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Bloomberg article says GM is ahead of Ford re Costcutting


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https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2018-11-27/ford-gets-left-at-the-lights-by-general-motors  

Story ends with: "Ford could use some of Barra’s decisiveness."

I had been thinking that Ford really dodged a bullet by right sizing before and making the shift from sedans to other types of vehicles by re-purposing existing plants rather than closing them.    But the author seems to think Ford is behind.     I don't know, Is Ford ahead or behind GM in this effort?     To be fair to Ford and GM both weren't expecting to be victims of a trade war with a 1 billion dollar hit to their bottom line and the uncertainties tariff battles raise.  

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17 minutes ago, Fordowner said:

I don't know, Is Ford ahead or behind GM in this effort?   

Ahead in some ways, behind in others. 

Ford ahead of GM examples.

  • Just to survive, Ford did more dramatic adjustments to its operations than GM prior to the last recession in 2008-2009. Including bringing in Alan Mulally as CEO, one of the most important milestones in the history of the U.S. automotive industry.
  • More recently Ford announced the elimination of unprofitable cars in the U.S. market prior to GM

Ford behind GM examples.

  • Ford's ongoing restructuring plan to get "fit" is longer and more drawn out than GM's, with fewer concrete details on actions taken and to be taken
  • Ford has made fewer cutbacks/adjustments in money losing regions outside North America compared to GM
  • Mary Barra became CEO of GM before Jim Hackett became CEO of Ford. 

The last point is key. Thanks to Barra's leadership, GM has a head start compared to Ford when it comes to "trying to lower the point at which [company] breaks even while the economy is still in reasonable shape" as the Bloomberg article mentioned. Ford was hurt badly by the "lost years" between the time that Alan Mulally left and when Jim Hackett became CEO. 

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Automotive Analysts know better than Automotive Journalists.  Bloomberg is journalism and they clearly haven't done their research here.  They never do.

Ford is better positioned for the future, GM is better positioned today because of their superior cost structure.  GM is very vulnerable moving forward compared to Ford, but GM has a less complicated task than Ford.  

Edited by Assimilator
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17 minutes ago, Assimilator said:

Automotive Analysts know better than Automotive Journalists.  Bloomberg is journalism and they clearly haven't done their research here.  They never do.

Ford is better positioned for the future, GM is better positioned today because of their superior cost structure.  GM is very vulnerable moving forward compared to Ford, but GM has a less complicated task than Ford.  

Still waiting on them to issue a retraction on the Chip hacking story (it made no sense from a technology standpoint). They are fast becoming a total trash publication. 

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It's frustrating when these "Analysts" want to hear key words. I know in one board meeting of an organization I head, we constantly use "Cuts" , "fiscally responsible", etc cause the audience loves it.  And if I'm not getting my way I use the "What about the safety of our children", and no one will argue with that and then just motion to spend even more money than the year before.  That's why when Elon Musk made his comment about his stock I'm like "Hmm you can't but by all means, I'm over it too, Go for it!"...

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9 hours ago, jasonj80 said:

Still waiting on them to issue a retraction on the Chip hacking story (it made no sense from a technology standpoint). They are fast becoming a total trash publication. 

It does-I work in that industry-you'd be downright suprised at what you can do and how vulnerable IT systems are due to stupidty and the enduser. 

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1 hour ago, silvrsvt said:

It does-I work in that industry-you'd be downright surprised at what you can do and how vulnerable IT systems are due to stupidty and the enduser. 

No it doesn't, not changing default passwords/using simple ones, leaving ports open, putting web connected devices on the network and lousy network admin is a totally different thing that putting in chips to designed hardware that wouldn't comprises the hardware functionality, would send data back, manage to make sure the chips ended in the hardware it was intended, the hardware ended up where it was intended to go, got the access to piggyback on other traffic etc with out cluing in a bunch of people, etc. Even after the rogue chip/code would generate traffic however small that would be discovered in the various testing that is done on devices after they come back for testing and even then if it wasn't on the network side a good network admin would notice random traffic in a closed environment trying to access the outside, closed system admins are some of the best because they are usually dealing with highly sensitive data. My background is in the Computer Engineering side. This hardware and Code would popup in testing from one of the alleged 30+ companies involved. 

If they said someone was using a web connected dishwasher inside a military installation to steal secrets that would make sense, non-security intense device and bad network admin. To say a foreign government got chips/code installed into other chips, installed in hardware, passed checked, didn't generate any meaningful network traffic is 100%  BS. Bloomberg is doing a full review of this article I expect a major retraction and people fired for this as this wraps up. https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/erik-wemple/wp/2018/11/27/bloomberg-is-still-reporting-on-challenged-story-regarding-china-hardware-hack/?utm_term=.d123e82f2d9d

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This type of story never seems to take into account a critical factor - namely, the vehicles each company is producing, or plans to produce.

The Cadillac XT4 and new Silverado/Sierra have been received without much enthusiasm by reviewers, and one insider on another site has claimed that the interior of the Blazer is worse than that of the Silverado in terms of quality. GM's new vehicles have been - to me, anyway - somewhat underwhelming. And Cadillac is still a mess. (Whatever one can say about Lincoln, at least Ford has not spent barrels of money on it without much to show for it.)

The Lincoln Aviator looks like a home run, and I'm guessing that the new Explorer will be, too. And the "Baby Bronco" looks like a winner. It's a more than a little premature to say that GM is winning the race.

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1 hour ago, grbeck said:

This type of story never seems to take into account a critical factor - namely, the vehicles each company is producing, or plans to produce.

The Cadillac XT4 and new Silverado/Sierra have been received without much enthusiasm by reviewers, and one insider on another site has claimed that the interior of the Blazer is worse than that of the Silverado in terms of quality. GM's new vehicles have been - to me, anyway - somewhat underwhelming. And Cadillac is still a mess. (Whatever one can say about Lincoln, at least Ford has not spent barrels of money on it without much to show for it.)

The Lincoln Aviator looks like a home run, and I'm guessing that the new Explorer will be, too. And the "Baby Bronco" looks like a winner. It's a more than a little premature to say that GM is winning the race.

GM interiors all seem to be pretty cheap looking to me, many parts looking like they're straight from a 90s parts bin.  The Cadillacs are better, though.

I have seen a few XT4s on the road, and they do actually look good in real life.  I actually like the look better than the XT5.

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31 minutes ago, rmc523 said:

GM interiors all seem to be pretty cheap looking to me, many parts looking like they're straight from a 90s parts bin.  The Cadillacs are better, though.

I have seen a few XT4s on the road, and they do actually look good in real life.  I actually like the look better than the XT5.

The XT4 and XT5 look good - although, up close, some of the details show ragged edges on the XT5s I've seen - but I don't seem them as "game changers" for Cadillac. The new Aviator, on the other hand, will probably "conquest" a fair number of sales from other brands.

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40 minutes ago, grbeck said:

The XT4 and XT5 look good - although, up close, some of the details show ragged edges on the XT5s I've seen - but I don't seem them as "game changers" for Cadillac. The new Aviator, on the other hand, will probably "conquest" a fair number of sales from other brands.

Fair enough.  I think we'll see cannibalism of XT5 sales from XT4, but I do think they'll both sell well.  But yes, I agree, neither are as attention grabbing as Aviator is.   Let's hope the buying public notices Aviator.

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38 minutes ago, RadicalX said:

That pattern of Cadillac names is very ugly.

That’s the kindest thing you could say, GM reall muffed Alpha vehicle sizes and never really recovered, shoulda just improved the Zetas with more aluminum bolt on panels.

the whole thing was such a waste., CD6 is like the Ford Zeta only much better.plan.

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2 minutes ago, jpd80 said:

That’s the kindest thing you could say, GM reall muffed Alpha vehicle sizes and never really recovered, shoulda just improved the Zetas with more aluminum bolt on panels.

the whole thing was such a waste.

Considering what Caddy has spent over the 10-20 years on new products and what Ford has done with Lincoln in the past 5 years....

 

 

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