My accountant once told me, "Don't spend a dollar just to save a quarter". Advice that could have paid dividends at General Motors.


Remember 5 or 6 years ago, when GM was telling the world that Sigma would be it's new global RWD architecture? They were telling anyone who would listen, that it would have underpinned new generations of Chevys , Pontiacs, Caddys, Buicks, Holdens, Opels and even Saabs. Sigma would have been built in NA, Australia and Europe.

Work was progressing nicely. Mules were even built (disguised with production car sheetmetal - at least one still exists), to test cheaper versions of Sigma.

At some point though, maybe 2-3 years ago.....Holden calculated that it could develop it's V-car platform, more cheaply that it could Sigma. Hmmm, nothing stops people in they're tracks faster in Detroit, than the promise of something "cheaper". So a bunch of people from GMNA went to Holden and were shown how much cheaper the V-car was for Holden to develop than Sigma was for Holden. Wow, they thought, it sure would be cool to extrapolate those savings over all the non-Cadillac RWD vehicles we're developing in NA. Obviously, they thought, Sigma is too expensive!

So they gave this architecture a nifty Greek name and told the GMNA engineers to figure out how to manufacture VE here. And guess what they found? Holden's bill of process...that is, the way and order things are manufactured....does NOT in any way, shape or form, fit North America's bill of process. And it would have cost a boat load of cash and many more months , (the programs we cared about had already been pushed back to the '09/'10 timeframe under old Zeta), to re-engineer "Zeta" for NA manufacture. The realisation came that for NA, starting with Sigma would make more sense. The old "Zeta" was falling way behind schedule and looking like it would end up very expensive. Sigma would be easier and cheaper and faster than V-car would be to engineer and manufacture for NA.

So what is the new "Zeta"? Think of it sort of as "Zigma". It's loosely based/inspired by Sigma. However it will share some common component sets with VE...such as suspension sub-assemblies.

VE will continue for Holden as is for this cycle, but the hope is to standardize architectures with Holden on the next gen.

In the end "Zeta" is just a name.

 

Didn't I already say this?

But the rest of your story is what I had suspected all along. Nice work.

 

So it is in the pre-alpha stage. That means any spy photos will be of little to no importance.

Once in alpha stage, hand built cars, things get interesting.

 

Ditto.

However, it came direct from the horse's mouth that Zeta would have started showing up in 2007 at Buick, 2008 would have given us the GTO and a Pontiac sedan.

Camaro was on a slow boat, and depending who you talked to, it was set for 2008 or 2009.

Key word here..."was".

Changing exchange rates also played a factor (Australia's dollar has jumped from something like 56 cents to 80 cents to our dollar!).

Finally, and this is very important, Holden doesn't really outsource. Interiors, and a whole slew of items are actually made by Holden, not an outside supplier as is done here in the US (not just by GM either).

For Holden, Zeta saved them money. For GM-NA, there was no real savings. Add into this much of Holden's Zeta is based on the "V" car to save money, and here in the US we'd be starting with an entirely new car (and machinary) since we don't have a "V" car in production here, and the cost savings disappear.

Meanwhile, if we use as much of the new componets using as much of the Sigma stampings as we can, we'd see similar savings as Holden is seeing.

Very good summary Charlie.

 

Two sports bikes?

I wonder what next week will bring.

 

Two different sports bikes... but not the same two Guion was talking about previously.

 

And possibly a three-wheeler.

 

My head is starting to spin...

 

Cool post.

What happened with the sigma/zeta deal is pretty common.

Someone makes a decision to change the wheel without realizing all aspects of the change... and in turn, not seeing that the change, in the end, will cost more.

We see it all the time in the furnature industry. It's kinda funny to watch unwind from the outside looking in, as vendors like myself get to do.