[Norm Peterson]

Originally Posted by Number 3

Where on Earth do you take this as a message that GM doesn't appreciate your business? If you and other Americans had bought Cruzes, CT6s (awesome car), Impalas (was launched as a lower volume car and never lived up to it) Volt (no one ever give GM credit for technology......ever!) and oh you are upset that they closed two out of date transmission plants that make 6 speed transmissions????? Sorry, not seeing how this is interpreted as lack of appreciation. AMERICANS were not buying these AMERICAN MADE cars in GM's desired volume.

Fixed.

Been through this same thing over on M6G, where it still seems they could have saved just one of the sedan lines to be axed and kept at least a minimal presence in the sedan/coupe market. Minimal still amounting to something like half a million or so sales/year between the top two.

People that come on here everyday to talk about a performance car are NOT the key market for autonomous or EVs. Remember the car we love to talk about here is a tiny fraction of what GM produces now. Tiny.

Most of us also buy outside the muscle car/ponycar/sports car niche. Why on earth should we be required to embrace such a different set of criteria for our less overtly performance-oriented purchases? Do you really want to leave your "fun to drive" in the hall closet every time you have to drive your not-the-Camaro?


Norm

[hotlap]

Originally Posted by Norm Peterson

Sorry, but SUVs aren't cars, and the vehicles in your list that aren't SUVs, are definitely further up-market than what a great many buyers can realistically afford.

What about the $6B being thrown at Cruise Automation? Or the 20 (new) EV's being proposed by 2023?

Something's got to give, and evidently GM intends to take it all out of those who want ICE-powered [non-SUV/CUV] cars.


Either you've never had to deal with automobile companies abandoning to any significant extent what you want in a car, or you're ready and willing to roll over and accept something that you never would if the choice existed.


Norm

I’ve made this exact point to #3 in the past.

I prefer RWD V8 coupes. My first new car (age 21) was a blue 1984 Monte Carlo SS. When GM shifted everything to FWD in 88, their cars lost all of the identity that differentiated them from the imports but they didn’t execute as well as the imports.

What motivation was there not to just buy the better import? Or look at trucks and SUVs that still gave them the RWD, V8 identity?

I shifted to Camaro/Firebird (and the GTO) because I do not want to drive a truck. My wife’s? ....Honda starting in 2002 because GM lost me. I was warming up to a GMC Denali for her impending purchase.

I don’t want a self driving car. Electric lacks soul. Until very recently, cars/trucks/SUVs were aspirational and a reflection of their owners personality. Turn them completely into appliances and you damn well better have the best and cheapest.

Somewhere there is an opportunity for a manufacturer to offer another option...like what happened when everyone switched to trucks/SUVs after RWD cars disappeared.

[Number 3]

Originally Posted by Norm Peterson

Fixed.

Been through this same thing over on M6G, where it still seems they could have saved just one of the sedan lines to be axed and kept at least a minimal presence in the sedan/coupe market. Minimal still amounting to something like half a million or so sales/year between the top two.



Most of us also buy outside the muscle car/ponycar/sports car niche. Why on earth should we be required to embrace such a different set of criteria for our less overtly performance-oriented purchases? Do you really want to leave your "fun to drive" in the hall closet every time you have to drive your not-the-Camaro?


Norm

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.

[Norm Peterson]

Originally Posted by hotlap

I’ve made this exact point to #3 in the past.

I prefer RWD V8 coupes. My first new car (age 21) was a blue 1984 Monte Carlo SS. When GM shifted everything to FWD in 88, their cars lost all of the identity that differentiated them from the imports but they didn’t execute as well as the imports.

I went down a slightly different path, the easier move for me being to go from a 1979 Malibu (V8, F41 sport suspension, 4-speed) to a 5-speed 1987 Maxima than go automatic in what ended up being the soon-to-be-discontinued RWD Monte. Had Chevy decided to equip the Monte with the T5 out of the 3rd gen F-body, I'd have stayed with Chevy for at least one more round. Guaranteed.

I shifted to Camaro/Firebird (and the GTO) because I do not want to drive a truck.

How did you like the GTO? That was sort of on my radar, but its timing relative to my buying cycle was all wrong. Same thing happened with the Chevy SS once it got the 6-speed.

I don’t want a self driving car. Electric lacks soul. Until very recently, cars/trucks/SUVs were aspirational and a reflection of their owners personality. Turn them completely into appliances and you damn well better have the best and cheapest.

Turn cars completely into appliances . . . hello Pro-Touring (again).


Norm

[mlee]

Number 3.... a lot of what you said hits home and what the oil business recently went through the past few years. There's nothing like looking out your office window and seeing taxi cabs and limos lined up as far as you can see while the layoffs are taking place. A lot of my friends just changed industries and it's a sad time for those not in position for that obligatory package.

It's all tied to energy and companies are posturing for the future. Now that oil has returned to medium price levels nothing has gone back to the good ole days or the way it was. I see more and more from inside my own company about EV and they are throwing millions into R&D right now.

...and your comment about things coming from China got me too. My new Laptop just shipped this week and being used to Amazon shipping I thought I'd have it by now until I saw the departure from China. Guess I'll see it next week sometime.

[Chazzz]

Apparently auto manufacturers are taking the advivce on climate change from the worlds top climate scientists. Depending on exactly how you measure the expert consensus, it’s somewhere between 90% and 100% that agree humans are responsible for climate change, with most studies finding 97% consensus among publishing climate scientists....

[Crim]

Originally Posted by Chazzz

Apparently auto manufacturers are taking the advivce on climate change from the worlds top climate scientists. Depending on exactly how you measure the expert consensus, it’s somewhere between 90% and 100% that agree humans are responsible for climate change, with most studies finding 97% consensus among publishing climate scientists....

...oh lord.

[Chazzz]

Got to wonder what the future holds for some of GM’s other slow selling sedans, like the subcompact Sonic sedan/hatchback manufactured in Michigan that was rumered also to be on the chopping block...

[redcoats1976]

i dont disagree that humans are responsible for at least some climate change.BUT is changing the source of pollution from millions of ICE vehicles to all electric vehicles going to reduce the pollution or just concentrate its source to utility companies?the real solution is solar energy,whether it comes from the panel mounted on the house that your EV plugs into for a daily charge,or panels integrated into the car body itself.lets not forget that for every mile electricity travels through the lines to get to your home energy is lost.

[Norm Peterson]

Originally Posted by Number 3

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

No offense taken.

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.

Perhaps you meant "outside ICE and human-driven"?

Merely accepting the amount of change from ICE/human to EV/autonomous would be a tough enough row to hoe for anybody not predisposed to want such changes. Actually embracing such change could be damn near impossible. I know I didn't live my life with the notion that my choices in retirement were going to be limited and micro-managed by others.

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.

I won't be surprised if I hear of some serious difficulties with fully autonomous first. I'd hate to be the one predicting some lemmings-over-the-cliff disaster, but if enough autonomous vehicles all make the same mistake along the same stretch of road at about the same time because their control systems don't know any better . . . wasn't there a 737 recently that kept insisting on making stall corrections until it finally managed to crash the plane?

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.

Opposition to those bailouts is directed more at the attitudes of those companies, where they believed that they were "too big to fail", or at least "too big to be allowed to fail".

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?

If they're no better than the Mustang's MT-82 transmission, China's going to be in for a rough spell economically.

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

Pro-active for the company doesn't necessarily line up with the interests of their customers.



Just so you know I understand what being RIF'ed after reasonably continuous long-term employment means, I got laid off at about age 64 + 8 months. Less than a year later, the whole regional office was shuttered. I've lost track of what happened to what was left of the company, beyond its being sold off from the first entity that bought them.


Norm

[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.

[Doc]

The people who are clamoring for us to 'save the planet' are operating on emotion, and using that as their leverage to gain power and control, which is really what it's all about. Their real goal? The usual... money. Trillions.

The reality is, humans do not affect the 'climate'. The earth's climate has been changing since the day it was born, and it will continue to change until the day it dies. What a lot of people mistake for climate, is actually environmental pollution, and that's a very valid and important issue which IS due to us, and is something we can and should get under control.

The earth's climate is controlled by the sun; period. We have no control over the sun. Spending trillions to 'study climate change' is ridiculous. Al Gore asked for 40 trillion... 40 trillion! Sadly, the alarmists who are all left-wing types, have been ringing the alarm bell for decades in the hopes that we'll give them what they want; money, power and control. While we're not supposed to discuss politics in this forum, it's an unfortunate reality that the alarmists are using politics to force their agendas on all of us, which is having a staggering and costly impact on the automotive industry.

There are some valid points, but they are related to environmental pollution, not climate change. I remember the smog levels in the 60's and they were terrible. We have over twice as many people on the earth now as we did then (3 billion in 1962, 7 billion in 2012) and the improvements in emissions control have made a vast improvement in air quality, which is good. Unfortunately, the people who were pushing for that got so sated with their joy of having power, that they couldn't stop. Here's a short history lesson:








Now I know someone is going to scream "OMG HE'S BRINGING PARTISAN POLITICS INTO THIS" but in order for us to discuss what's going on, we have to recognize and acknowledge that politics is how it's being forced into our lives. These same people are pushing us towards electric as though that's the answer to 'saving our planet' but these same people who've been so wrong so many times, are also wrong on this.

For those of you old enough to remember, do you remember why we were forced to switch to plastic bags at the grocery store and retail stores? It was because the left-wing environmentalists were ringing the chicken-little alarm bell about how we were destroying our forests to make paper bags, and the ONLY way to save them, was to switch to plastic. Remember that? Well now it turns out that Willey and Flipper are choking to death and dying on the plastic bags in the oceans, and plastic bags don't decompose in the landfills. RING THE ALARM BELL, THE ENVIRONMENT NEEDS SAVING! again... and what's the solution? GO BACK TO PAPER BAGS!

At what point do we start realizing what con artists these people are? I don't care how many degrees they have, or what indoctrination center... I mean school they went to, they don't know what they're talking about. They just insist they do and make up whatever 'facts' and 'settled science' they need, because that's how they gain power, control....and MONEY.

Here's the problem with electric vehicles. They run on batteries. Batteries require among other things, lithium and cobalt. Just like oil and fossil fuels, those chemicals are ALSO a finite resource. They ALSO have impacts on the environment. By switching from ICE to EV, all you're doing is switching your demand on limited resources from one type of resource to another. Oh but WAIT! There's MORE! We can use solar cells! Except, solar cells have to be made from chemicals in factories like batteries do, and cars do, and engines do, and so on.

Number 3 gave the number of 15 billion as a world population we're heading to, and unfortunately with that reality facing us, it doesn't much matter what technology we develop. We're already over-populated, and heading towards cataclysmic levels of population. If we can go from 3 billion in 1962 to 7 billion in 2012, and now we're already past the 8 billion mark, what will 8 billion be able to do? At some point we're going to reach the numbers where mass starvation, mass disease, mass consumption will be our biggest threats. It won't be the climate. The greatest threat to humanity is humanity itself. Rather than worrying about which resource we're going to consume to be politically correct, we need to stop listening to the chicken-little environmentalists, stop giving them money and letting them take it through political pressure. We need to study and address the issue of population, how to control and manage it or we'll just simply overwhelm ourselves. What's happening at the border with a caravan of thousands trying to rush the border, will be amplified until it reaches tens of thousands, then hundreds of thousands.

Sorry for the long and dismal post, but the real problems are in fact real, and I don't see anybody discussing it. If we don't get our population growth and levels under control, everything else is irrelevant.

[Red Chief]

Originally Posted by Chazzz

Apparently auto manufacturers are taking the advivce on climate change from the worlds top climate scientists. Depending on exactly how you measure the expert consensus, it’s somewhere between 90% and 100% that agree humans are responsible for climate change, with most studies finding 97% consensus among publishing climate scientists....

That's hilarious. This isn't about the environment.

It's about the big 3 getting rid of unions the only way they know how. Doing it while the the economy is strong shows better foresight than most Americans practice.

[90503]

I'd rather support American Union workers with my auto purchases than buy cars made in China with thinly veiled slave labor in the world's worst totalitarian dictatorship.

GM should move it's headquarters from Detroit to Mexico City or Shanghai and finally stop their charade of trying to look like an American company.