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8525 messages, Last post on Nov 30, 2009 at 3:34 PM
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| Today GM Mexico stop working, its gonna reopen until february. They where gonna reopen in mid Jan, but delayed it to the first week of feb. | |
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The Bush administration bailout had an immediate impact at some General Motors and Chrysler LLC dealerships around the country. Nervous shoppers forged ahead with deals they had delayed out of fear that the automakers would skid into bankruptcy. "I had an elderly man and his wife who loved this new Impala," said Alan Starling, owner of Starling Chevrolet in St. Cloud, Fla., near Orlando. "They were going to buy it, but wouldn't until they knew President Bush was going to make this bridge loan to General Motors." The dealership delivered the new car late last week. On Monday, Dec. 15, a Manhattan businessman, worried about warranty and parts availability, held off buying a $74,000 Cadillac Escalade hybrid. But 30 minutes after President Bush's press conference on Friday, Dec. 19, the customer walked in with a certified check. He drove the black SUV off the lot before noon, said Anthony Ciarlo, Internet sales manager at Cadillac-Hummer of Mahwah in Mahwah, N.J. "I talked to him Monday, Wednesday and Thursday, but he was worried," Ciarlo said. "He said he didn't want to buy a Lexus, but he'd wait until he knew if GM would make it." Ciarlo said he didn't have an answer to the many people concerned about GM's future. Within minutes after Bush announced the $17.4 billion loans Friday, showroom traffic picked up at River Oaks Chrysler-Jeep in Houston. "We had customers who were waiting to make sure that parts and service would be there and that Chrysler would be a viable entity years from now," said dealer Alan Helfman. Jim Arrigo, co-chairman of the Chrysler, Dodge and Jeep national dealer council, said: "We've been sitting on pins and needles." Saturn dealer Don Hudler, with six stores in Texas, thinks buyers will return to showrooms now that GM's liquidity issues are at least temporarily off the table. Said Hudler: "If we have a good weekend, that will be the barometer that more people have some confidence in all of us going forward."
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The federal and Ontario governments will provide the Canadian subsidiaries of the Detroit Three automakers with $3.29 billion in emergency loans, Prime Minister Stephen Harper said Saturday. The announcement follows a pledge Friday by President George W. Bush to offer $17.4 billion in emergency loans to General Motors Corp. and Chrysler LLC. Harper said Canada's rescue plan, the equivalent of 20% of the U.S. aid package, will help keep the plants afloat while the automakers restructure their businesses to retain one of the country's most important sectors. |
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Import brand automakers have walked a fine line during the debate here over federal aid to the Detroit 3. The companies want the government to help their U.S. rivals survive. But they don't want that help to impose big competitive disadvantages on them, said Mike Stanton, president of the Association of International Automobile Manufacturers. The association represents Toyota, Honda, Nissan and 11 other automakers. Late last week, Stanton praised the Bush administration's approval of $17.4 billion in emergency loans for General Motors and Chrysler LLC. He said the money would give the companies "time to work through their issues." Stanton said import brand companies also will support legislation aimed at helping the industry over the long term. Those measures include bills that would stimulate consumer interest in buying vehicles, he added. But Stanton conceded that members of his association largely avoided talking specifics during the bailout discussions. Invited to a senator's office, Stanton recalled, "We kept it at the 30,000-foot level — which, quite honestly, they didn't like." arl Quist, a consultant and former director of industry affairs for Toyota Motor North America, said Toyota told policymakers that failure of one or more of the Detroit 3 would take down suppliers that all automakers need. "Without parts, we can't make cars," Quist told Automotive News last week. Some members of Congress dragged the import brands into the fight. The lawmakers cited the imports' U.S. operations as examples of how to operate profitably and, they said, to build more environmentally friendly vehicles than the Detroit 3 has.
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Replying to: 62vetteefp (Dec 23, 2008 6:35 pm) If the guy can spend that much money on a new ride, the last thing he should worry about is the warranty and parts availability! |
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Ford Fusion Hybrid to get 41 mpg city DETROIT -- Ford Motor Co.'s much ballyhooed 2010 Fusion Hybrid will get 41 city miles per gallon and 36 mpg on highways, based on final certification figures from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the company said Monday. The move is one of the final steps in getting the vehicle to dealerships next spring. Certification of the vehicle was recently completed at the company's testing laboratories in Allen Park. Ford said that the Fusion Hybrid tops Toyota's Camry hybrid -- its main competitor -- mileage by 8 mpg in the city and 2 mpg on the highway. The Fusion can travel up to 47 miles per hour using only battery power. After 47 miles, the car's four-cylinder engine turns on to power the car and recharge the battery. The Fusion's nickel-metal hydride battery is lighter and produces 20 percent more power than the Ford Escape hybrid. It also devised a way to get 28 percent more power out of the battery cells, said Praveen Cherian, program leader for the Fusion Hybrid. "It's not just one thing, but thousands," he said of the improved mileage numbers. "We've optimized the heck out of that vehicle, it's individual components." The battery can also tolerate higher temperatures, and Ford has eliminated its battery cooling system in the Fusion, allowing the battery to cool using regular cabin air. The company has also improved its regenerative braking system, which captures energy lost through brake friction and stores it for battery usage. Ford said 94 percent of brake friction energy is recovered in the new model. The Fusion also includes SmartGauge technology, which helps drivers adjust their driving to get more mileage out of the car.
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Is this the plant where the Trailblazer/Envoy/9-7X are built? If so, then no tears are going to be shed, except for those workers. GM workers reach final day at Ohio SUV plant Associated Press MORAINE, Ohio -- Workers at General Motors Corp.'s sport-utility vehicle plant in the Dayton suburb of Moraine are working their last day at the factory. Tuesday is the final day of production at the plant, which has been pumping out GM vehicles for the past 27 years. About 1,080 hourly workers are employed at the plant. In June, GM announced it would close the plant because high gasoline prices were driving consumers away from the SUVs made there. Advertisement GM employed 19,000 workers in the Dayton area in 1999, before spinning off its Delphi supplier division. Tuesday's closing of the SUV plant will leave 572 workers at a GM engine plant in Moraine the automaker owns jointly with Isuzu. |
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America cares little about fate of Detroit's Big Three Forget the politicians and their calculated "rescue" of Detroit's automakers. They won't be the ones who save, or kill, the Big Three where it matters most -- in the marketplace. It'll be the real people, would-be customers who decide to give General Motors Corp. metal another look or who credit Ford's Blue Oval for trying to make it without federal help. Or it'll be the people who long ago gave up on Detroit, who conflate bad experiences of a generation ago into sweeping condemnations of the companies today. I bring this up now because the bailout debate, punctuated by President George W. Bush's decision to throw the automakers a $17.4 billion lifeline, is delivering Detroit more attention than it wants or needs. And government largesse for GM and Chrysler LLC will keep this complex, politicized restructuring in front of taxpayers for months to come. Which means those inside the Detroit Bubble eager to remind folks on the outside that the automakers were FDR's "Arsenal of Democracy," that Detroit "created the middle class, and that an independent, U.S.-owned auto industry is an economic cornerstone may find most of the Bigger America doesn't agree and doesn't much care. Yes, federal officials are lending GM and Chrysler help, but they are clearly doing so while holding their collective noses with one hand and wagging their fingers with the other. Could it be that the politicians know their constituents are as fatigued by Detroit's troubles as the rest of us mired in this morass? Readers periodically e-mail objections to suggestions (from me and others) of an anti-Detroit Auto bias around the country. After the inquisitions called congressional hearings, the misinformed sanctimony from members of the California, New York and Massachusetts delegations and the snide slaps of Senate Republicans from the South, I'm not at all sure the e-mailers have much (if any?) evidence to buttress their point. Then, in today's e-mail, arrives more data to bolster mine: A CNN-Opinion Research poll reports that 70 percent of 1,013 Americans polled over the weekend said they opposed extending any additional aid to Detroit's automakers beyond March 31. Even as two-thirds said a bankruptcy of one or more automakers would be "a crisis" or would cause "major problems," more than 80 percent said an automaker bankruptcy would cause "minor problems" or "no problems at all" for their personal financial situation. And 65 percent said they would not be likely to consider buying a car from a bankrupt automaker. Translation: Detroit, you're on your own, though I'm not at all sure the message is resonating where it matters most. 'A way of life' under siege Over the weekend, I ran into a prominent, thoughtful and recently retired Detroit auto executive out with his family for a holiday dinner. Amid the handshakes he looked at me and matter-of-factly said, "We're dismantling a way of life." He's right. But how many people in your workplace or neighborhood or school district realize it? Do they understand that the culture defined by Big Three salaries, benefits, expectations, vacation schedules -- where else in the country do people get a four-day weekend around Easter? -- will be torn apart over the next three months because it has to be? And if it isn't -- if United Auto Workers brass can call in enough political chits with congressional Democrats and Team Obama to keep from having to ask their members to vote on wage cuts and work rule changes next year -- what guarantee is there that it won't happen in bankruptcy anyway? None. On Sunday, an e-mail landed from Robert F. in Marin County, Calif. "Hello from the Left Coast," he began. "Here in California we don't much care about Ford, GM, Chrysler. We gave up on them years ago, (and) the rest of the country is following California's lead." A view from the 'Left Coast' I read on, marveling (but not surprised) that decades-old experiences with a '67 Olds Cutlass, an '81 Dodge Omni, a '91 Jeep and a '99 Ford Contour shaped a mind-set that Detroit probably could not break, no matter what it does. Add, too, his self-described "gold standard" -- "the '98 Camry LE I sold with 226,000 miles, with only a starter motor replacement at 180,000." "Quite honestly, it does not matter to the Left Coast if they all go bankrupt and take that greedy UAW with their incessant petty work-rule nonsense with them," he wrote. "Those idiots shut down GM in the summer over some ridiculous issues totally oblivious to the disaster upcoming." Yes, Robert, they did. "Good luck," he added. "You will need it." Yes, that too. A more contemporary understanding of Detroit's new metal also would help, but that's probably too much to expect when generalizations rooted in personal experience can suffice -- and show Detroit, yet again, just how problematic its revival truly will be among fellow Americans.
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Replying to: 62vetteefp (Dec 23, 2008 6:35 pm) Was there anything in the article that indicated GM sales, *overall* were up after the Bush announcement? Your title is not supported by the contents of the story unless I've missed it. I wonder if the GM market share will go up or down in December and January? |
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Replying to: 62vetteefp (Dec 23, 2008 6:38 pm) Sounds like a general US trade association that is probably 50% D3. I didn't see any quotes from the J3 in the article. The imports may very well be worried about suppliers, but an an all-US trade association's statement is not the same as "imports reiterating...". The article had no quotes from Honda, Toyota, or Nissan saying anything to that effect. Only vague attribution from third parties.
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