our customers in China are going to fall in love with the Enclave's beauty, luxury and functionality in the same way that this vehicle has captivated buyers here," said Susan Docherty, vice president, Buick-Pontiac-GMC. "Buick has been a revered brand in China for more than 90 years, and Enclave is going to enhance our strong presence in the Chinese marketplace, providing an elegant and premium vehicle built in a world-class facility."

Enclave is Buick's first luxury crossover. Known for its elegant design, well-crafted and library-quiet interior, Enclave has segment-leading fuel economy and space to transport up to eight passengers plus their gear. It is one of GM's hottest-selling vehicles in North America, having sold more than 55,800 since launching in 2007. GM recently announced it was adding 7,000 units of additional Enclave production for the United States for the remainder of this year.

The Lansing Delta Township Assembly Plant, which opened in 2006, uses state-of-the-art manufacturing practices. Both the assembly plant and the contiguous stamping plant are certified to ISO 14001, an international voluntary set of environmental standards. In addition, it is the only manufacturing facility in the world that has achieved Gold Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certification from the U.S. Green Building Council's Green Building Rating System.

General Motors Corp. (NYSE: GM), the world's largest automaker, has been the annual global industry sales leader for 77 years. Founded in 1908, GM today employs about 266,000 people around the world. With global headquarters in Detroit, GM manufactures its cars and trucks in 35 countries. In 2007, nearly 9.37 million GM cars and trucks were sold globally under the following brands: Buick, Cadillac, Chevrolet, GMC, GM Daewoo, Holden, HUMMER, Opel, Pontiac, Saab, Saturn, Vauxhall and Wuling. GM's OnStar subsidiary is the industry leader in vehicle safety, security and information services. More information on GM can be found at www.gm.com.

I bet if YOUR car was worth 4 million dollars you would be in that penis sizing contest pretty danged quick!

LOL!!!!!

My reply had nothing to do with leases, it had everything to do with the quote that I replied to!

Just look above what I replied in the QUOTE BOX.

How is Plymouth these days? I can't wait to see that $4 million Breeze, Sundance, or Neon at an auction.

The comment quoted stated most Chrysler vehicles. Yes, Chrysler has an excellent track record producing specialty cars... but their everyday bread-n-butter vehicles drop value like a rock.

Maybe Buick is headed to a Cadillac/Buick/Saab sales channel. :AH-HA_wink:

I was thinking of something... If Buick and SAAB become part of the Cadillac franchise, where does that leave Saturn?

Maybe Buick is headed to a Cadillac/Buick/Saab sales channel. :AH-HA_wink:

I agree with wildcat. That setup would be perfect... in the US, Europe, Australia, and Asia.

I just can't imagine that combination not working out well in any market. The three brands combined would generate enough volume to sustain a well laid out dealership network.

Wasn't this the original plan for Pontiac? Downsize Pontiac's vehicles so there wouldn't be overlap with Buick in the same showroom. Could future SAABs be heading to a Buick showroom near by? It's been mentioned as a possibility... this kind of falls in line.

Hmm... Well we know Buick is getting a version of the Insignia in China as the next gen Regal, maybe that's why? Insignia will still come to the US, but as a Buick Regal positioned under Invicta?

I take back my Honda Camry comment... The Camry looks better.

I'll wait to see it in person, but if pictures can make a car look this bad, there's some sort of problem with the design.

The auto industry is in chaos -- fortunately for General Motors.

• Gasoline above $4 a gallon in the U.S. has sent sales of trucks and SUVs plunging as drivers look for more mileage for their dollars.
  
• Higher steel prices have savaged profit margins.
  
• New competitors from India and China are about to emerge in the global market.
  
• And nobody knows what the future will bring -- electric cars, more hybrids, even cleaner diesels.

It's likely that the auto industry will look radically different in 2010 than it does today.

And that's what's likely to save GM. The company is bleeding market share in its home market because fewer motorists want to buy its North American product line of trucks and SUVs. And its losses are so huge that in the past couple of months the company has burned through cash at a rate of more than $1 billion a month. In the quarter ending in March, the burn rate was about $500 million a month.

But whatever its current troubles, the company isn't shut out of the future of the global auto industry. So much change is sweeping across the global marketplace, nobody -- not even Toyota Motor -- will be able to lock up the market and turn GM into a permanent also-ran. There's so much uncertainty about demand trends and developing technology that even a player as currently challenged as General Motors could grab the brass ring if it makes the right decisions on what cars to produce and what technologies to back.


And amazingly, given all the talk about the death of General Motors, the company has a better chance of grabbing that prize than almost any car company in world except for Toyota. If GM can get to 2010 with a few dollars left in its gas tank, that is.

Market weakest where GM is strongest

How bad are things at General Motors? The company showed a $4.4 billion operating loss in 2007, the fourth operating loss in the past four years. Cash flow for the year was a negative $5.6 billion. The company finished the year with $25 billion in cash, about flat with 2006 but down a huge $24 billion from the end of 2005.

Then everything got worse. After averaging 16.8 million units a year from 2000 through 2007, U.S. auto sales are on a pace to fall to just 14 million units in 2008. The hardest-hit segments are exactly where General Motors' sales are strongest. Industrywide, sales of pickups, SUVs and vans -- exactly the kinds of vehicles most affected by higher gasoline prices -- were down 21% in the first half of 2008 compared with a year ago. The company gets about 60% of its sales from these categories. The company's share of the U.S. market, which tumbled to 23.5% by the end of 2007, has declined further, to just 21%.

And the recovery in U.S. auto sales is getting further and further away. First projected for the end of 2008, as the economic slowdown has dragged on and as oil prices have shown no signs of a meaningful retreat, the recovery has receded into 2009. General Motors has recently started talking about 2010 as the year the auto market turns around and the company returns to profitability.

Losing cash, facing debt

Pushing off a recovery for an additional 18 months gets very scary when a company is burning through cash as fast as GM -- whether it's the $1 billion a month of the past couple of months or the $500 million a month of the March quarter.

Do the math: Eighteen months at $1 billion a month comes to $18 billion. General Motors finished the March quarter with $22 billion in cash. The current rate of cash burn would cut that to just $4 billion by the start of 2010. That's cutting it a little close for a company with $34 billion in long-term debt.

Fortunately for GM, only about $6 billion of that debt comes due in the next five years. (If you use the $500 million burn rate of the March quarter, the situation looks a bit better, with GM’s cash balance falling to $13 billion.)

In early July, reports from analysts at Merrill Lynch (MER, news, msgs) and Citigroup (C, news, msgs) argued that the $4 billion margin, the start-of-2010 projection from GM's current burn rate, would not be enough. Yet the most recent auto sales numbers show the plunge getting worse. GM managed to hold its June sales decline to just 18.5% by staging a 72-hour sale with 0% financing during three days at the end of the month, for example.

If the slowdown is deeper than projected and the turnaround doesn't come until 2011 or later, these analysts say, GM might be headed for bankruptcy.

Piffle, responds GM CEO Rick Wagoner. GM has plenty of cash to make it to a recovery. And if necessary, the company can raise more.

GM moves to hold on to cash

Perhaps realizing that investors aren't likely to take the word of a CEO who has presided over a 61% drop in the price of GM shares from Dec. 31 to July 14, Wagoner announced July 15 a package of measures to cut costs and raise capital designed to demonstrate that GM wasn't in danger of running out of cash.

Here's what General Motors announced:

• An end to the 25-cent-a-share quarterly dividend.
  
• Cuts of about 20% to the company's salaried work force of 32,000.
  
• The elimination of company-paid health insurance for retired white-collar workers older than 65.
  
• The closing of four truck plants, with more plant closings on the way.
  
• Plans to raise an additional $2 billion to $4 billion through asset sales and an additional $2 billion to $3 billion through new financing secured by company assets.
  
• The elimination of cash bonuses for executives.
  
• A delay in paying $1.7 billion owed to the union retiree health care fund.
  
• A reduction in capital spending of $1.5 billion in 2009.

Total savings: $10 billion a year. Total new financing: $4 billion to $7 billion.

That, Wagoner said, will be enough to get the company through 2010. In its projections, the company is assuming that U.S. auto sales will fall to 14 million units in 2008 and 2009 and that oil will cost $130 to $150 a barrel.

Betting on high fuel economy

Crucially, the cuts seem to preserve all the new models that GM needs to drive a sales recovery. The product development cuts are a result of delaying plans to design future large pickups and SUVs.

The company plans to bring five new products to the U.S. market by the third quarter of 2010, including a small Chevrolet, the Cruze (a replacement for the current Cobalt); the Buick Invicta sedan, a new sports wagon; and a coupe version of its Cadillac CTS sedan. A new direct-injection turbo four-cylinder engine is a critical element of the turnaround. The goal, according to Bob Lutz, the vice chairman in charge of product planning, is to give GM best-in-class fuel economy in every market from small to big models.

And if everything goes according to plan, GM's electric car, the Volt, will go into production in 2010 and hit full production in 2012.

And 2010 is critical for General Motors in another way. The 2007 agreement with the United Auto Workers set up a voluntary employee beneficiary association that, if approved by the courts, would transfer $40 billion in health care liabilities off GM's balance sheet. The savings, the company estimates, would run about $2.6 billion to $3.4 billion in 2010 or 2011. Court approval is expected in 2010. The savings would go a long way toward bringing GM's costs in line with other carmakers operating in North America.

Will GM be able to introduce the new small models it needs to revive its North American sales? Evidence from the world's emerging markets suggests the company can. Though GM's sales in North America have done a swan dive, sales in developing markets have been growing faster than the auto industry average. For the second quarter of 2008, for example, sales in Latin America, Africa and the Middle East set a quarterly record for the company in the regions, driven by demand for the company's small-car models: the Chevrolet Corsa, Celta and Aveo. Even if it's hard to see the evidence from a point of view inside the North American market, GM is capable of getting things right.

Bumps along the road to recovery

If over the next year it increasingly looks like GM can survive until 2010 or 2011, that new products will contribute to a sales recovery in North America as expected and that cost savings from the current round of cuts and the 2007 agreement with the UAW will work as projected, then GM shares, which traded at a 2008 low of $9.38 on July 14, could climb to $16 a share by July 2009. After a two-day rally in GM's shares, that would be a 39.4% increase from the July 16 closing price of $11.48.

I'm not sure a potential gain of 40% in a year is enough for me to take the plunge on these shares right now, given the risk. I liked GM stock a lot more when it traded at $9.38 than I did at $11.48 just two days later.

In this continuing bear market, I suspect that I'll get another shot at that July 14 low. There will be lots of bumps along the road to recovery for GM. I'm willing to wait for the current enthusiasm to swing back toward despair.

Just to let you know, the average cost of a home in Seattle is over $400,000...

But your point is still valid. A lot of people will move where they can get more for their money.

Many won't though because of the impact it has on the true "quality of life" that one benefits from their location. There are several cities in Washington and in the country that are far cheaper than Seattle/Bellevue but we wouldn't want to give up what we have here just to buy a more expensive car or live in a home that's unnecessarily 2000 sq ft bigger than we need. We would inadvertently spend the same amount somewhere else anyway, but trade our "quality of life" with an increase of material possessions that neither of us wants or need.

It's your dynamic appeal that has all 9 of them sitting on the fence... waiting for you to show interest.