thank you.

 

It will probably take an auto industry beancounter to beat this through my non-auto industry skull, but maybe someone would like to give it a shot.

1. GM is sitting on $25 - $30 billion cash.

2. As they must to stay in the game.

3. See #1.

4. DCX & Ford are trouncing GM in the RWD market. That would make it pretty high priority to me.

5. Offering "packages" to take good people off the payroll and then claim to not have enough people to do the work?

In my part of the world I would say:

I have the cash, I have the product pretty much ready to go, I have the manufacturing capacity, I'll bring in some people on a contract basis if need be because, I can't make a penny and start amortizing the cost of the product until it's sold!

Or in simple terms, I don't understand how delaying profitable product to "save costs" can improve the overall long-term profitability of a corporation.

 

They are not offering the early retirement to people who are key. They are cutting down the number of unneeded employees.

 

Ouch! That'll leave mark when Red reads it.

 

Haha, no kidding. Actually, I think early retirement was offered to those that have been with GM the longest, not "people they don't need." That way they could replace those people with younger people, who command less money, perhaps some straight out of college.

 

There's more to launching a car than just doing the in-house design work, tooling up, and starting production. What about the supplied components? It takes a good 24 months (someone less for carryover parts) for suppliers to complete their design, validation, and tooling tasks. Now, granted, a lot of that happens in parallel with the activities on the OEM's end, but until someone from a Tier 1 or Tier 2 wants to spill the beans, it's going to be difficult to believe that there's a new Camaro coming in any less than 18-24 months.

A strut front end and multi-link rear is OK by me, as long as the geometry is right, the components are stiff enough to do the job (no more crap like the B-body rear control arms, OK?), and no one decides to stick in bushings with Charmin-like compliance. Yea, I'd prefer a good multi-link setup (if it's too expensive for GM, how'd Honda pull it off with the Civic for so many years), but I think that there's plenty of examples showing that a strut front end can work if done right.

 

Good points.

 

That is crazy. If you had a kid the day the Solstice was shown at NAIAS....the kid would be 6 months from kidnergarden by the time it reaches production.

Hell...4 and a half years is almost a full product cylce!

 

If we don't see a concept at Detroit this time around, it'll be exactly for that reason....even if the concept is completed.

 

The problem with that is the tech and styling cycles chnage faster then GM's development and release. They really need to stream line to capitalize on the current trends.

 

1. As you are aware, the Honda Civic is FWD...so the multi link rear is far less complex.
2. The Honda Civic has basically no real HP and weighs a lot less, so the components are cheaper to build because they don't have to be as robust.

I think that's apples and oranges.

 

This is why Honda has the highest drivetrain reliability in the industry. They produce no torque in any of their vehicles!

 

I was refering to the issue of struts vs. multilink/SLA on the front of the vehicle. Up until the latest model cycle, the Civic had a fairly trick front-suspension setup (the Accord still has it). If Honda can afford to put such a setup on the front of a cheap FWD vehicle, then I would hope that GM could do it on the front of a more-expensive RWD vehicle. But if they decide that a strut front end is required for cost reasons, OK - I'm less concerned with the concept than I am with the execution