CSpec

I caught a headline recently that Intel announced some completely new type of processor technology that will be out soon--anybody know what I'm talking about?

This is annoying, but the Fed bailed out Bear by letting JPMorgan buy it for nothing, so I'm not surprised.

I hope GM doesn't benchmark the Aveo for the Cruze--it needs to be much much better.

Considering GM has had a 2.0T with 260 HP for a couple of years now, I bet the 1.6 could have very respectable power.

I agree that the Cobalt needs to be replaced. Now. The Cruze looks to be a good player in the compact segment against the Civic, but time will have to tell on that one. Potential is definitely there--let's see if GM can design a compact that has the longevity of its rivals. Buick should not consider anything in this price range; it can share mechanicals maybe, but it needs different sheetmetal, interior, and much more QuietTuning (where did that go btw?) and should start at a higher price to reflect its higher-qualityness.

The blind spots at the rear quarters looks huge. Unfortunately many cars these days have terrible visibility out that way.

GM might regret thinking that the market "shifted fundamentally" after data from March through June.

Cool, thanks for the link. Too bad they covered up the interior.

Looks promising. Hopefully it won't be dated by the time it actually comes out here. Also, I really hope Chevy has learned from the Cobalt--even though it may have been good for a year or so, the competition can change and the new Civic just destroyed it. The Cobalt became very old very fast.

Oh dear--hopefully prices here won't increase.

Pricey, but it seems like a high quality product.

Lame. The G6 was always sub-par, and it looks like GM will do the classic GM thing and just keep making it. They didn't even put in a black tie radio.

Cool, my 9-5 Aero has a 2001-era 2.3L turbo but still chucks out a good amount of power, and I got 32mpg on a long highway trip yesterday.

Looks OK, kinda nerdy up front. Hopefully the weight is down.

I sort of like it actually, but the design isn't all that original. The front looks similar to the current one but with a new and weird grill, and I really like the back but you have to say it looks very similar to the back of the Civic coupe. The interior looks nice enough, but it does really look like a nice Accord in there.

The G6 is really a lame product--very old-school GM. It debuted with a crap steering system with crap engines and a crap interior and crap transmissions, and they've been slowly trying to improve it since.

Yes, electric parking brakes are indeed a big improvement. In manuals they keep you from rolling backwards on hills.

I agree that it looks very similar to the concept. The photo is poor quality with the hood popped, so I would wait for more shots. This weird hating on gme is also quite strange.

Did anyone read any of the actual article? Fortune isn't some car fan website, it's a real news source.

Can Chrysler survive? The frailest of Detroit's automakers has been in private hands for a year. CEO Bob Nardelli badly needs a hit if the company is to endure. The Illness When the U.S. economy catches a cold, Detroit gets pneumonia, or so the old saying used to go. These days it's double pneumonia, and the business is on life support. Besides being caught in a cyclical downturn brought on by the subprime lending crisis, the U.S. auto industry is going through a secular transformation caused by the spike in oil prices. Goodbye, high-profit pickups and SUVs; hello, breakeven (or worse) small cars. All of the old Big Three are suffering, but none like Chrysler. Chrysler has invested less than either Ford or GM in small cars and alternative fuels, and has no significant international operations to provide some relief. For the past year Chrysler has been run as a private company under the ownership of Cerberus Capital Management, the private equity firm. Cerberus doesn't want to be in the auto business; it is in the money business, and the sooner it can transform the former into the latter, the happier it (and its investors) will be. Cerberus brings quick reflexes (no directors to consult, no public disclosures to coordinate); a broad range of industrial management experience from its other portfolio companies; and an insistent focus on a single goal: earning a return for its investors. What it doesn't have are deep pockets; long relationships with Chrysler dealers, suppliers, or customers; and patience. Still, Cerberus says it has a longer time horizon than traditional private equity firms -- most of its funds have expiration dates of a decade or more, and some have no liquidation dates at all. But last year Chrysler lost $1.6 billion before taxes, and it will lose money again this year-possibly a lot more. Its auto sales are down a stunning 22% so far this year. At the intersection of Cerberus and the auto business stands CEO Bob Nardelli. The Surgeon A Jack Welch protege at General Electric who flamed out at Home Depot, Bob Nardelli is no car guy. He can't fine-tune new models by steering a prototype around a test track or discuss the virtues of cash rebates vs. cut-rate financing. He is learning about the complexities of investing $1 billion in a product that will take five years to reach the market. Nardelli is a numbers guy, a skilled manager of large organizations who knows how to get inside them and tune them up, a wizard at operations. Nardelli's critics complain that he doesn't have the sixth sense required for success in the complex auto business. One veteran industry executive, who does business with Chrysler and doesn't want to be identified, says, "Every new person who enters the U.S. auto business thinks he is the first smart guy and it must be pretty simple. I'll bet they have never seen cash fly out the door so quickly in any of their other businesses." Of course, as Nardelli is too diplomatic to say in public, it was car guys who got Chrysler into this mess. And yes, he thinks he is the man to get the carmaker out of it. The Prescription At today's Chrysler there is an emphasis on working fast. Nardelli moved quickly to halt production of money-losing vehicles like the Dodge Magnum and Chrysler Pacifica, even though doing so meant factories ran out of work. Along with co-presidents Jim Press and Tom LaSorda, Nardelli has spent hours at the test track ordering more than 400 changes to vehicles already in production. That's a process that can take months at other companies There is a premium on not being bound by old practices. Chrysler was the first of the Detroit Three to pull back on leasing in the tight credit market. Cerberus is betting it can get the company back to the break-even point by fixing its operational problems and cutting costs. Nardelli has taken a Recovery and Transformation Plan put together by Chrysler's previous management and amped it up by creating a war room and adding visual aids to identify and rank money-saving ideas. Take material costs. Steel prices have risen steeply. "This is the big chestnut," Nardelli says. Nardelli's goal is to break even by 2009, though he adds, "If this thing keeps eroding under us, it will be challenging." Plastic Surgery Customers are clamoring for fuel-sipping vehicles, but Chrysler stopped the production of its best-known small car, the Neon, more than a year ago. Competitors laughed when a Chrysler executive said the company would introduce an electric vehicle in three to five years -- later than just about everybody else. A more immediate priority is improving the quality of the cars Chrysler builds now, ranked by Consumer Reports as the worst among 15 automakers. Last October, Chrysler recruited quality expert Doug Betts from Nissan, named him "chief customer officer," and told him to make better vehicles. Betts created 18 cross-functional teams to address problems with brakes, steering, ride, and handling. Cost cutters during the Daimler era replaced ornamentation in some models with less expensive materials that looked cheap. Nardelli has given chief designer Trevor Creed the leeway to spend more money on higher-quality materials and precision assembly. "We've got to raise our own expectations about what customers should receive," Creed says. Where a modest freshening won't do, the new team is going for a total overhaul. Although the midsized Sebring sedan has been on the market less than two years, management has created a team to perform a complete redesign. By intensely studying customer preferences early, as the Japanese have long done, the team hopes to limit changes late in the design cycle. Transplants What it can't afford -- or doesn't have time-to make on its own -- Chrysler is buying overseas. Product-development boss Frank Klegon estimates that 1,000 of his 7,000 engineers are assigned to joint venture projects outside North America. China's Chery Automobile Co. is developing a subcompact car that Chrysler is considering selling under its brand. Chrysler is also swapping marketing rights to its Dodge Ram pickup with Nissan in exchange for a Japanese-built subcompact, so far unnamed, that will appeal to gas-price-conscious U.S. buyers. The arrangements benefit Chrysler's dealers because they get another car line to sell. But they will probably not provide much bounce to the bottom line. In both cases Chrysler loses the markup that comes from manufacturing and will have to settle for the marketing margin, if there is one. It's not ideal, but Chrysler has to take what it can get. "We're skinned on capital a little bit," Klegon concedes. "It is a challenge." Painful Recovery Cleaning up some of the messes left behind by Daimler is also keeping Nardelli busy. Under its ownership, Chrysler extended credit to marginal customers and built vehicles that dealers didn't want, didn't order, and couldn't sell. The result: a portfolio of dud loans and expensive inventory that quickly deteriorated. Eight years of foreign ownership also left Chrysler stripped of traditional corporate functions: human resources, legal, and finance were all run from Germany. "They got the house and the china," says a rueful Nardelli, "and we got the napkins." The new owner, Cerberus, has been low-key but active, sending 20 to 30 employees to Detroit to tackle specific assignments. Since Cerberus has been investing in auto parts companies, for example, its analysts can help Chrysler identify financially troubled ones and adjust its sourcing; Chrysler recently pulled its business from a struggling plastics supplier and moved it to another one. Cerberus also played a key role in creating Chrysler's $2.99 gas price promotion for new-car buyers. It structured the gas price futures that will limit Chrysler's exposure to future price increases, and it helped arrange the processing of the complex credit card transactions required for the program. Paying the bill Cerberus COO Mark Neporent, who serves on the Chrysler operating group, gets a daily report not only on the cash on hand but also on the number of cars sold to dealers and customers. The numbers have been awful. Still, Neporent says he is far from panicking. "One obvious surprise is that the top line [revenue] has not been anywhere as high as we had hoped," he told Fortune in a rare interview. "Obviously, if this keeps up for another two years, we'll be concerned. But other than unit sales, we are ahead on every key metric," including earnings before interest, depreciation, and taxes, and capital expenditures Cerberus says Chrysler finished 2007 with $9.5 billion in cash on hand-$1 billion more than it had planned. Fortune cannot report specifics, but the evidence presented at a meeting of company executives supports Neporent's optimism about Chrysler's cash management. There's no question that's a good thing, and the sale of some nonearning assets, such as unused real estate near the Auburn Hills headquarters and two idled plants, will bolster Chrysler's cash position by another $1 billion. But when it comes to turnarounds, money is not everything; cost cutting in and of itself does not bring prosperity. Ultimately, Chrysler has to demonstrate that it can make cars that sell at a profit. Seeking Support Chrysler's sales are down nearly a third more than any other major manufacturer's. Right now its lineup is totally unsuited to the realities of the marketplace. So has Cerberus, named after the three-headed hound that guarded Hades, bought a dog? Not necessarily. One way forward would be to form a partnership or sell Chrysler's most valuable parts -- Jeep, Dodge Truck -- to another automaker, or to merge its finance arm with GMAC, which Cerberus also controls. The likeliest buyer of Chrysler's pieces would be a foreign automaker that wants a larger presence in the U.S. Fiat's name has surfaced, but Nissan's name is heard the most. The fast-rising Japanese automaker and its aggressive CEO, Carlos Ghosn, have long sought an American partner to diversify its currency risk, plug holes in its product lineup, and expand its distribution. With the yen strong, the dollar weak, and the market soft, Ghosn can afford to be patient. For his part, Nardelli says he is too. "We talk to Carlos about product," he says. "If he wants to talk about something beyond that, he can talk to New York," where Cerberus is located. Brave words, but the fact is that Chrysler could tumble into bankruptcy with just a couple of bad months. And Cerberus has its reputation, as well as its investors' money, at stake. Prognosis for Recovery "It would be a black eye for private equity if Cerberus doesn't succeed," says Jones Day lawyer Corinne Ball, who has helped restructure other auto companies, such as parts maker Dana. "It has to fix the product line, rebuild Chrysler's reputation with the American consumer, and repair the relationship with the United Auto Workers." That's quite a list. The problem is that the relentless focus on the numbers doesn't fix any of those issues. It is certainly possible for Chrysler to hit the financial marks tacked to the wall but still wreck the company down the line. Cutting corners on a new engine today can push up warranty costs later. Stripping quality engineers from factories will trim the payroll but may further damage the reputation of Chrysler brands. Even if Nardelli can add another model to Chrysler's long list of hits, it wouldn't be in showrooms until the 2012 model year The Daimler merger in 1999 meant the end of Chrysler as an independent publicly traded auto company. The acquisition by Cerberus could mean the beginning of the end of Chrysler as a recognizable automaking entity altogether.

So... did anyone watch this? It was very interesting I thought. I couldn't believe the access CNBC was given. I appreciated Lutz's honesty when asked about the Aztek: "Yes, it's ugly, there's no other word for it."

I would say cheapness of interiors.

Wow, that took forever. I got Accord, Legacy, Aura, 9-3 SporCombi.

I've been hearing more and more that the old white knight Alan Greenspan is much to blame for starting the credit crisis when he crashed rates down to 1.00%.

Well it was just a mangled Malibu body on the prototype, they do that all the time on early versions to test the guts of it. And for all we know the Volt does look perfectly conventional.