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Bloomberg article says GM is ahead of Ford re Costcutting


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21 hours 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.  

In Fairness to Bloomberg I probably should have mentioned that it was labeled as an editorial by Chris Bryant who is not a reporter but a "opinion columnist."

Anyway, i hope Ford doesn't have to shut a factory especially with Trump in the White House.   As others said GM appears to have too much capacity. 

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Autoline made a good point that GM haven't said they're CLOSING the plants per se, merely shuttering them. Autoline made mention of the fact that GM have UAW negotiations looming, and could be using the free plants as bargaining tools to wrangle concessions from UAW in return for new vehicles being produced in these plants. 

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You want to talk about waste?  What is the sense of having GMC?!!  It's Chevy rebadged!  Same vehicles!  I think GM had a soft spot for their beloved GMC nameplate, but that's all it was!  It's just duplication!  They should have kept their storied and beloved Pontiac brand........GTO's, Firebirds (Smokey and the Bandit, Knight Rider)!!!!  They should drop GMC................NOW!!

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1 hour ago, Joe771476 said:

You want to talk about waste?  What is the sense of having GMC?!!  It's Chevy rebadged!  Same vehicles!  I think GM had a soft spot for their beloved GMC nameplate, but that's all it was!  It's just duplication!  They should have kept their storied and beloved Pontiac brand........GTO's, Firebirds (Smokey and the Bandit, Knight Rider)!!!!  They should drop GMC................NOW!!

Something to think about, since Buick/Cadillac dealers need the truck volume as well...a smarter move would be to get rid of the Chevrolet truck line and give ALL the dealerships access to GMC. Or, conversely...drop ALL Chevrolet cars and make Chevy a truck only division and get rid of GMC with that move...but....the faithful will scream about Camaro and Corvette.

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I really don't like what Chevy has done with the camaro ever since they launched it as the Transformer mobile...  It was ugly then, it's slightly less ugly now, and it just looks cheap.  Chevy should just bury it and maybe make the Corvette a GMC.   I guess GMC could take the Camaro too if they think they can make something that won't be a trailer park queen.

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1 hour ago, probowler said:

I really don't like what Chevy has done with the camaro ever since they launched it as the Transformer mobile...  It was ugly then, it's slightly less ugly now, and it just looks cheap.  Chevy should just bury it and maybe make the Corvette a GMC.   I guess GMC could take the Camaro too if they think they can make something that won't be a trailer park queen.

if anything, Camaro could go to (shudder) Buick and Corvette to Cadillac....or, just debadge the Chevrolet logo and just sell 'em as a GM Camaro and GM Corvette available to ALL dealers.

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11 minutes ago, twintornados said:

if anything, Camaro could go to (shudder) Buick and Corvette to Cadillac....or, just debadge the Chevrolet logo and just sell 'em as a GM Camaro and GM Corvette available to ALL dealers.

Corvette already doesn't have any Chevy badges on it, just the winged flag corvette logo. 

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3 hours ago, ehaase said:

Chevrolet trucks and GMC trucks are very profitable, so keeping both makes sense.   

But they could most likely sell just as many trucks with one brand and make even more profit.  That’s essentially what Ford did with Mercury.

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1 hour ago, akirby said:

But they could most likely sell just as many trucks with one brand and make even more profit.  That’s essentially what Ford did with Mercury.

Mercury's reason to exist ended with the death of the Grand Marquis.  Nobody cared about the Milan and Mariner. The GMC Sierra, Yukon, and the Denali trim still have a following. Only the big Mercurys and the Cougar in its heyday had much of a following.

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Mercury was irrelevant because Ford made it so, Mulally couldn’t see the need for duplication of Ford products, it was at a different time when  Ford was cutting out everything that it saw as a distraction and unnecessary to the survival of Ford.

I like mercury but the way Fordwas treating it, the brand was never going to grow in  North America, it may have worked in China like Buick but at what cost?

Edited by jpd80
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The problem IMHO with all multi-line car brands is that there are no basic cars any more.  Mainstream lines offer most, if not all, features luxury lines offer, and luxury lines have started offering entry level models that compete with mainstream models. 

Other than features with some limited appeal (94 way adjustable seats) and brand cache (oh, he drives a BMW!) there isn’t much that separates models from any manufacturer.  

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1 hour ago, ehaase said:

Mercury's reason to exist ended with the death of the Grand Marquis.  Nobody cared about the Milan and Mariner. The GMC Sierra, Yukon, and the Denali trim still have a following. Only the big Mercurys and the Cougar in its heyday had much of a following.

But you don’t have to give up the Sierra, Yukon or Denali trim levels, they’ll just come on a Silverado.  Or vice verse, make Silverado a base trim on GMC.

All those people who own a GMC but say they won’t own a Chevy (with the same features and styling) are ridiculous.  

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6 minutes ago, rperez817 said:

Maybe so, but they are also some of GM's best customers. https://www.wsj.com/articles/gmcs-quiet-success-backstops-fast-evolving-gm-1519646400

You’re not listening.   They won’t lose those customers or any of the GMC features.  Like I said, you could even make Silverado a Base model GMC and kill Chevy trucks if the name is so much better.

Can you create a business case for keeping GMC is that’s what you want to do?  Of course and that’s what GM is great at doing.  You could have 6 different versions of a vehicle and make every one a positive ROI.   But a good company says “but what if we only made two instead of 6 - what does that business case look like?

GM doesn’t want the hassle of dealing with the dealers and the issues it would cause for Buick/GMC only dealerships.

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23 minutes ago, akirby said:

All those people who own a GMC but say they won’t own a Chevy (with the same features and styling) are ridiculous.  

The people I know aren’t people who bought Denalis because they wouldn’t own a Chevy (though they wouldn’t) they’re people who w/should have bought an Escalade but didn’t.  If GM were to get rid of GMC they should take a good look at both brands. 

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If GM were to get rid of GMC, it would have happened during the bankruptcy.  GMC sells better than ever.  Mercury sales were plummeting when it was dropped. If Aviator flops, I could easily see Ford giving up on Lincoln, but hopefully Aviator is a great success. 

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Neither brands are in  jeapordy of failure....it would be corporate management to blame if gmc ever folded...gmc has strong brand recognition and hellish strong support from its loyalist and the silverado us a decent full size f150 competitor....the only thing you never wanted  is anything coming out of janesville when the packers were on....they had to install teevees to make sure the line still ran on a sunday game day less everybody would have called off sick.....may be in hind sight they just should have shut the whole plant down on packer game days........ oh...how did the packers lose to the cardinals????....coach fired......i can only imagine therapist in green bay will be busy tomorrow handling depressed packer fans

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On 11/29/2018 at 7:13 AM, fuzzymoomoo said:

While I agree with the hilarity of that situation, there isn't anything they make at Delta they couldn't make at say, Spring Hill. 

Sorry, missed this

FYI, October production at Delta was over 21K and Spring Hill, over 19K

Theoretically, they could combine the two but the plant would be smoking on three shifts and maybe  a few super Saturdays..

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What is bothering "analysts" about Ford is they still have not seen a "clear plan forward" from Hackett !  Like, why is Ford buying bicycle and scooter companies ?

That, and they realize, that even though Hackett is the CEO, Billy is still the Chairman of the Board.  Over 1 BILLION $ committed to the R&E re-build (two new buildings related to this have been "thrown in" since it that was announced; a computing center behind the current FMCC/WHQ building and another computing center on the campus of the Flat Rock plant).  Related to the R&E rebuild, they have gotten the city (county?) to spend hundreds of million on infrastructure (water, sewer, roads, etc.) around R&E.  (Oakwood has been ripped up for about 1 year.)

Then Billy buys the train station (to leave his personal stamp/legacy in Detroit) with a close to another BILLION $ required to make it really usable.  Medium/long term cash flow is a serious issue !

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