Saving the US Auto Industry

[classicman]

FWIW - I'm looking at a decrease in income of about 30% for '09. My salary hasn't been increased in 4 years although that is not abnormal in sales. If I want a raise, I have to sell more.

[Shawnee123]

I vehemently disagree. See previous post.

[xoxoxoBruce]

We have the same thing going on at the state level, in PA. The state congressmen that didn't want to accept the raise were told they had to take it by law. A couple stated they would give it to charity.

[TheMercenary]

Absolutely. They deserve to be paid for their work. Not paid more. Not when the rest of the country is bleeding.

[Shawnee123]

I make a lot less for mental pain that results in mental disability.

Seriously, homeless guy totally did not get that because I wasn't physically working hard, my previous job was not stressful or difficult. Also, believe me, physical labor is not unknown to me. I crawled through strawberry fields for a quarter a quart, and have worked since I was 13. That includes all kinds of jobs, including one where I was testing some rf filters with a load that, if I bumped against a wire, I would have been cooked like a hotdog in a microwave. Eh...and I was educated to do that. Eh, and I made 12 bucks an hour.

I will admit the 70/hour figure was manipulated...and I am hard pressed to find an article which either states that they really only make a buck fiddy an hour or that they make 70. Here is an article outlining the deception, with some pretty good argument comments. http://www.portfolio.com/views/blogs...-meme?tid=true

The health care for these workers is, as you illustrated, very expensive because of repetitive injuries. This does not make their job more important than a school teacher, imho. All jobs have risks, whether physical or mental or the fear of some nut coming in with a firearm.

And I also do not believe that small sacrifices would bring GM employees to poverty level; the news I heard this morning was that they were being asked to think about wages more along the lines of Honda and Toyota. They flatly refused. Again...let the industry die instead? Honda workers around here are doing quite well, and will tell you that. Unions have served their purpose; they do not work in today's economy.

And nothing negates in my mind retired workers bragging about how easy they had it back in the day. I'm sorry, it's the way I see it from personal accounts.

I've taken pay cuts to benefit my employers before. It meant my cow orker in the next office and the guy down the hall could keep working, too.

[tw]

Originally Posted by Shawnee123

And I also do not believe that small sacrifices would bring GM employees to poverty level; the news I heard this morning was that they were being asked to think about wages more along the lines of Honda and Toyota.

So what is the objective? To save the auto industry? To make that industry productive? How many times must I post these numbers? Where is the cost in a car? Why does GM lose maybe $700 or $1000 on every car? Labor amounts to a tiny part of that cost and does not account for GMs grossly expensive products.

Where are almost all those losses found? Did 70 horsepower per liter not make the problem obvious when posted in the Cellar how many years ago? Seven?

GM cars cost more to build than any other car because even the engines need two extra pistons in every car. Whereas a patriotic car has maybe 25 or 30 man hours to build the entire car, GM cars take 40 and more.

So we blame the employees - or do we go after the only reason for those numbers? Employees did not choose to use pathetic 52 and 62 hp/liter engines. Employees did not choose to stifle that innovation for 35 years. Employees did not spend massive capital funds to install robots to deliver parts to the assembly lines. Employees did not stifle innovation until finally required by government regulation. Employees did not choose to violate basic principles of quality taught by Deming to Toyota et al 40 years ago. Who did all that? Who are these people you are not blaming in every post - if addressing GM's only problem?

Attacking unions is a symptom that you have completely ignored the numbers. Attacking the unions means you have ignored my every Cellar post about GM for the past 20 some years. Unions did not create these significant GM problems.

We had a discussion previously about wheel alignment. Was it not yet obvious, just from that discussion, why GM was failing? Why do any GM cars require annual wheel alignment? Did unions also create that failure? Of course not. That is why GM loses maybe $700 or $1000 on every car. But then, for as long as UT has known me, I have been accurately critical of GM (and amazed anyone was buying their crap).

I thought the purpose was to make GM profitable. A post would attack GMs real problems and not cite the mythical salary numbers. GM is a company where cars are so poorly designed – where assembly plants are so poorly designed – that its auto products must be sold at a loss. GM even bought a rental car company just to create sales - their products have so long been that bad. 25% of GMs sales were only to employee families. A fact that The Economist long ago called socialism. A fact that also is not traceable to unions – and directly traceable to top management. So why do you blame unions? I thought the objective was to fix GM – to make it profitable?

[Shawnee123]

I dunno...huh, what?

t-dub...a person could actually agree with you and you'd pull one of your confusing posts. Eh...I'm bored and moving on. You can enlighten me (i.e. regurgitate some talking head's ideas) some other time.

And Pico...thanks for the conversation. I certainly hope for the best for you and yours. I also care about what happens to the numbers upon numbers of folks who will be affected. I often go all the way to one side before thinking and sliding over a bit. You're good people.

[Pico and ME]

Im unsure of why the union is stonewalling any wage changes at this moment, but I think its something they are going to lose in the long run anyway. But I also don't know the whole story on that situation either...it was only just mentioned in the news.

Union workers have been making concessions for years now, its not like they are resistant to sacrificing. You do have to understand, though, they are coming from a really high stand point when the auto industry was raking in billion and billions, and they were just sharing in that wealth.

I understand the bitterness that the average Joe has toward the auto industry, but I have my own too. There is a side of me that wants the industry to massively fail as a result of the people who are intent on not saving it, just to see the misery that WILL come to them as a result of what happens to this country when it does. Thats my shortcoming and its a result of dealing with short-sighted people. I'm sorry if that sound like a dig at you, its not really, I value your insight Shawnee.

[Pico and ME]

Gettlingers response.

[busterb]

Hey Bruce, where's the link that you sent? Subject. Stinks. About the folks who own Chrysler. Found it.
http://www.forbes.com/2008/12/09/chr...0gerstein.html

[xoxoxoBruce]

Innovation.

"Conservatively," Goodwin muses, scratching his chin, "it'll get 60 miles to the gallon. With 2,000 foot-pounds of torque. You'll be able to smoke the tires. And it's going to be superefficient."
He laughs. "Think about it: a 5,000-pound vehicle that gets 60 miles to the gallon and does zero to 60 in five seconds!"

snip

Goodwin's work proves that a counterattack is possible, and maybe easier than many of us imagined. If the dream is a big, badass ride that's also clean, well, he's there already. As he points out, his conversions consist almost entirely of taking stock GM parts and snapping them together in clever new ways. "They could do all this stuff if they wanted to," he tells me, slapping on a visor and hunching over an arc welder. "The technology has been there forever. They make 90% of the components I use." He doesn't have an engineering degree; he didn't even go to high school: "I've just been messing around and seeing what I can do."

He may be a genius, he may be crazy, but he sure is fun.

[Griff]

I heard a GM "commercial" on NPR yesterday. They said something about Chevy Volt being ready to go... except a little thing called batteries.

[TheMercenary]

Originally Posted by Griff

I heard a GM "commercial" on NPR yesterday. They said something about Chevy Volt being ready to go... except a little thing called batteries.

Yea, ready to go in 2011.

[Griff]

Originally Posted by xoxoxoBruce

Innovation.He may be a genius, he may be crazy, but he sure is fun.

If Congress really wants to play at being industrialists they should break up GM and give Goodwin the keys to Chevy Inc.

Along the way, Goodwin also adopted two views common among Americans, but typically thought to be in conflict: a love of big cars and a concern about the environment. He is an avid, if somewhat nonideological, environmentalist. He believes global warming is a serious problem, that reliance on foreign oil is a mistake, and that butt-kicking fuel economy is just good for business. But Goodwin is also guiltlessly addicted to enormous, brawling rides, precisely the sort known to suck down Saudi gasoline. (I spied one lonely small sports car in the corner of his garage, but he confessed he has no plans to work on it right now.) When he picked me up from my hotel, he drove a four-door 2008 Cadillac Escalade XL that should have had its own tugboat. He parallel parked it in one try. He's a John Wayne muther-fucker. Get off your ass Detroit.

[classicman]

Some more info on the Volt

GM Says Chevrolet Volt Won't 'Pay the Rent'

General Motors is pouring money into the Chevrolet Volt but concedes it won't make money on the range-extended electric vehicle anytime soon.

Newly installed CEO Fritz Henderson argues that pioneering projects like the Volt typically lose money until the technology catches on. It is simply the cost of doing business.

"On some products, the costs, particularly in advanced technologies, are high," he said in a lengthy interview with Automotive News (free subscription required). "The Volt is a case study. And that means it doesn't necessarily pay the rent. It actually consumes rent when it's launched."

In other words, General Motors is going to lose its shirt until the Volt establishes itself in the marketplace. Former vice chairman Bob Lutz said as much a year ago. But it is a price that must be paid, and GM should be commended for remaining committed to the Volt.

The Obama Administration doesn't understand that.

"You don't get to skip Gen 1," Henderson said. "You've got to do Gen 1 and 2 to get to Gen 3. And what we want to do is make sure we launch the car well, that we get the maximum learning from it, that it's successful in the market so that when we get to Gen 2, we've got the most cost out of it we can."

President Obama's auto task force doesn't see it that way. It says the Volt is too little, too late and too expensive to save the beleaguered automaker, and it recently chastised GM for pumping so much money into the Volt instead of developing more fuel-efficient gasoline cars.

That's short-sighted. GM is developing more fuel-efficient vehicles. It offers 18 models that deliver 30 mpg or more. That's more than any other automaker. It also offers eight hybrid models. This isn't an either-or equation — GM needs to develop more fuel efficient cars alongside the Volt, and it's stupid to expect the Volt to be a money-maker out of the gate.

"It is unreasonable to expect the Volt and any similar new technology to be immediately profitable when other technologies that started with a price premium, such as the Toyota Prius, became wild successes," said Chelsea Sexton, an advisory board member of Plug-In America. "Even the first DVD player cost many times more than it does today."

The feds aren't convinced. General Motors has sought $10.3 billion in Department of Energy loans to develop new fuel-efficient vehicles, including the Volt. But GM says it won't get the money until the Obama administration is satisfied the company is financially viable.