Congratulations, GM...Feel Better?

Look, maybe I'm just being catty. I just read Tom Stephens' post on the GM Fastlane Blog in which he chides Toyota for claiming

that Toyota was introducing “the world’s first commercially mass produced hybrid system especially designed for rear-wheel drive vehicles.” Further investigation revealed that Toyota told the press at a preview in Hawaii that their new L110 hybrid transmission in the new Lexus GS450h hybrid sedan is the “world’s first longitudinal hybrid transmission.”

Turns out GM already has two of these:

...as the head of GM Powertrain, I’m absolutely certain that GM has already developed two hybridized longitudinal transmissions, and we’re nearing completion of a third system. So I’d respectfully suggest that Toyota recheck the calendar as GM’s been in the market for quite a while now.

I don't know about you, but I've been watching Fastlane all week to see if they'd post at all.  And, in a week in which GM offered packages to 135,000 workers and sold-off GMAC, I didn't blame them a bit for being silent.

Then, this? Somehow, it just doesn't stack up to the news.

Sometimes, timing really is everything.

 

Update: No trackback ping on Fastlane yet, two plus days later

Tags: GM Fastlane Blog Tom Stephens

Comments

[SALTY D]

WELCOME TO THE WONDERFUL WORLD OF BETHLEHEM STEEL

[Connie]

Today's NYT article "Under New Management" includes the term "architecture of participation" - which beats the hell out of organizational structure, chart, etc. Mostly because it assumes creativity and participation are necessary, rather than control. Architecture and design are related but I associate architecture more w/ structure. Design make have more connotations of flow or perspective. What I'm noodling out loud here is how your design focus would be articulated in this context.

[Moon]

I actually think this is a good move and the type of thing that GM needs to do more of. As anyone that's stuck hanging out with me even semi-regularly can attest, I've been preaching this for a while. I think one of the biggest challenges facing the Big Three right now is an incorrect public perception. The domestics were cocky 25 years ago and made an inferior product. Imports came in with better vehicles and opinions, rightfully so, turned against domestic vehicles. The problem is that those opinions are still here but no longer valid. Domestic vehicles are as good if not better then most imports in nearly any category you can throw out there. Many independent surveys back this up every year yet many people out there just assume that if it comes from overseas it's worlds better than the domestics. GM is making a valid and necessary point with this blog. Toyota produced a small car, which is the least of our polluting concerns, as a hybrid and suddenly they are perceived as the automotive division of Greenpeace while no one points out that they produce more large pickups and SUV's every year. These are the types of notions that the domestics need to work to debunk. GM is putting it's hybrid technology in their big vehicles where it will make more of a difference compared to some pint-sized four-cylinder car. GM has won numerous efficiency, quality, durability and design awards and needs to start flaunting that fact. I think it's a very important aspect of their turnaround. So I say kudos to GM for this. While calling out a particular competitor on a particular point may not be the way to go for a mainstream advertising campaign, I think they are long overdue to start promoting the fact that they are as good, if not better, than the perceived can-do-no-wrongs from overseas.
And that's all I have to say about that!

[Tom]

Mr. Moon, you make several good points. GM's perception problem is its most serious hurdle, as I've written here. Your evaluation of the quality of their vehicles is out of whack with the Consumer Reports assessments, but we'll leave that for another time. My point in this post was this claim was very "chippy" in a week in which the company's economic problems produced HUGE headlines: retirement packages offered to the entire workforce and selling off GMAC to gain free cash flow. Any other week, I wouldn't have jumped on Mr. Stephens the way I did. Like I said in the post, timing is everything.

Now, as to Toyota having a "do no wrong" image. You're too young to remember their entry into the US market. My late brother-in-law was one of the first Toyota buyers I knew...back in the early 70s. He was a bus driver in Queens and lived about 35 miles away from work, so fuel economy was important to him. This was not a guy who was eager to buy anything from Japan, I can tell you that. The sh*t he got for buying that car was pretty amazing...lots of "America hater" stuff from his fellow workers. For him, it was simple: he couldn't find an American car that performed as well as his Corolla. Following his lead, I bought my first Toyota in 1981, after owning a Mustang, a Dodge Dart and two Chevys...all of which were maintenance disasters. I replaced everything in those cars. Fuel pumps. Radiators. Alternators. A/C compressors. Muffler systems by the truckload. Since then, I've never again owned an American-made vehicle. You know how many parts I've replaced? Zero. I've rented American cars and ridden in them and never found them to be up to standard with either Japanese or, more recently, German vehicles.

Now, maybe Bob Lutz and his colleagues can produce competitive cars today. But, it's going to take a lot more than saying, "hey, we already did this" to undo three plus decades of manufacturing poor quality products.

And that's all I have to say about that!

[Moon]

OK, I guess I'll give you that. Obviously a bit of a passionate topic for me and I blew right past your real point. There's a lot of bad headlines about GM this week and I agree that it's probably not the best timing. (Though many on Wall Street would say it's good news.)
Now, to keep my last post short, I avoided the Consumer Reports topic but let's just say, in my opinion, they help feed the misconceptions. I'm one of many that feels that way. They once rated the Toyota Corolla very well and the Geo Prism poorly...even though they were mechanically identical and came off the same assembly line run in a joint venture between GM and Toyota. (Though I don't have the info available, I'm betting they do the same thing with the Toyota Matrix and the Pontiac Vibe which is their latest joint venture.) I could go on...but you get the idea.
Now as far as your parts replacement statement...don't you lease cars? For what, two, three years? Pretty much any vehicle on the market today from Kia to Bentley will run great for that amount of time. My Chevy pickup didn't have any major parts in the first three years. Nor did my Tahoe. Nikki did have to replace a $700 headlight in her German BMW though.
Anyway, my point is, and I think you (mostly) agree with me, that there is a bad misconception that the big three need to overcome. It's made harder by people like you who drive a foreign car, and they too are well built cars, so they give you no reason to want to switch and give the domestics a chance. But from someone on the other side, I can say come on over, my friend, the water is just fine over here!

OK, 24 is starting, I gotta go! As always, enjoy the debate with you Dr. G!

[Tom]

Moon, Moon, Moon.

First. Don't tell me you're buying that, "Consumer Reports has it in for GM/Ford/Chrysler" stuff, are you? Nothing's perfect, but the reason folks follow their recommendations is because they turn out to be a pretty good predictor of product performance. Can we point to a mistake here or there? Of course. But, overall, I'll take their evaluations very seriously.

Second. Yes, I do lease my vehicles for a minimum of three years; some longer. Would you like me to tell you how many thousands of dollars I spent in the first three years of my ownership of American cars? American cars will do that today, too? Maybe, but I've still got a scar on a knuckle on my right hand from trying to loosen a bolt on a Dodge Dart water pump that gives me pause.

Years ago, a friend of mine taught me a relevant aphorism: "you can't talk yourself out of something you behaved yourself in to." American auto manufacturers behaved themselves into a perception of poor quality vehicles. Now, they have to behave themselves out of it...if the marketplace gives them the chance.

For the economic sake of the country, I hope they succeed. That's why I started following this GM stuff in the first place.

Enjoy 24!

[Moon]

First, yeah, I have bought into that CR stuff...to a certain extent. It's not something I thought up on my own. I'm not dismissing their input, I just take it with a grain of salt. The people at JD Power and Habour Consulting, etc seem to be thinking better and better of the domestics as well!

Second, the Dodge Dart went out of production in 1976, dude!! That's the height of time I'm referring to when the domestics were cocky and putting out an inferior product. It again makes you the prime candidate for the misconceptions I'm talking about!

Anyway, the more we go back and forth on this, the more we sound the same. I think we disagree on where the domestic automotive market is today, but it seems we agree on at least where they were and what they need to do going forward. I like that expression, they do indeed need to behave themselves out of their problems. Hopefully they know to do that so they can start convincing those people who drove the 76 Dart that they are once again producing world-class cars!

24 was outstanding by the way. Yes, it requires a bit of a suspension of reality but I excel at that and was on the edge of my seat the whole show!

[Smilin]

Tom, your first sentence said it all. Yes, you're being catty. GM's suffering, and dealing with, the consequences from its past faults - faults that have been numerous, well documented and universally agreed upon. That doesn't mean they shouldn't promote their improvements and innovations as they go forward, even in a week when they pay the piper for some of their past.

And for what it's worth, I'm driving a '99 (i.e., pre-Daimler) Chrysler 300M, on which my mechanical repairs total $168 for transmission speed sensors and $138 for a window regulator, one year and two years ago, respectively. That's it for 7 1/2 years. Consumer Reports gives it the big black X for reliabilty. I too think they are laboring under old American products' well deserved reputation rather than giving the new products the credit they deserve. Timing is indeed, everything.

[Tom]

Well, Smilin, I certainly accept your assessment. The timing and relative incongruity of the post in the context of bigger developments was my point. Sure they should tout their hybrids and slam Toyota for its misrepresentation of facts. It just felt weird to me for them to do it last Friday.

Congratulations on your Chrysler. I doubt that CR's evaluations are founded on old data, but that's an opinion based on nothing. If they give the car a big black X for reliability, my guess would be that you've been lucky. But, again, that's just a guess.

[Mike Driehorst]

Isn't the fastlane blog solely on product? I think GM has been pretty consistent on that. (Please correct if I'm wrong, as I've not been reading it too long.)

For the GM-Toyota issue, isn't what blogging is about? Generating conversation. What would you rather GM do, issues a news release?
Mike

[Tom Guarriello]

Thanks for your thoughts, Mike. Yes, the blog has been predominantly product focused, but Bob Lutz has commented on the overall business issues with some frequency. On your second point, I agree and was only struck by the timing of raising the relatively minor point on hybrids, compared with the bigger forces at work last week.

I allowed as how I might have just been catty in making the point, and you commenters seem to be agreeing that I was.

[Moon]

Tom,

Don't worry, I swear I'm not in here to talk about your incorrect opinions on the quality of domestic vehicles anymore! :-)

Another angle to look at this here. I understand that your post was questioning the timing of GM going after Toyota the week they announced buyouts of thousands of workers. The point being they are having a bad week filling the papers with ugly headlines and they choose to talk about Toyota's hybrid claims. I think for the UAW and the workers at GM, this is a nerve-wracking time, no doubt. But from everything I've read from a business perspective, this is a good (and overdue) move by GM. The company is bloated with too many people and, given the weight of the old UAW contracts among other things, the cost of those people is dragging the company down. (GM's health care costs work out to about an additional $1500/vehicle compared to the non-union imports) Who's fault those costs are aside, the fact is that they are there and now GM is trying to shed them. I've been reading from analysts saying you need to start to look at what GM, one of the largest companies in the world, has done and how fast they are doing it. Historic health care concessions with the UAW, an agreement that will help keep Delphi supplying them parts, improved products, selling off non-core businesses, closing unnecessary plants and now trimming employees. While much work remains to make GM a financially strong company with a good future, they are off to a surprisingly good start from what I've read. So I guess what I'm getting at is, from a business perspective, some may argue that GM's headlines with last week were GOOD news. Your thoughts?

[Tom Guarriello]

I concur. If you read this post, you'll see that I end with a thought that it may be time to buy GM stock...and that was before the buyout offer. Shedding cost (and brands?) is a must. And, none of this even gets to their biggest opportunity: overhauling the sales process. The car buying experience is still in the "RCZ" (that's Root Canal Zone) for most of us. Change that (after getting people in the showrooms with great design/great quality), and you might be talking about a company that will not only survive, but thrive. I'd like to see this happen, but count me skeptical at the moment.

[getalifeagain]

I think it stacks up to news. Especially considering the fact that Solomon Industries in Florida is investigating whether Toyota infringed on its patents. It boils down to this: If Solomon is correct, no more Prius' and no more Highlanders will be allowed to be imported into this country.

[Tom Guarriello]

I like the news angle, Getalife. I'd forgotten the patent infringement issue, which Stephens didn't mention, but which is relevant nonetheless. Thanks for bringing that up.

[Bill W.]

What a mess this is. Let's just remember where this all started. Up until the mid-90's, you could count on most domestic vehicles breaking down well before 100K miles. People who owned these cars just put up with it because it was all they knew. As people realize imports were far more reliable, they stopped buying domestics. They loved their new import cars for being so trouble-free, and hate their old domestics for all the headaches.

Perfect marketing opportunity. Why, now, would anybody ever buy another domestic car? This gave the imports their biggest sales boost through the 80's/90's. The domestic brands got a lot more serious about quality control, of course, to keep themselves alive, yet most people would still never trust a domestic vehicle again. Toyota took advantage of the situation more than anyone. Their marketing schemes over the past 10 years have been right on target. The domestic-hating american consumers have been like puppets on strings for them.

I recall seeing a Lexus commercial recently where the vehicle had headlights that swivel the direction the vehicle is turning to give better illumination around corners. Lexus touted it as such bright idea. How smart and function-minded of them to bring this feature to us. Citroen, the French carmaker, developed this same swiveling headlight design, way back in the 60's. Very clever. Citroen sales were always low in the US, and they disappeared from the US market decades ago. If nobody remembers them, why not take credit for something they came up with?

This is just one example of they many slimy things Toyota has done to build their image. I could take up another 2 pages about the hybrid topic. And closed-minded and highly-educated as most of us American consumers are, we sure have been buying into it.

[mescane]

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