I may miss some obvious ones, but here goes:

1) Eliminate GMC line, Saturn altogether + make Buick and exclusively Chinese brand. (Chinese business man's dream car is a black buick)

2) Embrace the greenies. They are here to stay unfortunately, so quit dinking around with "mild hybrids" and 40k plug-ins. Learn from the Japs.

3) Fewer engine options. Too many choices. Have one 4 cyl (same cubes, but turbo option) one 6cyl (tinker with the output like with the Vette motor) 3 V8's standard 5.7, and a 6.6 or something. Then a big diesel. Enough with the choices.

4) Kidnap the design guys at Mazda

5) Steal the solar moon-roof a/c idea from Toyota and put it on every car in the lineup. (especially on the suv's....surface area)


“Poor Al Gore. Global warming completely debunked via the very Internet you invented. Oh, oh, the irony!” -Jon Stewart

what

Quote:

1) Eliminate GMC line, Saturn altogether + make Buick and exclusively Chinese brand.

Repurpose GMC to be fleet/rental only. Saturn is already on the chopping block.

Quote:

2) Embrace the greenies. They are here to stay unfortunately, so quit dinking around with "mild hybrids" and 40k plug-ins. Learn from the Japs.

Agree

Quote:

3) Fewer engine options. Too many choices. Have one 4 cyl (same cubes, but turbo option) one 6cyl (tinker with the output like with the Vette motor) 3 V8's standard 5.7, and a 6.6 or something. Then a big diesel. Enough with the choices.

With some vehicles coming from Daewoo and Toyota, that may not be possible.

Quote:

4) Kidnap the design guys at Mazda

LOL

Quote:

5) Steal the solar moon-roof a/c idea from Toyota and put it on every car in the lineup. (especially on the suv's....surface area)

Solar panels aren't cheap... this contradicts your second point.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edited Thursday, April 02, 2009 9:07 PM

How does putting solar panels contradict my second point of embracing greenies and learning from the Japs... they are doing it on the 2010 prius and its a great idea. GM should turn it on its ear, and when its not being used to power the A/C, have it run the blower fan on the heater....and when at rest, trickle charge the batteries for extended range. I don't know how much charge it could generate at rest sitting in a parking lot for 8 hours, but its gotta be something worthwhile.

.


“Poor Al Gore. Global warming completely debunked via the very Internet you invented. Oh, oh, the irony!” -Jon Stewart

At an increase of $5k to the end-user (estimated cost increase for the PV Prius)

Solar at its current stage is horribly inefficient and quite costly. So even if GM were to cut costs of non-solar vehicles, it will bump the price back up... The cost : output ratio is not worth the added price on the sticker

There is no possible way a 4 square meter panel is generating 4kW of power (Toyota estimates the PV Prius to have an output of 1.5kW - 4kW from their solar panels) without a very large concentrator involved (which would take significantly more surface area). The average solar irradiation at the earth's surface is on the order of 1 kW/m^2. So, even if that panel was 100% efficient, the maximum it could produce would be 4kW. Typical peak efficiency for commodity-level cells is around 20%, and less for non-tracking panels that would be the norm for vehicle-mounted setups. 200W sounds about right...could be a bit more depending on design and type of cells used, there just isn't enough surface area to work with...

The stock Prius would consume 2222 gallons of gasoline during its useful service life. The PV Prius would consume somewhere between 1573 and 1840 gallons of gasoline during its useful service life. That would be a savings between 382 and 648 gallons of gasoline. (1)

At $2.00 per gallon (assuming gasoline prices don't skyrocket), you would save $764 - $1,296. At last summer's peak of $4.00 per gallon, you would save $1,548 - $2,592 in gasoline costs, still far less than the estimated cost of having the solar panels installed....




Edited 1 time(s). Last edited Thursday, April 02, 2009 9:31 PM

Thank-you. Don't have the patience to figger that out myself. Sounds to me then, like greenie companies have a lot to gain by having government mandated renewable energy put into law. Welcome to the green lobby.
.


“Poor Al Gore. Global warming completely debunked via the very Internet you invented. Oh, oh, the irony!” -Jon Stewart

Here we go again.

Boone knows what will save them, there is no right answer and noone here is even close to being able to form an educated guess on what should be done. You don't know why technology they are working on, what idea are on the drawing board, what corners were cut or could be cut to save expenses, you don't know how to run a company the size of GM. You don't know anything except what you read in the paper and that's not enough to come up a stratagy to get GM back on top.

But since were having this conversation again on this site, you want to bring GM up top... Make cars people want with lots of power and good on gas that don't brake ever, build them out of top quality materials and then sell them for 15k each. That will bring them back to the top.

Hey, sorry if I'm beating a horse that you tired of kicking around a long time ago. So we shouldn't talk about what's wrong with government, since we don't know what's going on behind closed doors. C'mon. Discussion is harmless + if the topic doesn't interest you, no one is twisting your ankle to make you participate. I get your point though, but Boone is a crock.

.


“Poor Al Gore. Global warming completely debunked via the very Internet you invented. Oh, oh, the irony!” -Jon Stewart

Getting rid of Saturn would be stupid, it has the best rep of any brand they have, and thats something they need right now. Pontiac, Buick, GMC, they can all be boxed up. Pontiac no longer serves a purpose in being the performance brand of the company. They have the same cars that Chevy does except with less excitement. Buick is old peoples cars and like Oldpeoplesmobile its day has long passed. Buick hasn't introduced anything worth buying since the 3.8 V6 Turbo and the eventual 3800 series engines, neither of which are even present anymore. GMC is nothing more than an overlap and more overhead cost to GM duplicating the chevy truck lineup.

Having fewer engine choices turns the company into Toyota where everything is bland but I guess thats what they want. The greenies are a very small part of the market but growing. They will never be the majority. People have never bought cars that are based on needs. If that were the case we would all be driving smart cars.

One thing that they are starting to do again and never should have went away from is the use of turbocharging. Nearly everyone in the 80s did it to try to up fuel mileage while not completely killing the driveability of the car. Then for some reason they just went back to regular engines in the 90s. Smaller displacement engines with turbos are the way to go. Its way cheaper to build so theres little development cost, boosted engines have been around for decades. It allows for good power yet the ability to run a smaller motor for fuel mileage, its the ultimate dual purpose engine.

In the end its all about decision making, in this business you have to be able to see things before they happen and its clear now that in the 90s GM wasn't paying attention at all and now they are paying the price. The reality is gas cost is going to continue to motivate people's choices in buying a car. People still have an interest in Classic Muscle and the sport compact segments and they need to continue to provide products to these folks instead of letting everyone else pick up the business. SUV's and Trucks shouldn't be your focus.



1989 Turbo Trans Am #82, 2007 Cobalt SS G85

Rodimus Prime wrote:Getting rid of Saturn would be stupid, it has the best rep of any brand they have, and thats something they need right now.

Unless reputation starts turning into sales, fast, I don't see many people agreeing with you here. I think Saturn has probably the best advertising campaign right now, but it's not moving cars: http://online.wsj.com/mdc/public/page/2_3022-autosales.html .

Rodimus Prime wrote:Pontiac, Buick, GMC, they can all be boxed up. Pontiac no longer serves a purpose in being the performance brand of the company. They have the same cars that Chevy does except with less excitement. Buick is old peoples cars and like Oldpeoplesmobile its day has long passed. Buick hasn't introduced anything worth buying since the 3.8 V6 Turbo and the eventual 3800 series engines, neither of which are even present anymore. GMC is nothing more than an overlap and more overhead cost to GM duplicating the chevy truck lineup.

Believe it or not, most people don't buy cars with performance as their top priority. Having revolutionary high-performance engines is not something the average buyer is looking for. If GM really wants to succeed, they're going to have to start catering to the masses like bland Toyota, blah Honda, and ugh Hyundai. Their recent closing of high-performance vehicle development shows they agree.
As for Buick not "introducing anything worth buying", this is a nice change: http://www.j-body.org/forums/read.php?f=6&i=190881&t=190674#190881 . It may be Cadillac competition though, which would be counter-productive.

Rodimus Prime wrote:The greenies are a very small part of the market but growing. They will never be the majority.

Right now, green is trendy, and trendy will always be the majority in this culture.

Rodimus Prime wrote:People have never bought cars that are based on needs. If that were the case we would all be driving smart cars.

Except smart cars don't allow you to transport kids/friends/merchandise. People are buying Fit/Yaris/Aveo -type cars like wildfire, along with compacts and small crossovers. These are cars people feel they need. They certainly aren't for fun, lol.

Rodimus Prime wrote:Then for some reason they just went back to regular engines in the 90s.

Turbos are high maintenance, and gas was uber-cheap again. Manufacturers built what customers wanted.

Rodimus Prime wrote:Its way cheaper to build so theres little development cost

What are you on?

Rodimus Prime wrote:People still have an interest in Classic Muscle and the sport compact segments and they need to continue to provide products to these folks instead of letting everyone else pick up the business.

People who like classic muscle don't buy new cars (read: "classic"). Those who want to be nostalgic have the new Camaro.
Sport compact is a dying trend. Those who partook now have some money to spend, and are stepping up to bigger and better. All you have to do is go through the "traded in my cav..." posts on this board to realize this. The turbo Cobalt is pretty much the ultimate sport compact, and they aren't exactly flying off the shelves.

Rodimus Prime wrote:SUV's and Trucks shouldn't be your focus.

Since trucks are top-sellers, and small SUVs are hot-sellers, I think I'm going to have to disagree STRONGLY here.

I think it's cute how you live in your own little world.







fortune cookie say: better a delay than a disaster