Originally Posted by guionM

Nice to see that someone else caught up to what I've been saying about GM almost since I joined this site:



I have said for years that the problem wasn't the people in the trenches doing the engineering and design. Every since at least 2003 when I had the chance to see how things were done at Holden, and by association General Motors (Holden's ability was actually less advanced than GM-North America!), and later by Bob Lutz's own claim that GM had the ability to get a new vehicle from idea to production in 18 months.... and the bulk of that involved suppliers developing parts that passed GM's certification. The catch was, as I also said , was that GM's decision making process took up to many years!

Also, GM's product approval process was set up to kill new projects. Either with data, or money, or nothing more than internal politics.

One glaring and inexcusable example of how all 3 work against a seemingly simply, logical, and virturally necessary item was on interiors. Bob Lutz had to fight tooth and nail, and faced endless resistence to using better materials and tighter fit in interiors. Finance resisted because it cost a few dollars more, and in their view spread out over hundreds of thousands of vehicles cheaper materials would save GM alot of money. Then there was the data guys who decided they had to study the subject of interiors to death, collecting analysis and actually coming up with an idea as to how cheap an interior a vehicle could be before it hurt sales. Then there were the people who simply didn't like Bob Lutz and decided to poke holes in his ideas for no or little other reason.... and he's a Vice Chairman!

Meanwhile, over at Ford, the CEO simply mandated better interiors, had accountants cost them out, and suddenly as new interiors came out, they were instantly better.

A brainless decision decided and done.