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GM Target Price Downgraded to $0.00/Worthless
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I really love all things Chevy, and Pontiac....Theyre muscle cars are among the greatest of all time. We are finally seeing them return to the MUSCLE era and now they might go under?? I will seriously cry if this becomes the downfall of american muscle, because we know damn well ford cant make a decent muscle car and hasnt since the 80s. and dodges version of re creating the charger was a definate fail on the looks factor. I must say the challenger is an amazing piece of machinery
It already is the downfall of it. In fact, while they listened to the demand of American buyers and built bigger cars/trucks, they should have easily seen the writing on the wall for which direction to head, in terms of innovation. Case in point: compare gas prices for a given day between April 1998 and April 2008, then from April '08 to now for a given city. Do the Big 3 (GM, Ford, Chrysler) honestly think that any person is going to want to buy a bigger car that consumes more fuel with gas prices on the rise each one of those years (granted, it's on a downward turn now, but in April of this year, it was at least $4.65/gallon in CA), and those oil companies taking in outlandish profits? It's almost as if they were getting fleeced secretly while the consumer was getting fleeced publicly. If they had started their innovation back in 2002 like Toyota and others had, they honestly would be in a better situation than now (but then again, anything outside of liquidation is better than what they're in now).
BL.
Free market?The people have spoken. Your cars sucked for far too long.
Wait a minute - if the GM cards made in Mexico are ours, what's the make all the Toyotas manufactured in the United States?
Well, I suppose thats what the big 3 get for making crap cars for so long. Yes, they've made a few nice cars (of course thats just my opinion), but mostly garbage. The cars have been pretty bad as fuel efficiency is concerned and cheaply made. I haven't seen the interior of the new Corvettes and while I like Corvettes, I remember looking at the last generation some years back with my dad and I recall it being very cheap looking and plastic like. Same goes with last generation Firebirds and Camaros. While I do personally like them on the exterior, the interior is utter trash. They really were made to be disposable.
If I look at just my work place and what they drive... a majority of people don't drive American made vehicles. The ones that do are mostly Ford, Chevy or Dodge trucks. In fact, I'd say the majority of trucks are American, but cars dominate and most are Asian. Awhile back I asked some people about this for the hell of it. Many people there just recognize American cars are the garbage they are.
I'd like to hope that the American automotive industry won't go completely under, but that may be inevitable. Its very important for us to keep a good manufacturing base. We really do need to keep more of those jobs here and the auto industry is a big one. What will happen if we're no longer able to manufacture our own things? We're already far too dependent on China and others.
If I look at just my work place and what they drive... a majority of people don't drive American made vehicles. The ones that do are mostly Ford, Chevy or Dodge trucks. In fact, I'd say the majority of trucks are American, but cars dominate and most are Asian. Awhile back I asked some people about this for the hell of it. Many people there just recognize American cars are the garbage they are.
I'd like to hope that the American automotive industry won't go completely under, but that may be inevitable. Its very important for us to keep a good manufacturing base. We really do need to keep more of those jobs here and the auto industry is a big one. What will happen if we're no longer able to manufacture our own things? We're already far too dependent on China and others.
They could have been #1 had they kept their electric car in production (from 10 or so years ago) Instead they scrapped those and destroyed them.. idiots.
I would not worry about it too much. Even if they declare bankruptcy, they will still be designing and manufacturing cars and trucks. They may manufacture fewer and reduce the number of brands, but considering they cannot sell all of the ones they currently do, that is not so bad. Bankruptcy will allow them to offload the pension and health care costs to taxpayers and wipe some of their commercial debt. Any yapping about government help is the last ditch efforts of shareholders from losing money, rather than trying to help the workers. A lot of airlines declared bankruptcy, but we still have more than enough planes flying. I am glad the government did not interfere then and I hope it will interfere now.
Besides, this is a large auto market, there will be tons of car factories in the US, even if they have Japanese or Korean brand names on them.
10x0=0.
(Seriously, I do wonder at the likelihood that the end result will truly be that GM's common shares become completely valueless based on the terms of whatever form of bailout they receive, either private or public).
How are you supposed to sell something if it's value is zero
Isn't that the point...?
A lot of the view that the domestics are garbage comes from outdated information. Sure it was true up to a few years ago, but they've done well improving.
I bought a new '05 Ford Focus three and a half years ago - not a thing gone wrong with it, no recalls, no repairs, no warranty work needed. That never would have happened ten or twenty years ago with a Ford automobile.
Muscle cars are the downfall of GM. Maybe if they stopped pissing away money into things like the new Camaro, GTO and Corvette ZR1 and made a cheap, reliable, economical car instead, they wouldn't be in this situation. But when gas was at 4 bucks a gallon, who wants a car that gets 20 miles to the gallon?
more uninformed commentary from the peanut gallery.
The EV1 was electric only, limited range, no simple way to recharge, carried two people, and a retail price of $80,000 if it was ever offered for sale, when gas was costing around $1 per gallon, after spending billions of dollars in R&D they couldn't jusify it.
The Volt is powered by electricity only using the internal combustion engine as a generator to create electricity so it runs at a constant RPM and does not need to rev higher to go faster or climb hills etc, the range is no different than a regular car, put in some gas and you can keep going, you do not need to park at a recharge station to be able to continue your journey, it carries 4 people, will have a retail price around $40,000 and will be offered for sale.
The Volt is the replacement for the EV1 and has come about due to advancements in technology that did not exist when the EV1 was developed. Just look at the difference in the batteries, the battery for the volt is about half the size of the EV1.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Motors_EV1
The Gen 1 cars got 55 to 75 miles (90 to 120 km) per charge with the Delco-manufactured lead-acid batteries, 75 to 100 miles (120-to-160 km) with the Gen 2 Panasonic lead-acid batteries, and 75 to 150 miles (120 to 240 km) per charge with Gen 2 Ovonic nickel-metal hydride batteries. Recharging took as much as eight hours for a full charge (although one could get an 80% charge in two to three hours).
The same goes for the whole opinion on here that because a vehicle is built by GM, Ford or Chrysler the quality is poor, Toyota has been far from perfect in the last 18 months, but people on here and in the media like to give them a free pass because apparently everything you do before that made you god like excuses you for a screw up now, except for the fact that the recalls affects the Tundra, Camry, Avalon, Sienna, etc, you know those mainstream bread winners for Toyota.
I think they designed these retro muscle cars due to the fact that most of the baby boomer generation is approaching retirement, and most of the people who buy such cars are those who can afford them. I personally think the ZR1 was a waste, but they did it anyways. Kind of like ford developing the GT, didnt last long. I hope that we wont lose our american cars, but with the way the economy is it is looking like it. Its hard to compete in america when you have a lot of the foreign car companys like toyota and honda building plants in the US and giving the consumers quality for a low price. We will just have to wait and see, but I hope it is ford that goes under not GM. Where will all the hip hop stars get their escalades??
Edit: last I read, the ZR-1 gets some 26 to 30 mpg?? maybe more?? so I dont think its a matter of gas prices but a matter of car cost.
Edit: last I read, the ZR-1 gets some 26 to 30 mpg?? maybe more?? so I dont think its a matter of gas prices but a matter of car cost.
As I see it, the idea is that if GM had continued to develope their electric cars instead of scraping the entire program GM could have had a Volt like vehicle (and many more) years ago instead of as a concept/production model car that it is today.
That's the way I see it too... And let me ask this, how many people here work more than 55 - 75 miles from work round trip? I never have, in fact I have a 45 minute commute one way right now and don't have a 55 - 75 mile commute. If GM had kept their original electric cars and Ford had kept their 'Blue' program and both companies had worked to make those vehicles profitable, think of where we'd be now.
I can see GM in North America being reduced down to three divisions:
Chevrolet--family cars plus Corvette
Cadillac--luxury cars
GMC--light trucks
They should have done this about eight years ago.
Chevrolet--family cars plus Corvette
Cadillac--luxury cars
GMC--light trucks
They should have done this about eight years ago.
Buick will be chopped.
Pontiac will be folded into Chevy.
GMC will split into light duty and Commercial.
Cadillac will stay intact.
The rest will be sold off.
I could actually see GMC sold off and run as a separate company that just makes heavy duty and rebranding the light trucks under Chevy.
I don't see Chrysler surviving. Maybe selling off the Jeep brand.
Would the government allow Ford and GM to merge?
Pontiac will be folded into Chevy.
GMC will split into light duty and Commercial.
Cadillac will stay intact.
The rest will be sold off.
I could actually see GMC sold off and run as a separate company that just makes heavy duty and rebranding the light trucks under Chevy.
I don't see Chrysler surviving. Maybe selling off the Jeep brand.
Would the government allow Ford and GM to merge?
Um, Ford Focus isn't really related to Ford USA. Focus was created by Ford Europe, and it was then brought over (with some modifications) to NA.
You just wait, when wall street does finally utterly crash, on all the displays in time square there will be a giant "Financial re spawn in 5, 4, 3..."