General Motors discussing possible closures or spin offs
February 18, 2009 by Alborz Fallah
News reports just in from the United States say General Motors is discussing “several possible closures or spin offs” of its manufacturing facilities in Europe.
With talk of GM going into bankruptcy the company is talking with employee representatives in Europe to achieve USD $1.2 billion in cost reductions. This means several possible closures or spin offs of manufacturing facilities in high cost locations.
As for GM’s Swedish unit Saab, repots suggest the struggling Swedish brand could file for reorganisation as early as this month without help from Sweden’s government.
Print it: 
Spin Offs of manufacturing how funny !
If they can’t build a reliable and durable car and sell it for a profit like others can what other products do they think they can build with a GM logo on it that will sell ? GM was founded in 1908 FFS.
GM Mousetrap anybody?
A GM Lawnmower that seizes halfway through the job just after throwing a blade?
I for one would like to know how this is going to affect GM Holden….
All this talk of Saturn (Satur-who?), Saab (early as redundant as Saturn), and Pontiac (surviving by selling rebadged Holden and Chevy cars) is kind of a no-brainer.
But what, GM, are you going to do with one of your most successful worldwide producers?
I cant believe they havent already dumped the dead wood.
Its as if GM refused to help themselves by selling off assets and reorganising stuff before it was too late.
Its like they sat there with a “She be right, the government will step in and save us” kind of attitude.
It reminds me of a joke…..
A town is rapidly going under due to rising flood waters.
a rescue boat cruises past the house of a religious man who has water up to his top step advising him to climb in.
The man says “its ok, god will save me”
the waters rises further, this time up to the window sills, and the man is perched on a chair. the rescue boat cruises past and advises the man to climb aboard.
The man says “its ok, god will save me”
The waters rise even further this time to the gutters. the man is perched on the roof.
Yet again the boat comes past and advises the man that if he did not climb aboard that he would be shortly under water.
The man says “its ok, God will save me”
As predicted the waters rose even further to a point where the man was swept away to his death.
When the man reaches the pearly gates, he meets God and instantly asks him “why didnt you save me??”
Gods replies with “I tried, I sent 3 f-r-i-g-g-i-n boats for you
Nice one Andrew M.. I wouldn’t be surprised if the guys name was Rick Wagonner either.
Hes let so many perfect opportunities to improve GMs fortunes; operations etc but because of his [the old farts] ignorance and arrogance etche ignored them all..
I believe its called Karma..
“Its like they sat there with a “She be right, the government will step in and save us” kind of attitude.” – Take a few months back and remember when the big 3 sat in front of the house of representatives (i think?) and when asked who would forego their private airjet for the government assistance, they all just sat there like deer in headlights…. when that happened I had no compassion for the U.S automakers, at the time i wanted them to fail completely. So existing and new car makers will learn from their mistakes.
Devil666…….it doesnt say much for GM if it classes Holden as a success. Commodore sales are mainly low or no profit fleet sales, G8 exports a total flop, G8 Ute cancelled, rear wheel drive program cancelled, 4 cyl engine plant to close costing 5 or 6 hundred jobs, 600 engineers sacked……sounds like a success to me !! All Holden really are are an importer of shit Daewoo’s…….
How many more billions of dollars are they gonna give GM before they say enough is enough? Goodbye Gm…….put them out of their misery……please !
Have any of you been to the East or West coast of the US ?
The hero cars are jap & euro cars or fast & furious type cars. It is sort of like Ford here not as many under 30 drivers purchase Fords harping back to the years of dropping the V8’s in the mid 90’s.
GM needs to build cars people want
At risk of being moderated, :-( the reason why I come here to read is because the other popular site (oft refered to as Drivel) is really showing it’s true colours at present. Where as CA posts what is realesed as close a spossible to release to keep us informed, the other mob have only put up one story on how Holden are going to save GM…… (he he he :p) godd work CA.
MB sure the uni kids are running ricers, but the best selling vehicle in the states (by a whopping margin) and the best selling vehicle last year even after stupid fuel prices has been the F series pick up. Fortune 500 for over a decade now have said the if F series was a stand alone company it would be in the top 100 of most profitable companies in the world. GM out sell all of the Japanese brands as does Ford. So how can you seriously say the these manufacturers don’t build what they public want.
If you investigate what is actually happening it is not really the product that is against GM is is the fact that they sell the same car against themselves, thus forcing prostitution of the product, as well as a very ordinary (at best) management board absolutely crazy employee conditions and far less support from the states than the southern manufacturers get (in real life).
But hey we all forget wht deals were done to get foreign manufacturers to set up shop there don’t we????