[GM] used to be one step ahead of the pack, ... Now, it looks like it's in with the pack in Europe. |
Capitalizing on growth in Asia through Daewoo is essential if GM is to achieve a profitable mix of businesses. They can't do it by just cutting costs in North America. |
Car buying is influenced by consumer confidence. And confidence varies month to month but on a trend basis, it is down a lot in the last year, year-and-a-half. And my own view, unless it bounces back and unless history is wrong, we're going to really struggle to get these buyers in next year because they're just not as confident about the future to make a big ticket purchase as they were six months or a year ago. |
Detroit is at a tipping point. |
Even excluding the charge, European auto operations continue to be a big drag. |
Even though the U.S. economy's pretty healthy, there's not much growth in demand. Everybody who needs a car has already bought one. |
For the next year, year and a half I expect Ford to lose market share. It doesn't have many levers to pull. Its product pipeline is relatively dry and GM is being very aggressive. |
Ford and GM are now in a race to shrink. |
GM and the UAW will collide at some point as the company's results worsen, ... The Delphi filing suggests that it will happen sooner rather than later. |
GM has many calls on its cash, including pensions, retiree health care and Fiat's put option, |
GM historically has derived almost a third of its earnings from the European business. It didn't do that in this quarter. |
GM is going in the right direction, but it is not getting better as fast as the competition is getting better. |
GM likely doesn't have enough inventory to maintain a strong sales pace. |
GM likely doesn't have enough inventory to maintain a strong sales pace. And inevitably, the employee-pricing program is losing its effectiveness, as eventually happened to zero-percent financing, hot-button bonus cash programs, talk-show host car giveaways and other promotions. |
GM's competitiveness is not only dependent upon labor costs, but also on the speed of its decision-making, its success in responding to the market appropriately and its ability to identify the growth segments in the market, |