What's the deal with GM? Surely making more fuel efficient vehicles

[lindisfarne]

would have been a better "business plan" than the business plan that created their current situation.

Making SUVs more fuel efficient (quite a bit more efficient - 30-50% more) does not add much to the cost of producing the vehicle ($500-1000) as the Union of Concerned Scientists has shown (ucsusa.org) - off-the-shelf technology already exists to do this. This additional cost is quickly recouped by the buyer in terms of fuel savings.

I don't understand GM's business choices (the only real explanation I can come up with is that board members also have significant interests in oil companies).

Had GM (or Ford or Chrysler) produced more fuel efficient vehicles, along with a marketing campaign which explained to consumers how much money owners would save in a year on fuel costs, I believe consumers would easily have been persuaded to pay more up-front for vehicles. Surely such an approach would have generated more revenue than GM's campaign to "sell cars at the price GM employees pay".

(Had the GM/Ford/Chrsyler also made vehicles which are more reliable from a mechanical point of view, they also wouldn't have lost their market share to Honda/Volkwagen/Hyundai. (I don't refer to 'American" automakers because so many of cars' components are not made in the US, and the so-called "foreign" automakers have plants in the US).

[mdmc]

1. I think that GM is looking to get out of commercial vehicles

and return Detroit to a war product.

[Ksec]

2. They got too big, too slow to advance

They had lousy management that spent half the time fighting over who had more power . I believe the Union got too big and rigid also. I mean both had a part in bringing them down but I place more blame in management , by far.

This buyout shows how bad things have become. Offering employees 35 grand to go away is telling. The money people only care about stock prices so they hurt the company. Its just a mess.

[rodeodance]

3. gm had bad policies and now they blame problems on cost of labor!

[ladjf]

7. Accountants appear to be running the show and accountants

can only think about one thing costs, costs, costs, never about innovation and quality. This same problem has infected most large American Corporations. Accountants and attorneys are running them. All adding machines and no creative thinking.

[rusty_parts2001]

4. Never thought about it that way...

but it makes sense. Unfortunately, GM would probably start producing Sherman tanks, B-17 bombers and horse cavalry harnesses. Always a day late...

[billbuckhead]

5. GM paid 4 billion not to buy FIAT and couldn't find a place for Subaru

Terrible management for decades. Always a step or two behind the Japanese, the Europeans and even crosstown rivals.

[ladjf]

6. GM needs to produce some great cars. The profits will follow.

What's wrong with their engineering department?

[LiberalUprising]

8. Answer here

The Origins of the Overclass

Their efforts clearly succeeded. With the 1975 SUN-PAC decision, corporations persuaded government to legalize corporate Political Action Committees (the lobbyist organizations that bribe our government). By 1992, corporations formed 67 percent of all PACs, and they donated 79 percent of all campaign contributions to political parties. (20) In two landmark elections — 1980 and 1994 — corporations gave heavily and one-sidedly to Republicans, turning one or both houses of Congress over to the GOP. Democratic incumbents were shocked by the threat of being rolled completely out of power, so they quietly shifted to the right on economic issues, even though they continued a public façade of liberalism. Corporations went ahead and donated to Democratic incumbents in all other elections, but only as long as they abandoned the interests of workers, consumers, minorities and the poor. As expected, the new pro-corporate Congress passed laws favoring the rich: between 1975 and 1992, the amount of national household wealth owned by the richest 1 percent soared from 22 to 42 percent. (21)

http://home.att.net/~resurgence/L-overclass.html