General Motors
Car Czar Consulting says: Man, are you kidding me? Bob Lutz, 77, is going to provide global marketing leadership for the “new” GM?!
Wasn’t he one of the leaders who got us in trouble in the “old” GM? Is there no one else on the face of the Earth to lead this new company to “The Promised Land?”
To be fair, Bob is featured in a recent video on Chinese vehicles below. Now, only if we can lower our standard of living to the Chinese to be attracted to these patently unsafe vehicles (no airbags, etc.). Oh, you say, look at our economy – we’re getting there.
Nuts! As a taxpayer, I want to know, who do I see to get my money back!
The White House Auto Task Force really worked “overtime” for us on this one.
(Automotive News) July 10, 2009 GM’s Lutz reverses decision to retire, may lead global marketing
Bob Lutz, the former General Motors product chief who had intended to retire at the end of this year, has changed his plans, two people familiar with his decision said. Lutz, 77, may extend his GM career as head of marketing and communications, said the people.
Autopia February 13, 2008
Bob Lutz: Global Warming ‘a Crock of Sh*t’ and Hybrids Don’t Make Sense
“Maximum” Bob Lutz is a man who always speaks his mind, no matter how outlandish, which is why it should be no surprise the General Motors honcho says global warming “is a total crock of sh*t.”
Lutz made that crack during a private lunch with reporters in Virginia, according to D Magazine, and followed it up by saying, “I’m a skeptic, not a denier. Having said that, my opinion doesn’t matter.”
No, it doesn’t, but it’s always entertaining to hear it. Lutz said he’s pushing the Chevrolet Volt extended-range electric vehicle because “I’m motivated more by the desire to replace imported oil than by the CO2 (argument).”
Ultimately, it doesn’t matter why Lutz is pushing the Volt, just so long as he’s pushing it. But we have to wonder what the hell Lutz was thinking when he said hybrids like the Toyota Prius “make no economic sense” because of their high cost when GM has promised to roll out one new hybrid every three months for the next four years.
Once the world’s largest and most powerful automaker, the troubled company is expected to emerge cleansed of massive debt and burdensome contracts that would have sunk it without federal loans. Spurred on by the Obama administration’s support, the process took just 40 days, even slightly quicker than crosstown rival Chrysler Group LLC’s 42-day timeframe.
On Thursday, a bankruptcy court order allowing GM to sell most of its assets to a new company went into effect. The new GM, 61 percent owned by the U.S. government, will face a brutally competitive global automotive market in the middle of the worst sales slump in a quarter-century.
At a 9 a.m. press conference Friday, CEO Fritz Henderson will announce that GM will cut another 4,000 white-collar jobs, including 450 top executives. The company still employs 88,000 people in the U.S. and 235,000 worldwide.
Henderson also is expected to describe how GM will streamline its bureaucratic management structure to become profitable again. GM has said it will be able to make money even if the U.S. auto market stays at a depressed level of 10 million to 10.5 million vehicles sold.
Yet despite massive cost reductions, experts say GM must produce vehicles that people want to buy, and change its image to one on the cutting edge of efficiency and quality.
“It is the smaller, leaner, tougher, better cost-focused GM,” said George Magliano, an automotive analyst with the consulting firm IHS Global Insight. “But they still have to deal with the problems that they faced longer-term.”
Rep. Gary Peters, whose Michigan district is home to three GM factories, said the company’s emergence signals a new era for the domestic auto industry and the thousands of people it employs.
“With bankruptcy in the rearview mirror, U.S. auto companies will even more aggressively pursue new technologies, become more globally competitive,” he said. “Decades from now, our nation will be glad we did not let a global credit crisis put an end to the American automobile.”
“I’m very much looking forward to a point where we’re operating in clear air, and the name of the company not being associated with bankruptcy and loans and these things,” said Mark LaNeve, GM’s North American marketing chief.
GM ranked as the top global automaker in terms of sales for 77 years before Japan’s Toyota Motor Corp. snatched its crown in 2008. The company sold nearly 8.4 million cars and trucks around the world in 2008, falling short of Toyota’s nearly 9 million.
Once the largest corporation in America, GM held the top spot in the Fortune 500 ranking for 20 years before being pushed out of the top spot in 1973 by Exxon Mobil Corp. It reclaimed No. 1 status in 1985 and held it for another 15 years.
Experts say GM’s future success will depend largely on its ability to persuade consumers that it’s a different company, one that builds cars that will equal or outlast Japanese models. To illustrate the change, GM is considering a new name.
Turning a profit will not be easy. GM lost more than $80 billion in the last four years and survives only because it expects to receive $50 billion in U.S. government loans. Without the loans, its executives have said the company would have been sold off in pieces.
The Obama administration has said it does not plan to interfere with day-to-day operations, though it ousted ex-CEO Rick Wagoner and has been involved in picking the new company’s board.
Most of GM’s model lineup is expected to stay unchanged for now. But the company on Friday will probably show off its newer, more efficient models, as well as plans for a U.S.-made subcompact and rechargeable electric vehicles.
Also on Friday, Henderson is expected to announce that Bob Lutz, GM’s product guru, will remain as a special adviser. Lutz, 77, announced in February that he would retire at year’s end.
In addition to the U.S. government’s controlling interest, the United Auto Workers union gets a 17.5 percent stake of the company through its retiree health care trust, and the Canadian government will control 11.7 percent. The remaining shares went to bondholders of the old company.
The parts of GM not moving to the new company will become part of “old GM,” a collection of assets and liabilities that will be sold to pay creditors.
Almost immediately, GM will try to show how it’s a different company, perhaps by changing its familiar square logo from blue to green, to reflect its environmental focus.
“I think that as a corporate identity the color change could well be a smart move,” said Tony Spaeth, president of Tony Spaeth/Identity, a Rye, N.Y., firm that helps companies craft identities. “It lends a little bit more reality and sincerity of intention to ‘We want to change the way we do things.’”
Today’s consumers are sophisticated and will seek out environmental information to help make shopping choices, said Allen Adamson, managing director at branding firm Landor Associates.
“They have to do this just to stay in the game and to win on that dimension. To win on green, this is a very big challenge,” he said.
Toyota, for instance, is known for its breakthrough hybrid gas-electric technology, and GM could accomplish the same thing with its Chevrolet Volt rechargeable electric car due in showrooms by late 2010.
Following on the video, I hope and trust that the USA will not become a developing market. This is my biggest concern given the continued cost downs, outsourcing to lower cost countries, and the lack of jobs in the United States.
The New GM…will not be New. They will change their color to Green…big deal.
To be New they need to be different to be competitive they need to be different. They are coming back with the same leadership and the same union…except the union has more power.
But because they are government run they will not be able to think fast enough or creative enough. They will just limp along as usual sucking all of our tax money down the drain.
It looks like Bush was right!
Agree with all your thoughts. Thanks for your contributions.
Will GM’s bankruptcy affect a site like this for truck and auto parts ?