Oracle of Delphi

After all the hype and anticipation the last 10 years or so have brought upon the automotive world, the new Camaro has finally been delivered to dealerships across the country. I remember seeing the early renderings and thought for sure that this was going to be the best car of the 21st century under $40K. When I saw the movie Transformers in the theater, and Bumblebee morphed into the new Camaro, I was blown away. I just knew it was the car to have. I was so excited to see them I couldn't stand it. But when I started seeing pictures of the actual interior, I was less than excited. The overgrown gauges in the center console near the shifter were the first things that caught my eye, but not in a good way. I couldn't believe how much they distracted from the dash and the rest of the interior. I mean, what were they thinking? It looks like someone just grabbed some plastic Lego gauges and started stacking them.Now, don't get me wrong, the 5th gen Camaro is a beast, and from the exterior it really looks menacing going down the road, but I am really disappointed with how the interior came out. All the plastic and pleather should really be replaced with more modern, sophisticated versions. After waiting that long for a car to be produced, I really felt disappointed and left expecting more. Link: http://www.chevroletreports.com/blog/10357...-2010-camaro-ss

Enjoyed your take on this CSpec! Nicely done! Welcome to the Mid-Atlantic region ...

Dan Strumpf / Associated Press You fell in love with that $22,000 Chevy Malibu because of its color, style and price. After driving it home, you realize it's not what you wanted. Maybe it's the way it handles on the highway, the location of the cup holders or the shape of the seats. Don't worry. Bring it back for a refund, no questions asked, says GM's Chairman and new TV pitchman Edward Whitacre Jr. But is it really as easy as returning an ill-fitting shirt to Macy's? As with any deal, it's a good idea to read the fine print. As your love affair with the new car turns to hate, you'll need to drive very carefully and make sure to limit how many miles you put on the car. And don't expect your wallet to be made whole even if you follow the fine print to the letter. Q : So, I can bring back my car or truck to the dealer anytime? A : Not so fast. No returns are allowed within the first 30 days of purchase. It's anytime between day 31 and day 60 of ownership. That seems like a narrow window, but the policy makes sense for GM. Buyer's remorse can set in within days for new customers, who grouse over things like knobs and cup holders appearing to be in the wrong place. Owners can grow more accepting of problems over time, says Jack Gilles, director of public affairs for the Consumer Federation of America. Q : Do I have to cite a defect? A : No. You can hate the color for all GM cares. But the policy says a returned vehicle can't have more than $200 in damage -- and GM, through an inspection, gets to decide what constitutes that much damage. Q : Wow, $200? Doesn't even a small scratch or dimple caused by kicked-up gravel cost that much to fix? A : It's true the cost of vehicle repairs -- even small, cosmetic ones -- can easily exceed $200. (Repairs covered by warranty are excluded.) But GM insists it had to set a limit to protect itself from customers returning badly damaged vehicles and expecting a full refund. Gilles says the $200 limit is on the low side -- particularly when coupled with the prohibition on returning before 30 days. "You combine that with the 30 days, it's easier and easier to get $200 in damage," he says. Plus, with GM making the determination on damages, "it may appear that the cards are stacked against you." The lesson for consumers: Be extra careful during those first two months if you're thinking about returning your new ride. And no car can be returned if it's been in an accident. Q : If I keep the car free of dings, I get all my money back? A : In this case, "money back" doesn't mean all your money. Just the cost of the vehicle and sales tax. GM won't refund the title, registration and other fees, which can add up to several hundred dollars depending on your state. "It's not really unfair because otherwise you've rented the car for free for 30 to 60 days," says Terry Connolly, dean of the Ageno School of Business at Golden Gate University. GM also won't refund any accessories purchased through the dealer, like paint or rust protection, aftermarket equipment and the like. So choose those add-ons carefully if you think you might return the car. Q : What else do I need to look out for? A : Don't go on a cross-country jaunt. The new car or truck cannot have more than 4,000 miles on it. Also, owners must be current on payments. Forget buying his and hers pickup trucks. Only one return is allowed per household. In addition, leased vehicles are not covered. And GM says if you die, no refund. The program started Sept. 14 and runs through Nov. 30, which is the last day customers can take delivery of their new vehicles to qualify for a refund. Q : How does this compare with the Hyundai Assurance program? A : The Hyundai Assurance program, which the Korean automaker launched in January, also allows buyers to return their vehicle. But the key difference is a buyer is eligible only if he or she loses their source of income. In addition, the policy kicks in after two months of ownership, but is good for a year. Q : If I return my vehicle and everything is in order, will I get my old car back? A : No. According to GM spokesman Pete Ternes, dealers aren't obligated to return the car you traded in. In any case, after 30 days it's probably sitting on a used-car lot or in the hands of another driver. Instead, the dealer will treat the value of your trade-in as money toward your new car and refund you the full price, Ternes says. Q : What happens to my returned car? A : Dealers will put the returned vehicles up for sale on their used car lots. GM, through an insurer, then reimburses the dealer for any loss he or she takes on the refund. Q : How much could this program wind up costing GM? A : GM bought an insurance policy through the firm cynoSure Financial Inc. to cover the cost of any reimbursements, spokesman John McDonald says. The policy was purchased using funds from GM's marketing budget, which that automaker does not disclose. Q : With all the restrictions, why would anyone want to participate in this program? A : Several consumer experts say the hassle isn't worth it, particularly when you consider that GM is quietly offering an incentive NOT to participate. Customers who waive the return policy receive a $500 rebate toward the purchase of their vehicle. The sensible choice seems to be to settle on the car you really want and take the rebate, says Gilles of the Consumer Federation of America. "In my book, spend a little more time checking the car out and take the 500 bucks." Link: http://www.detnews.com/article/20090927/AU...orth-the-hassle

I go right to sleep because I have a clear conscience.

The Cadillac Sixteen is the inspiration for the XTS, the question becomes two part then. What platform will it end up on, and what will it be called? I personally don't like the XTS name and think it should be called Eldorado for a 2 door model and a 4 door model could be called the Eldorado XTS I suppose. I personally think it should not be on a LWB EP II platform. I also believe it's time for a North American plant to be based solely on this 2013 updated platform and for all production for North and South America to come out of that plant while leaving another plant somewhere else in the world to supply the rest of the world's production of that updated platform.

September 23, 2009 by Alborz Fallah As part of a trial for an interesting new system, South Australian police have begun using patrol cars fitted with a camera system capable of instantly reading and analysing number plates of cars driving past. The Automated Number Plate Recognition camera system will automatically run the number plate of cars through its system and tell the police whether a car is unroadworthy, unregistered, uninsured, or stolen The idea is to take the element of random checking out and have all cars passing by checked allowing police to better catch law offenders. Additionally the technology can be used to catch criminals by linking known offenders to certain number plates that were spotted in crime scenes. “As a vehicle licence plate is read by the camera, the image is displayed on an LCD screen visible to police officers and an audible tone alerts police if a registration number plate matches a vehicle of interest,” Assistant Commissioner Killmier said. The system can read up to 700 license plates per hour and as a vehicle licence plate is read by the camera an audible tone alerts police if the number plate is flagged for any reason. Whole Article here: http://www.caradvice.com.au/42170/number-p...deployed-in-sa/

It has been revealed that over 11,000 jobs are to be cut across Europe, 1,400 of those are in the UK. These cuts are happening after Magna, the Canadian-based spare parts venture, agreed to take over Opel and Vauxhall from General Motors. Magna's restructuring of Opal is yet another sign that Europe's auto industry is flagging in the face of the recession, despite the spate of 'cash incentives' offered to consumers to buy new cars. General Motors had recently agreed to sell a 55 percent stake in its European units to Magna and Russian bank Sberbank, but last week at the Frankfurt Motor Show, Magna's co-chief executive, Siegfried Wolf, told reporters as many as 10,500 jobs would have to go, with 4,000 of the cuts in Germany. Article Continues: http://www.cxo.eu.com/news/opal-vauxhall-job-cuts/

It's a great marketing and networking tool, I will say that about it ...

Because I am working on projects and will be away from home a lot of the time, those that may wish too, can follow me on Twitter, to find me just go to http://www.twitter.com/GMEmployee . Many GMers on Twitter.

Did I mention there is beer in a big tent ??? I actually like going to this to promote German culture and to drink beer ...

DETROIT (Fortune) -- If you want to understand how the old General Motors stumbled for 30 years until it collapsed into bankruptcy, consider the story of GoFast. GoFast was a program started in 2000 by Rick Wagoner, then the company's president (and later CEO), to untangle bureaucracy. The idea was simple: When negotiations over an issue reached an impasse, all the interested parties would be put together in one room until they agreed on a decision. Human resources was assigned to spread GoFast through the company. It trained GoFast coaches, arranged thousands of GoFast workshops, staged GoFast feedback sessions, and distributed GoFast coffee mugs. At one point, GM claimed savings of more than $500 million from GoFast. But the program took on a life of its own. GoFast workshops were held to eliminate other meetings; eventually the number of workshops reached more than 7,000. In other words, GM held more than 7,000 meetings to discuss how it could hold fewer meetings. Managers might see their performance evaluations downgraded because they weren't holding enough GoFast meetings. "The whole premise of GoFast became going slow," complained one executive. Don't expect to see many more GoFasts under Fritz Henderson, the man who succeeded Wagoner as CEO last March. It "wasn't helpful for decision-making," he says. A Detroit rival describes the situation facing Henderson succinctly: "There is a competitive company inside GM. The question is, Can it come out?" Henderson is trying his best. He likes to circumvent rules to make quick decisions on his own. When Buick was mulling names for three new models recently, Henderson approved its recommendations overnight. (The process might have taken months at the old GM.) When potential customers gave a thumbs-down to a proposed Buick crossover in August, Henderson killed the program in a matter of hours. "We need to be faster, without any doubt," he says in a recent interview in Detroit. "As a company we should take more risks. Part of it is how you behave. It starts at the top and moves down the organization. When people realize speed has real value, they will change." GM's new board of directors has Henderson on a very short leash. It didn't choose him -- the government's auto task force did -- and he is under exceptional scrutiny. "He has to produce," says GM chairman Ed Whitacre, the plainspoken former head of AT&T. "We want him to succeed, but he's under the gun. Something has to ignite this company." To make sure it was getting all the facts on the sale of Opel, the board held up the decision until it could thoroughly analyze its options. Henderson has gotten the message. "I think my job is always on the line, but that's okay," Henderson says. "In my case, there are no guarantees." The city of Detroit wants Henderson and GM to succeed too. Since GM moved its headquarters downtown a decade ago, it has poured hundreds of millions of dollars into the area. Now, though, its Renaissance Center headquarters (developed, ironically, by Henry Ford II in the 1970s) stands one-third empty, and most of the shops and restaurants once patronized by GM employees have closed. There are persistent rumors that GM will move out of town; that would be an economic blow from which the city would be unlikely to recover. For the next three years Henderson will be selling a lineup of cars developed under Wagoner's regime, which, short of cash, scrimped on product development. GM is introducing some attractive new models, such as the Chevrolet Equinox crossover and Buick LaCrosse. Early indications are that the new models are doing well, but GM is launching them at a slower rate than its competitors. According to an analysis by Merrill Lynch's John Murphy, GM will be replacing an average of only 11% of its product line between 2010 and 2013, compared with 17% for Toyota ™ and 25% for Ford (F, Fortune 500). Murphy believes GM's 18% to 19% market share target is optimistic, and a more realistic range is 15% to 16%. (GM calls his data worthless.) There is no room for mistakes. "The days when GM would launch eight or nine cars, and two would be hits, four would be average, and the rest would be okay is just no longer the case," Henderson says. "We don't have the money to do that, and the market is far more demanding." Yet GM finds itself in a better place than it has in a decade. The company that Henderson led out of bankruptcy on June 10 is smaller, nimbler, more focused, and less financially stretched. GM will have 34 assembly, powertrain, and stamping plants in 2010, down from 47 in 2008, and 68,500 hourly and salaried employees in 2009, down from 91,650 in 2008. It will market and distribute four brands with 34 nameplates, compared with eight brands and 48 nameplates a few months ago. Just as important, its overhead will be sharply reduced. Structural costs are projected to decrease from $51.5 billion in 2008 to about $30.4 billion in 2010. GM's U.S. hourly labor costs have been reduced from $7.6 billion in 2008 to an estimated $5 billion in 2010. Something else has shrunk at GM too: its attitude. The old cocky, we're-GM-and-we-know-best way of thinking is beginning to disappear. "Bankruptcy was very humbling," Henderson admits. At times GM seems to be enjoying the unfamiliar emotion of humility. Around headquarters you feel as if you are watching an organization go through a 12-step recovery program. GM is somewhere between Step 5 -- "admitting the exact nature of our wrongs" -- and Step 8 -- "making a list of all persons we had harmed and being willing to make amends to them all." For sure, there is no room for hubris. By the end of the year Henderson will have swept out 450 of the company's 1,300 executives, including a dozen of the highest ranking. He's replaced them with younger managers who weren't around when GM dominated the U.S. market. In one unorthodox move, he switched designer Bryan Nesbitt from the styling studio to the front office, making him general manager of Cadillac. One holdover is Bob Lutz, who exchanged his job as head of product development for a new one running marketing and communications. Now 77, Lutz worked at BMW, Ford, and Chrysler before rejoining GM in 2001 and has been campaigning against GM's old, slow-moving, counterintuitive ways. Lutz regales audiences with bureaucratic horror stories, like the one about the engineer who designed Cadillac ashtrays that met an ancient standard that they operate at -- 40 degrees, but were so rigid they could barely be opened. "GM had a zillion regulations that products had to meet," says Lutz. "Fritz hates to waste time and believes in a lean organization. He looks at the data and then decides." Sometimes Henderson's speedy decision-making inflicts casualties, and earlier this year Lutz took a hit. Lutz had decided that the Australian-made Pontiac G8 sedan should be renamed the Chevrolet Caprice, since the Pontiac brand was being discontinued. But while Lutz may have decided, Henderson hadn't. He griped publicly that "there's way too much speculation" about the car, and noted, as an aside, "Bob Lutz says a lot of things, but he works for me." Lutz quickly backpedaled. In his blog on GM's FastLane website, he announced, "The G8 will not be a Caprice after all." Summing up the episode later, Lutz said, "I said yes, Fritz said no. It was a 48-hour job." At 50, Henderson is the third-youngest CEO in GM's 101-year history -- and the first to get his job from the U.S. government. After accepting the resignation of CEO Wagoner on April 30, Steven Rattner of the Treasury Department's auto task force asked that Henderson replace him. The government is now majority owner of GM. After investing some $50 billion of public money, it owns 60.8% of the company and nominated 10 of the 13 members of the board of directors, including chairman Whitacre. Another board representative came from the governments of Canada and Ontario, which have a combined 11.7% stake in the company, and the 12th was nominated by the UAW's Retiree Medical Benefits Trust. Henderson, the sole insider, was notified of the nominees but had no role in their selection. Overseeing GM in Washington is Ron Bloom, who is a senior adviser to Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner as head of the auto task force (he recently added the title of senior counselor for manufacturing policy). Bloom helped arrange GM's federal bailout and push the company through bankruptcy. From his years advising labor unions, he knows the auto industry inside and out, and while he promises not to meddle in GM's operations, he has no problem conferring with Whitacre or checking in with Henderson and other top executives. Bloom wants GM to start paying the government back next year, and he will watch closely to see how the company performs under new management. "GM has to make great cars, not just okay cars," he says. "The current lineup is not all great cars. They understand what it takes, but now they have to do it." If GM does, it will be the first time in three decades. When Henderson joined GM in 1984, the company still controlled 40% of the U.S. market, and the famous Sloan ladder was occupied by five brands, starting with Chevrolet and going up to Cadillac. Toyota accounted for just a sliver of the market, and Hyundai hadn't even arrived in the U.S. Besides being the sales champ, GM was the technology leader, its latest achievement being the development of the catalytic converter for exhaust emissions. Today GM accounts for less than a fifth of U.S. car sales, and it is being challenged by Toyota and Ford for leadership. Hyundai, meanwhile, outpaces every GM brand in quality and outsells every GM brand except Chevy. Unlike Toyota, GM has not developed a successful alternative-fuel strategy and concedes that its much-heralded battery-powered Chevy Volt will be unprofitable for years. Henderson has spent enough time around the company to know all the key players, but not so much time at headquarters as to have picked up a lot of bad habits. He grew up in Detroit, where his father, a Buick sales executive, worked for GM for 39 years. After the University of Michigan, where he got a degree in accounting and finance, he, like Wagoner, graduated from Harvard Business School, and then, again like Wagoner, went on to GM's renowned New York treasurer's office. That was followed by stints with GMAC, GM's old finance arm, and the former Automotive Components Group (renamed Delphi Automotive). Henderson's personnel file was clearly stamped "high potential." At age 38, Henderson again followed Wagoner, this time to Brazil, GM's biggest market in South America. Three years later he took over all of Latin America, along with Africa and the Middle East (LAAM). He was already building a reputation as an unusually efficient and decisive manager. Retired GM executive Warren Browne remembers Henderson asking his staff for 10% reductions in their budgets to cope with an economic downturn. Most agreed, but one manager protested. "You don't understand," he complained. "We have a heavy workload with all these product programs." Henderson looked up, and said, "I understand completely. Let's you and I spend two or three hours together, and I'm sure you can convince me." They did. "When the guy left," says Browne, "he was happy to escape with just a 30% budget cut." After tours in Asia and Europe, Henderson was named president in March 2008, and CEO effective March 29, 2009. Some worry that Henderson has been immersed in GM culture for so long that he will be unable to make the necessary changes. All his new appointees, for instance, have been GM veterans. Consultant Rob Kleinbaum, who worked for GM for 24 years, nine years as an employee, says that's too much. "There has been more of a reshuffling of people than a meaningful change of leadership. So while Fritz genuinely wants to make the changes, I am not sure he 'gets it' enough to actually do so. We could be seeing the old trait of just doing enough to get by but not doing enough to really solve the problem." Henderson says there are more changes coming in the next 60 to 90 days. If life were like college, Wagoner would be the class president and captain of the basketball team, while Henderson would be the guy who collects the tickets, runs the concessions -- and makes money at both. By his own admission, he is less than imposing: Henderson is 5-foot-8 and has a chubby body and a receding hairline. He certainly isn't a showoff. With a journalist riding shotgun, Henderson negotiated a driving course at GM's Milford, Mich., proving ground in a new Cadillac this August without knocking over any cones but at a speed that wouldn't scare your grandmother. Appearances don't tell the whole story, though. Henderson played varsity baseball in college, and associates describe him as a physical fitness buff who runs and lift weights, is fanatical about golf, and drives a 2006 candy-apple-red Corvette. More stylish than the typical GM executive, he sports Hermès ties, owns a Patek Philippe instead of a Rolex, and is self-confident enough to wear a small brush moustache, the first GM CEO to do so since Harlow Curtice retired in 1958. Henderson dispatches even the most mundane duties with a brisk, personable self-confidence that some find inspiring but others may find intimidating. Once you have completed your business with him, you find yourself graciously, yet firmly, dismissed. When the situation calls for it, Henderson can moderate his normal impatience, and adversaries praise his skills as a negotiator. To those who work closely with him, Henderson is known as "the Machine," and it is easy to see why. During an online news conference with journalists this past summer, he typed 30 answers in 45 minutes on everything from engine options for the upcoming Chevy Cruze to the amount of tax-loss carry-forwards GM would enjoy -- and did so in carefully composed paragraphs without typos. He answered one question from Brazil in Portuguese. Between answers, Henderson traded quips with his aides. When a touchy question about government influence at GM came up, Henderson joked, "[Ford CEO] Alan Mulally gets the softballs. Where are the easy questions like 'What about the new Camaro?'" Besides blogging, Henderson can tweet. When he finished with the media, he shifted to Twitter and answered 30 questions from employees in 30 minutes, this time in a 140-character format and again without a typo. When, after 11 minutes, his desktop computer shut down for a software update, he shifted over to a laptop without complaint. Henderson dodged several abusive questions, sarcastically referring to one particularly offensive one as "highly constructive," but sympathizing with the sender by noting, "It is good to take a shot once in a while." In the end, Henderson's success or failure may depend on one factor he has no control over -- timing. By taking over as CEO during the depths of the recession, he has the wind at his back: The economy is picking up, auto sales are starting to recover, and GM has a strong lineup of new models to sell in the next two years. The key will be maintaining a sense of urgency and humility. Step 10 on the 12-step ladder is "Continue to take personal inventory and when wrong, promptly admit it." The role of underdog is an unfamiliar one at GM, but as long as Henderson can maintain that kind of feeling, the once above-it-all automaker has a better chance of succeeding the second time around. Link: http://money.cnn.com/2009/09/18/autos/frit...oney_topstories

I'd give my left nut and every vehicle I own, save one for this car. Isn't it a Federal requirement though for side markers lights, I know it was a big sticking point when bringing the Pontiac G8 to the USA. I wonder what the price will be ...

I think Carl-Peter has sold his soul in this deal, what a shame ...

BY MARK PHELAN FREE PRESS AUTO CRITIC FRANKFURT, Germany -- If you thought the deal to sell a controlling interest in General Motors' European operations to a Russian-Canadian consortium was done, think again. GM's fate could hinge on the outcome, because its European operations are responsible for developing the compact and midsize vehicles GM needs to survive. However, GM is making contingency plans in case things go sideways and it finds it cannot trust its partners in a shotgun wedding orchestrated by the German government after six months of tense negotiations and political intrigue. It's almost impossible to get anyone to assess the deal's prospects frankly, because the people who know most about the plan are either personally invested in seeing it succeed or could lose their jobs if they expressed doubt publicly, but there may be more questions about Magna-Sberbank's deal to take control of Opel today than there were before a board created by the German government approved it -- by the narrowest margin possible -- 10 days ago. The tension has ratcheted up as governments across Europe asked the European Union to investigate whether the agreement violates the EU's core principles. One frank assessment comes from GM CEO Fritz Henderson: "It's not done yet. I believe in never declaring victory too soon." Some European executives have second thoughts on Russo-Canadian pairing General Motors CEO Fritz Henderson wants the automaker's proposed alliance with Magna, Sberbank and Russian carmaker GAZ to succeed, but he's not betting the house on it. Describing GM's sale of 55% of its European business to the Russo-Canadian alliance, he says that while Opel, which makes around 1.5 million cars a year, "couldn't exist" without General Motors, GM would only be "sub-optimal" without Opel. Cut off from GM, Opel would be smaller than pre-crash Chrysler, unable to develop vehicles and technologies to compete with global powerhouses like Volkswagen, Toyota and Ford. Without Opel, GM loses the excellent engineers who developed key cars like the 2010 Buick LaCrosse, the award-winning Chevrolet Malibu and the upcoming 2011 Chevrolet Cruze. Article Continues: Opel Deal is by no means done

Never seen commercials ... Seen commercials ... This one says available 2009 ...

Hmmmmm, it would look so nice next to my 69 PCS ...

HB!

Link - http://bit.ly/PS01F

Where is the fun in that? Hmmmm ???

Was when Bob Lutz saw it and deemed it "queerer than a Smart".

Well I enjoy challenges, it makes the time fly by, and I'm never bored ...

I'm kind of like God in reverse ... I taketh away, and then I giveth ...