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GM is BURNING through money:
The US government has granted General Motors permission to use US$2.8 billion in borrowed money to help its former parts division, the Delphi Corp, GM said in a regulatory filing on Monday.
GM said that it received $1.7 billion last month from an escrow account financed by the Treasury Department to buy an interest in the reorganised Delphi, which spent four years mired in Chapter 11 protection before successfully exiting last month.
It received $1.1 billion to spend on its acquisition of Delphi's global steering business, which GM has said that it planned to sell.
GM said that the withdrawal left $13.6 billion in the escrow account, which was CREATED IN JULY from what remained of the $30.1 billion it received from the Treasury in June after it filed for bankruptcy.
In the last year, GM has borrowed $50 billion from the Treasury.
Then there is the point that Opel actually knows how to build small, very reliable and desirable, fuel efficient vehicles. Expect to see some of these re-badged as Chevys.
They've already been doing that (at least for the mid size). That's why that can't loose Opel, nearly all their new designs come from other countries.
The US Governamnt can't call do anything else how really.This administration is in too deep now and the UAW showed what clout they hold in the party in the bankrupsy terms.The uinons and the trial lawyers are the powers within the democratic party.
If the managers at Opel are feeling a little queasy today, this should have them running for the Alka Seltzer (or whatever Germans use). As if to throw (more) gas on the conflagration raging at Opel, Brent Dewar, vice president of Chevrolet, announced at the Reuters Autos Summit in Detroit that GM is targeting sales of 1 million Deawoo-Chevrolets in Europe, double the 500,000 vehicles sold in 2008. With perfect clarity and a straight face, Dewar laid out the plan:
“We have that in our business plan to take that to 1 million units in Europe as we start to launch products like the Chevrolet Cruze and the Spark,” Dewar said.
“We haven’t set a target when we’ll get to it, but in our planning horizon we look over the 2014 time frame.”
Um, and how does all this affect Opel, now that GM has decided to keep it? According to Dewar, not at all, because the two brands have different design cues and focus. You mean like Chevrolet and Pontiac did in the US? Not a problem: “We see growth for both brands,” he said. (TTAC)
The whole situation is really unfortunate. Opel did not mind being part of GM, but now who can trust those people in Detroit? The atmosphere is poisoned.
But neither would the Magna solution have been a good one, the goals of the Russian involvement were rather obscure.
in related "stick it to the taxpayer "news we have this on chrysler:
NOVEMBER 7, 2009
DETROIT (Reuters) -- Chrysler Group has disbanded a team of engineers dedicated to rushing a range of electric vehicles to showrooms and dropped ambitious sales targets for battery-powered cars set as it was sliding toward bankruptcy and seeking government aid.
The move by controlling shareholder Fiat S.p.A. marks a major reversal for Chrysler, which had used its electric car program as part of the case for a $12.5 billion federal aid package.
As late as August, Chrysler took $70 million in grants from the U.S. Department of Energy to develop a test fleet of 220 hybrid pickup trucks and minivans, vehicles now scrapped in the sweeping turnaround plan for Chrysler announced this week by Fiat CEO Sergio Marchionne.
it just wasn't a very good match in the first place. you take the the maker with the worst quality in the united states and pair it up with a company known for bad quality in europe. add to that, the fact that fiat is not putting one dime into this "turnaround", and you realize that taxpayers have thrown their money away.
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Obama has to buy a new printer for Euros now 
