[JhonnyGTR]

Originally Posted by Number 3

implied, but agree with your edit.

We will only have to embrace something outside of EVs and autonomous when our market share for ICEs is to small to support with a business case for an OEM. Or we will simply have to pay more for it.


We may not like the future much but one thing for sure is we can't stop it from coming.


Can anyone on this site imagine SHARING their Camaro? Or simply having a Camaro delivered when you want to drive a Camaro and sending it back when you are done? I would suggest very few. Part of the Camaro (or statement car) is owning it, personalizing it. How many threads on this site are simply the excitement of a new owner adding their first modification?


Can you imagine summoning a Camaro on your phone, having it show up on time and you get in and their is no steering wheel. You simply get to ride in a sweet Camaro following every single speed and traffic law.


And way down the road can you imagine someone bringing up the statistics that almost all traffic deaths are now the result of having a non-autonomous vehicle and that they should be removed from the road?

This is where the market (and GM) are heading.

Could they be wrong? Very possibly.

But no one should be thinking the Government bailed out GM and FCA (ooooops foreign owned now, what about that money and shutting down production of Dart and 200 and more to come) to have it be exactly they way it was in 2008/9. That wouldn't be possible.


Oh and as for that future? How many cars on the road will have been built in China 10 years from now? No one bats an eyelash about every Samsung and Apple phone coming from over seas. Your Television? Your laptop?


I tried to give a crap about this for years and was simply laughed at. Middle class Americans are the ones that are impacted the most by the loss of those manufacturing jobs and that is at least a part of how President Trump was elected.


There is way more going on here than simply closing two factories (the other two are simply outdated transmission plants).


This is on the surface an American company playing the long game.


If you look at what GM's biggest problem was in the 80/09 timeframe, it was simply it couldn't afford the legacy costs of pensions and retirements. They were paying a pension and healthcare for 5 people for everyone that was working. Imagine running your own company where you have to pay for 5 people that add nothing to your bottom line. Want to know why GMs products got continually cheaper and cheaper through the 80s and 90s? It's because every car and truck program started with a several thousand dollar bill for contribution to legacy costs.


Now GM is taking proactive steps and everyone wants to hammer them.


Look I feel bad about this. I've had many friends that are still there that have had to go through the agonizing process of taking the package or staying. Not one of my friends that took the package was yelling yippeeeee. It was more, wow, my career just ended. Today is my last day. What am I going to do next?

Now the rest of the salary employees wait until January (over the Holiday break) to see if they will get told in January that they are no longer "necessary". At least 5,000 more. Same number as the first round during the bankruptcy.


And I grew up with both of my parents working in GM assembly facilities in Michigan. I know how scary this is for people that have a great job at GM and now the fear of it being gone is devastating.


From a personal standpoint this is no less than horrific for thousands of people. But maybe I am sensitized to it as my wife was unceremoniously walked out in 2009. And yes it was devastating to her and our family......at the time. Took years to get over being a loyal, dedicated employee and POOF! Done, gone, thanks for 26 years but you aren't needed.


So for the people impacted this sucks.


From an American manufacturing standpoint this is simply GM looking toward the future and making sure that when and if a down turn comes or when and if we let 2 or 3 million Chinese made cars into the country (and we will) and making sure they still exist.

Oh and one more thing. If you guys think the "bailout" of GM was to save jobs, the Government required a plan from GM to eliminate 5,000 jobs to start and then a contractually obligated 5,000 more. It was in the agreement with the Government. So the bailout itself required GM to eliminate 10,000 jobs in order to get the assistance it needed.

And Norm sorry for using your reply to tee this one up.

This is what I would call the Darkside of Business, I am very sorry about what happened with your wife and how it affected you and your family, and all those people who lost their job because of that move, and all those who will lose it now. but unfortunately that is the life of the business, where loyalty only has importance and validity when they need you at work.

But based on the current issue and the future situation which "forces" the use of this type of measures, it is true what you said about the future can not stop it from coming or being avoided, but it can be changed, and People are the ones who decide what the future will be like with their actions. In this case, the customers, the people through whom this business moves and evolves, the reason for this "mutualism" (actually it would be the money, but they know where I want to go), are the ones that influence how the evolution will be. the companies or the market, if they want the route A, the automotive companies will take them on route A, force them to want to take them to another Route as B or C or the other letters of the alphabet they want the A in the long run always ends in failure. Today the American clientele prefers SUV's and CUV's and Trucks, and sadly they no longer worry about acquiring Sedans, Wagons (Reason why they are dead there almost 100% in case I miss one that is still alive), And sporting like it was before.
We are the few among all the American clientele who complain about these vehicles dying or being taken out of the market slowly or quickly, but that is because we are enthusiastic about the cars, their legacy, their aesthetics, and everything they offer. . but we are a minority, and many prefer foreign vehicles more for reasons that I do not want to mention. (... I know that the American companies could do a better job in their cars for the clients that nowadays are so demanding and critical who like to compare everything and find the minimum thing that makes it look the same to another vehicle besides that they are bad for them, no matter how you paint them, I am surprised that at this point they have not criticized SUVs and CUVs as they are doing with vehicles recently, which in my opinion go the same way)

All this is what has caused the current situation, and only the majority that does not get familiar with us are the ones that can change this. The question is whether they will do it, and when.

If people through comments and criticisms managed to do a Facelift to the 2019 Camaro refresh that they found HORRIBLE, then they can achieve something against the imminent death of the Sedans and other types of cars, BUT, as I said before, everything is in them They will want that, which I do not see that it will be like that, sadly.