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Roger - you need to read the new book Fins. It's a biography of Harley Earl and a good read for those of us who grew up when cars all looked sn sounded different in the town where they were made.
Below is the list of Assembly Plants GM has closed since 2000, in no particular order:
New United Motors Manufacturing Inc (now Tesla site)
Oklahoma City, OK
Shreveport LA
Atlanta, GA
Linden, NJ
Wilmington, DE
Baltimore, MD
Janesville, WI
Lansing #2, MI
Pontiac Truck, MI
1/3 of Oshawa Auto-plex, ONT (Oshawa had three Assembly plants)
St Therese, Quebec
Moraine, OH
With the latest round of announcements GM will be closing the additional assembly plants:
Lordstown, OH
Hamtramck, MI
Remaining 2/3's of the Oshawa Auto-plex, ONT
Since 2000 GM has only opened one new Assembly Plant in US or Canada
Lansing Delta Twp, MI
The above is based on my memory only, I managed construction projects at all of these sites with the lone exception of St Therese, and it does not include any of the Engine, Transmission, and Stamping plants which have also been closed since 2000.
GM keeps loping off the infected limbs, but I see no evidence they have found and cured the underlying disease yet.
When GM was free to build the cars they and their customers dreamed of, they were the largest and most successful company the world had ever seen. The disease is the government regulation that has choked the life out of those dreams and has been steadily tightening it's grip around GM's neck for 50 years.
Yes, many will point to Toyota, Honda, and Hyundai's success under the pressure of the same grip. But perhaps GM just never has been nor ever will be cut out to make Buick Corollas.
All of the domestic Big 3 have decided that conventional passenger cars lack sufficient business-case. This is sorely disappointing to the portion of the buy-American crowd, which still wants a sedan or coupe. But how large is that market? I would love to have a new car with a carburetor and a hand-crank (in lieu of electric starter), but how large is that market?
I saw a graph earlier this week that identified 41% of new vehicle purchases (IIRC) were automobiles as opposed to trucks and SUV's. Unless all the cross-overs are lumped into the automobiles category it seems as if they are walking away from a sizeable segment of the market!
I see the opposite they finally are “getting it”. In the next Great Recession that is upon our horizon there will be a significant collapse of debt markets (student loans, auto loans, mortgages). Really any industry supported heavily in consumption and valuation through debt instruments will be inordinately impacted.
GM doesn’t need these boat anchors tied to their neck as they try to deal with it; hence closing barely profitable lines now makes perfect sense.
They will be a smaller nimbler company and come through the recession all the better for it.
I am not arguing that GM is not facing formidable challenges, only that logic and history have proven many times over that it is impossible to grow by reducing. If cars are not profitable, then determine why and fix the problems! Abandoning an entire large market segment to their competition just because GM is inefficient in that segment will not save GM in the long term. If they can't find and fix the problems in the car segment, these problems will only haunt them in the Truck & SUV segments.
I am glad I voluntarily left GM while still young enough, age 56, to find secure alternative employment.
Remove CEO Mary T Barra and her fantasy liberal agenda from GM and most of the problem is solved.
I am not arguing that GM is not facing formidable challenges, only that logic and history have proven many times over that it is impossible to grow by reducing. If cars are not profitable, then determine why and fix the problems! Abandoning an entire large market segment to their competition just because GM is inefficient in that segment will not save GM in the long term. If they can't find and fix the problems in the car segment, these problems will only haunt them in the Truck & SUV segments.
I am glad I voluntarily left GM while still young enough, age 56, to find secure alternative employment.
There is one notable difference between now, and the period leading up to their bankruptcy.
In the period leading up to the BK, they decided, "Screw it, the cheap oil will never die and neither will the economy! Who NEEDS Cars?"
Here, they've said, "Our cars aren't selling as well, and we really think the future is EV and driverless, and are going to invest heavily in that as our future."
My theory is that GM's cost structure is far too high. This impacts the vehicle pricing and the cash available for product development. Vehicles which are less desirable to buyers but priced identical to the competition will be slow sellers without incentives - which again depletes cash and the cycle continues.
All the plant closures with tens of thousands of people retiring early accelerates depletion of the pension fund - which must receive cash infusions to meet goverment requirements - and the cash drain cycle appears again.
This is why I have no hope for GM. Too many brilliant people have rotated through the CEO chair and none of them has been able to stop the slide. I fear the problem(s) are simply too large for any solution.
Bankruptcy Restructuring, Billions of Bailout Cash, and Ten Years of a Booming Economy have not solved the problem. Therefore, I don't think there is a solution which will save GM.
My theory is that GM's cost structure is far too high. This impacts the vehicle pricing and the cash available for product development. Vehicles which are less desirable to buyers but priced identical to the competition will be slow sellers without incentives - which again depletes cash and the cycle continues.
All the plant closures with tens of thousands of people retiring early accelerates depletion of the pension fund - which must receive cash infusions to meet goverment requirements - and the cash drain cycle appears again.
This is why I have no hope for GM. Too many brilliant people have rotated through the CEO chair and none of them has been able to stop the slide. I fear the problem(s) are simply too large for any solution.
Bankruptcy Restructuring, Billions of Bailout Cash, and Ten Years of a Booming Economy have not solved the problem. Therefore, I don't think there is a solution which will save GM.
One way to go out of business is to slowly shut down your production which is unprofitable until you have nothing left. That way if our fed gov decides to bail them out again maybe it wont take as much cash that has to be borrowed since they spend more than they get in record tax revenues.
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