More on Mary Barra:
I wish Ms. Barra well. She seems to be saying the right things. It remains to be seen if she is constructively aggressive enough to continue to make GM competitive. She is riding a wave now so stay tuned. GM has had both bean counters and engineers in the top position who did not know how move the company to compete well against the import brands.
She seems to be less arrogant than Bob Lutz. I have respect for Lutz, but he always seemed like a prick to me.
I think one of GM’s big goals should be to build better family cars than Honda and Toyota. It’s important to have a good truck and sports car, but I suspect the average buyer is looking at a Malibu or Impala, not a Silverado 3500 or Corvette.
Speaking of the Impala, sounds like they hit a home run with the new model:
Malibu, Impala, Cruze, Volt, and Sonic all compete well within their segments.
Like I said, some of us would like something a little more upscale than a Chev and will only be in a Caddy when dead. Buick would have a long way to go to lose its reputation as an old persons car, and they eliminated Olds and Pontiac that could have fulfilled that niche. And really, $60K for a Chev SUV that still just looks like a box? I’ve driven GM all my life but at this point they really have little to offer me. Maybe they could take that stupid looking gold bow tie off the front of everything so it wasn’t so obvious. They did that with Olds and Pontiac so there was no way you could tell what the make was from the outside. They weren’t very proud of their cars then and why are they so proud of the Chevy line up?
The one thing I like about her is that she ADMITTED they were building some shoddy vehicles. You can’t fix a problem if don’t admit you even have a problem. If she truly means what she said…then it sounds like she’s put GM back on the road to success.
@Bing, I’m surprised. You say you’ve driven GM all your life, and now that they finally are getting their act together and building good cars, you’'ve soured on them. Seems like it should be the other way around. I’ve heard lots of good things about the new Caddys, and they’re not just old peoples (or dead peoples) car any more. Likewise the Impala. They finally do have some things to be proud of. And I say that as someone who wouldn’t have been caught dead owning a GM product in the 25 years since I sold my 1976 Volare after college.
I wish GM all the best. They’ve gone through some very tough decades, much of their pains having been of their own making. As the article said, they were run by accountants for a very long time. This lady sounds like a “car person”. Hopefully she’ll be able to get GM focused on cars again.
I test drove a new Caddy after the changes a few years ago, and I thought it was well done. Caddys are back to being considered world-class. And it was a dramatic turnaround. Caddys not only had a “dying market share”, GM also tarnished Caddy’s name by sticking Caddy stickers and bloated prices on junk from other production lines.
But I’ll end my post by saying that if they falter again, no public money should be used to prop them up. It should be up to them now.
I drove a buddy’s supercharged Cadillac CTS-V at a racetrack track day. Holy Heck this was no old man’s car! Factory HP was 552, his was pumped to 695! A 4 door sedan that handled like a sports coupe and laid rubber like a dragster (well it WOULD have if the traction control was turned off!). Tremendous performance for a reasonable price for what it was. I’ve rented a CTS a few years ago, great car with a responsive V6 engine, great ride and handling, super nice interior. Caddy is doing a LOT of the right things.
@jesmed Nothing against the new Caddys at all except for the name plate. Some cars you just can’t drive in some areas of the midwest. In some small towns, everybody knows when you are in town but to drive in with a Caddy is simply unacceptable. Same with parking in the driveway or going to church. The glitz associated with the name plate is just not acceptable regardless of the car. Olds and Buicks and Mercury is fine but people look down on folks driving Lincolns or Caddys as being too showy and better than everyone else. Plus I could never even get the wife to look at a Buick or a Caddy anymore. That’s just reality and too bad GM is so interested in the China market that they forget the whole nitche of the mid priced cars. My boss always drove a Caddy so I always drove Olds or Buick. A Chevy would have been a big downer though.
Lets not worry too much about over powered autos with the styling of a " Wobbling Goblin" lets worry about affordable good transportation that will get us there and back without consuming too much of the Earths dwindling resources(we may may have a few hundred years{ of dirty hydrocarbon fuel left}-does that mean we in our hubris should consume it in a few decades?
Lets hope GM can stand on its own merits now(without taxpayers having to support them from the public Dole(sounds kinda like Airbus,doesnt it?) Build quality and economy GM,seen too many Grannys an Aunts stuck with used pieces of crap(the Domos were real bad about that) I cannot fix design flaws Aunt Gertie( we are not all wealthy debonair and young playboys)-Kevin
@kmmccune There are dirty and clean hydrocarbons. Dirty ones are residual oils burned in large diesels and boilers. They contain all manner of comtaminents. Clean hydrocarbons are today’s modern gasolines, diesel fuels as well as napthah fuel for lanterns and camp stoves, and aviation gasolines and jet fuels.
These fuels, when burned in modern devices, emit CO2, water vapor and nitrogen, and very little else.
The EPA has brainwashed you that CO2 is a pollutant, which it is not. It is a greenhouse gas that’s indispensible to life, since plants and trees breathe it in and convert it. You spend the whole day breathing out CO2 but I would not call you a polluter! At the same time, we should minimize CO2 generation, as well at methane emission.
I agree that the public at large deserves reliable, economical and safe transportation devices, something that those in communist countries can only dream about. Just take a trip to Cuba.
GM’s future lies in addressing the broad spectrum of the world auto market, where trucks and large SUVs are very much in the minority.
The EPA has brainwashed you that CO2 is a pollutant
EPA?? Are you serious. You’ve been brainwashed by Fox News. It took YEARS AND YEARS AND YEARS of independent research before the EPA would even consider the data about CO2. Even then it took a lot of convincing. The amount of independent data about man-made CO2 and it’s effect on our environment is mind boggling. The amount of money spent by companies like Exxon and other companies is 10 fold of government grant money. Yet even many of those studies show that CO2 has a drastic effect on our environment. This is NOT a US problem. Scientists around the world have been studying CO2 emissions. None of those studies have received any money what-so-ever from the EPA. Take a look at the studies from Chile or India or Japan.
@MikeInNH The EPA wanted to regulate CO2, so they fought to have it classified as a “pollutant”. Now they can because it is under their jurisdiction.
Greenhouse gas reduction is an entirely different program than reducing air pollution caused by noxious gasses and particulates. Green Peace, for instance, wants to declare war on carbon, on of life’s basic building blocks.
A slight increase in CO2 in the atmosphere has no effect on human health, but it does affect climate in the long run.
The problem with. “'straight co2 is fine” is that it fails the scientific approach that every element in the atmosphere in the right proportions is necessary to maintain a natural green house level . Everyone likes clean fresh water but too much can drown you and flood your property.
Arsenic in trace amounts has few effects and the same goes for co2 in the amounts given to maintain the natural greenhouse effect. Man has added 30 % to our atmosphere . For all practical purposes, the atmosphere has become too toxic because of that increase to sustain life in a way we have previously most benefit from. Sorry, every time they discuss emissions on Fox, I hear nothing. Nothing But the same old EPA fear mongering. and no one even mentions the effects of too much co2 and other elements from internal combustion motors in their one sided presentation. Why we even have to mention it now should be unnecessary; but it becomes so when arguments like , a little co2 is ok because it isn’t poisonous. EVERYTHING IS POISONOUS given the right dosage.
The EPA actually hire scientists and commissions all the resources at it’s disposal to make these finds.
The only way to dismiss facts like these and the higher levels of education that support them is to keep people uninformed dismiss the institutions that require them. A cute smile and a degree in media gets you a spot to diss the EPA on Fox. While to work for the EPA and developed those easily dismissed ideas, you need to be well educated in that field, often an Advanced degree or doctorate.
@dagosa. Long before man industrialized the earth there were periods where the greenhouse gas (CO2) levels were several times higher than they are today. In those days there were trees growing in the arctic and sea levels were considerably higher than they are today.
Yet there were breathing animals and the early humans living quite successfully. If you spend time in an unventilated room with doors closed, the CO2 level will go up as well. When you were a kid you no doubt stuck your head unde the blankets for a while and noticed the CO2 increasing and O2 (oxygen) decreasing.
The CO2 level in the atmosphere, agreed, is higher now than in the recent past, but hat does not make it dangerous for humans. The big problem is with $million+ condos at sea level in Miami and other low areas.
Just spent a week in Holland, a country that has 2/3 of its 14 million population living below sea levels. They recognize global warming and that water levels will rise somewhat. The goverment long ago legislated that dikes be built and reinforced for a “one in 10,000 year flood event”. At the same time they are doing their bit to minimize CO2 and other green house gases. But cars are still the preferred modeof transport and electricity is mostly generated with natural gas as a fuel. YES, there are windmills , but they only supply less than 10% of the power.
P.S. Most Dutchmen think Al Gore is an opportunistic windbag who does not practice what he preaches, and got very rich by scaring ordinary people.
I’m with Doc on this. I cannot add to his already excellent explanations, but I agree with him.
I also agree with “most Dutchmen”…
Yep, some folks will never be happy until the earth is entirely uninhabited by humans.
The EPA wanted to regulate CO2, so they fought to have it classified as a "pollutant". Now they can because it is under their jurisdiction.
YES…AFTER…the independent scientific studies (MANY STUDIES) showing the dangers of too much CO2. They did NOT as you suggest…all of a sudden say “Gee - I think we should start regulating CO2 because we can. So lets find some scientists who think CO2 might be bad and ask them to prove it is so we can start regulating it.”
In fact when many of the first studies came out…the EPA didn’t believe them. So the EPA did a few of their own studies to DISPROVE that CO2 was a problem. But their studies didn’t disprove it. In fact it just reinforced the early independent studies.
Long before man industrialized the earth there were periods where the greenhouse gas (CO2) levels were several times higher than they are today.
Says who? Read the articles below. When my daughter was doing her undergraduate work at MIT…she actually did a lot of chemical analysis on Ice cores dating back several thousand years. The CO2 levels TODAY are higher then they ever been.
Now the question is no longer what the these emissions are…but what they actually mean. How will they effect our climate? That’s the debate today…with the exception of the great scientific minds at Fox News who also gave you Creationism.