I agree with you about that, they have to do something to bring the customers back, if all the same price with honda or toyota, not many people want to buy that.
Japanese car and Korean car was cheap and bad quality decades ago, they are doing the right thing now, if gm can make the right car, they will be survived.
Repeat customers are all well and good so long as you can actually cover your costs. Giving 0% financing over six years in this "market environment" (love that term) is costing GM a lot.
I am not well versed enough in the history of the rise of Japan's or Korea's automakers to really comment intelligently on that second point, but I would imagine that GM has a lot more structural / legacy issues than Honda etc. had to deal with.
The last paragraph IS the main problem with the Big 3. GM's pension (PENSION ONLY, not healthcare nor salary) cost is about 2000$/car. Now, multiply 2000 with 8 millions (about the number of cars they will sell this year) and you get 16 billions $. This is the Big 3's reality.. they have to sell high profit margin - high volume cars to actually make money. Until now, those sales were the trucks. Don't fool yourselves, GM loses money by selling you that Cobalt, but they would lose even more if you didn't buy them. They keep the factories running because it would cost even more to close them, especially since those fixed costs (pension and retired costs) would be higher per car on the remaining sales.
It's time the Canadian and American governement do something about it. Nevermind those conservatives who scream "free trade", it's those same guys who applaud Toyota's way without mentioning ToyHonda's hybrid program was massively financed by the Japanese governement and that their labor ethics are among the worst in any industries. (I wanted to post some links but since I am new to those forums I cannot.. I will post later)
Worker conditions like those
DO NOT BELONG IN THE 21st CENTURY.If the whole North American people and its governements don't help their industries, they're going to go down the drain, just like the electronics industry. Remember American TVs? Most people here weren't even born and they certainly don't know how the Japanese got into the Electronics industry... Dumping. Just like what Hyundai did a few decades ago. History repeats itself, and the only difference between those two industries is that the American car companies are huge corporations, they don't go bankrupt overnight. It takes years and it will happen if we don't do something.
Don't blame the fact that they concentrated their efforts on SUVs and Trucks, as I said earlier, High profit margins X High Volume is the only way the Big 3 can make money. North Americans associate small cars with cheap cars, and the profit margin is too small to bear the fixed costs.
Don't blame the unions. Those are the associations that save the middle class and the people that actually make and export products. The desire to protect the worker's interests (as well as the union's, of course I'm not blind.. This is like a corporation) is only natural, and the public's support is essential to assure this. They are what keep this country from becoming a 3rd world one.
The people to blame are the governements for allowing foreign products to destroy their own economy, and corporations that are pillars of good worker conditions and wages. The public is also to blame for this. The
traitors that won't even consider buying a domestic product because "20 years ago, my Ford Tempo was a piece of
" are people that should open their eyes and notice how the last domestic manufacturers are struggling. Those people generally post messages with avatars of Asian corporations logos and they spew the same nonsense about that quality gap that really only exist now in the general public's mind . (The only gap is in the fit and finish on small cars because of the reasons mentioned above) Those ignorant people should be ashamed of themselves.
Saving GM... well hell yes we should put all our efforts into this. I drive a Mopar.. let's say it counts
