Opel boss steps down as GM loses patience with Europe | CarAdvice

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Opel boss steps down as GM loses patience with Europe

By Tim Beissmann
FIND DEALS

The president of General Motors Europe and CEO of Opel and Vauxhall has stepped down from his position to focus on “special assignments” within the company.

Karl-Friedrich Stracke, 56, has been replaced by GM vice chairman Steve Girsky, currently chairman of the Opel supervisory board, who will serve as acting head of GM’s European operations while the company searches for a replacement.

Stracke was in the head role of the embattled European division for just over six months, during which time he developed a 10-point plan to put Opel/Vauxhall on the path towards profitability.

GM’s European operations have lost US$16.4 billion ($16.2 billion) since 1999. According to analysts quoted by US industry journal Automotive News, the restructuring is a reflection of the car maker’s growing impatience with the money-losing division.

In his new role, Stracke will report directly to GM chairman and CEO Dan Akerson – the man who took GM’s international operations to a record profit last year and helped reclaim its position as the world’s largest automotive manufacturer by sales.

Stracke’s successor will become Opel/Vauxhall’s fourth CEO in less than three years, after Hans Demant departed in November 2009 and Nick Reilly filled the role until April 2011.

Stracke’s 10-point plan covered wide-ranging areas of the business, including introducing new fuel-efficient engines and all-new models, streamlining production processes, expanding the company’s export program, and securing new partnerships and deepening existing ones to reduce research, development and production costs.

Analysts suggest significant savings will be difficult to achieve before 2016, however, at which time GM is expected to close its Bochum factory in Germany.


 

  • Greenroom

    I wish the headline read:  ”Prime Minister steps down as Australian loses patience with Federal Government”.

    • F1MotoGP

      You still believe in politics? Good luck. One same as the other. I believe them when I can retire, earn as much money and have no income/ assets test like politicians.

      • Jimg

         Sorry but your completely wrong about this one F1MotoGP
        If any Prime minister is going to drag this country to the gutter its Gillard, she is going to cause decades of damage.

        Mark my words

        • F1MotoGP

           You must be young and naive.

          • Smart Us

             well if you can name any Labor gov including socialist to ever lake country prosper – cutting cost on centrelink etc. i am w you F1…

          • F1MotoGP

             I do not care Labor, Liberal or any political party they all the same. You remember the headlines:
            Politicians get a Christmas cracker of a pay rise.PM’s pay will soar by $90,000 to about $470,000that is 23.6% (maybe that is why T.A. wants the job)
            Pay of the most junior parliamentarians will jump from $140,000 to at least $180,000. ( 28.5%)
            Senior Coalition figures are backing the reforms, arguing the present pay scales for federal MPs are too low.
            Mr Abbott gets $91,000 extra to take his salary to $352,517.
            How much you get? I get none in the last 12 months. Which political party did not sell any assets…all of them did. We could go on and on. List is too long.

          • F1MotoGP

             I forgot to add political parties always agree if they vote to get a pay rise.

            2010 Victorian election Liberal preferences wen to Labor in Brunswick, Melbourne and I think in 2 other electorate.

            They want to make sure no other party can win. I call it a two party dictatorship.

        • Golfschwein

          Gillard’s doing a great job. We have unemployment at 5.3% nationally (much less in WA), the reserve bank cash rate at less than 5% and inflation less than 5%. A friend of mine has just come back from staying with friends in California, where the unemployment rate is 18%. That’s almost one in five. Would you prefer that or, better still, be in Greece?

          If Abbot gets in, we will have the meanest, vilest, cruellest and most regressive government that we have seen in all of our living generations. I can see you want that, but I have to wonder why.

          • Greenroom

            Components of your  figures / points are good singularly, agreed Golfy. If it weren’t we are now in debt some $350 billion dollars and growing, and borrowing more, to fund poor Gillard Govt. spending, programs and excess, I’d nearly agree with you. If you back out WA and mining generally, we not so good. If you factor in Green / Labor’s bodgey deals like a sick policy ie Border non Protection policy, carbon dioxide tax (really a reverse tariff) making Aust less competitive, un-managed coal seam gas destruction…. then I gotta say, Gillard zero. Bye Gillard. Aternative? Must be other mob or we shut up shop?

          • F1MotoGP

             Debt…under every government Australia’s debt was growing that include everything housing loan, credit card…etc but Government debt is falling since 1998. On the other hand household debt increased since 1980 by 500%!!

          • Shak

            If you understood anything about how our economy works, you would realise that, that debt level is comparatively very very small compared to most other advanced developed economies. Australia has also historically been a country with high debt levels, no matter which party is in power. People harp on about Gillard is destroying our country, but they fail to realise we are in the best position of any advanced economy in the world at the moment. I dislike her as a person, but her management of the economy up till now has been pretty damned good. Abbott on the other hand has failed to provide any concrete alternatives to any of her policies.

    • Thru8ok

      if only it said, bjeke newman steps down as Qld premier as the people sees him for the self serving fraud he is

  • Opelman

    GM only have themselves to blame, as they are the major contributing factor to Opels demise. Not allowing Opel to expand outside of Europe is one of many reasons that has put Opel in the position it is. Also too, having Opel develop and research for all of GM’s other brands is also a costly exercise in which Opel gains very little, coupled with GM using Opel product and badging it as their own e.g. Holden Astra, Buick Regal etc, Opel was not benefiting from the costs it was outlaying to produce these cars. 

    I love Opel cars, but I’m sad to say, Opel would be better off sold to someone else, and allow GM to develop its own cars without Opels assistance..

    • Legnab

      HERE HERE  well said opelman , damn yanks always blame others for mistakes and never accept that  others have developed the modern fuel efficient car .

      • Hung Low

        Yeah the same damn yanks who built the first turbocharged production car, hybrid etc. stick to your bessemer knowledge bungle!

        • Legnab

          Fung you out on the tray top with nemo tonight picking up dead crummers , we all know they built the first turbo , but it took the germans to perfect it .

          America is lazy and is fast falling behind the rest of the world , they still cling to the idea petrol will be cheap forever , wake up .

          • Hung Low

            Ever heard of Saab and Volvo bungle? They have been perfecting turbo charging in mainstream
            Models for decades.

          • Legnab

            KKK were the first cab of the rank in europe , others followed .

    • Daniel D

      Exactly. Ford Australia will have a long list of reasons why they are closing production here too. Change in buyers preferences, cost of production etc. There will be no mention of the clueless string of yank managers they sent out that compounded one problem with another, or how cost cutting (standard Ford practice) takes a fundamentally good Falcon or Territory and turns it into a far from good experience to the owner as things fail or rust or just don’t work well enough. Nor will they admit that decades of ignoring their crap dealer network and dodging and weaving around warranties and recalls left many former owners swearing they would never own another Ford.

      No they will make out its our fault and the die hard Ford fans will support them and sledge them when they point out the obvious. 

      Opel is GM’s Ford Australia.

    • Golfschwein

      Buick’s lineup will be nothing without Opel. What’s Buick’s alternative? Putting a flash, vertically finned chrome grille on a Cruze, with lots of burr walnut and cream leather inside? Don’t think so. They need Opel. 

      • Hung Low

        Is bungle your alter ego porky? Or do you two simply enjoy holding hands and trolling together lately?

        • Legnab

          And how is barry/nemo/twin/graves , all riding high in the tray top hoping to find a VW , but just stumbling on broken down  falcoons .

  • Rightindicators

    GM should do what V-dub has done. Do design work in Germany and have factories in low cost Eastern Euro countries like the Czeck Republic, Slovakia or southern Spain. Q3 is manufactured in the SEAT factory in Spain.

    • Mike

      VW still has a huge manufacturing footprint in Germany, and a few years back, like Opel, were overstaffed and under-productive. VW saved themselves through accelerated growth: Instead of costly plant closures and golden handshakes, they simply decided to grow the business in order to make work for everyone. Stroke of genius, isn’t it? Opel could do the same, if GM would let them.

  • Norm

    The Opel boss appears to have made his corporate bosses less than happy and he’s been demoted. No biggie. What on earth this has to do with the state of Australian politics I’m unsure.

    What I AM sure of is that any corporate executive in his position earns many many many times what any Australian politician earns. 

    Can governments do better? Of course.

    However….

    If ONE of you ill informed knuckleheads at the top of this page had ever bothered to spend a minute in public life – working the kind of hours senior politicians do – you’d know that your absolutely full of it.

    You want better politicians? Better politics? Stop whinging – get yourself an education and engage with the political process instead of sprouting talk back radio ignorance.

  • Doctor

    As this article has nothing to do with the Australian government or economy, I won’t comment on the “knuckleheads”. As for Opel’s problems, Opel has failed for years to make desirable cars (notwithstanding that the latest appear to be much better). VW meanwhile has improved its range and reliability (as has Hyundai/Kia) and the results speak for themselves. I don’t know why GM didn’t shut it down in 2009…… or sell it.

  • Doctor

    As this article has nothing to do with the Australian government or economy, I won’t comment on the “knuckleheads”. As for Opel’s problems, Opel has failed for years to make desirable cars (notwithstanding that the latest appear to be much better). VW meanwhile has improved its range and reliability (as has Hyundai/Kia) and the results speak for themselves. I don’t know why GM didn’t shut it down in 2009…… or sell it.