I'm going to rant here as this seems to be the best place to do it of late

Holden is screwed. If rumours and info from former contrators and inside info is correct there have been massive cuts in Holden development.

This is the info I have seen so far,

Holden VE (Zeta based)
Wagon: Cancelled
Coupe: Cancelled
One tonner: Cancelled
Crewman: Cancelled
Adventra: Cancelled

Twin Turbo HFV6 program (75% complete): Cancelled
Zeta AWD: Cancelled

That leaves Holden swb and lwb sedans and then later the ute, everything else seems to be gone so much for flexibility.

Holden have cut all contract engineers and are currently looking at culling more jobs as we speak. Apparently this is because of a lack of $$$! I though holden was the most profitable GM car division?, but it seems to have been pulled under by GM NA.

Personally I lay the blame with GM NA. Holden developed Zeta with GM NA in mind which required bigger $$$ then they would have spent if it was just for themselves. The increased money required for development of Zeta for GM NA was going to be paided off by the increased number of vehicles to be produced on Zeta. It seems the money has been spent by holden and there will be no payback from GM NA. Holden seems to have been screwed.

Now Holden are cutting staff at least into the hundereds it may even make thousands of people unemployed over this. Holden was the most flexible car build unit GM has, but their flexiblity has been stripped because of the money hole Zeta has now created for them. It wouldn't supprise me if Holden pull the pin on the third shift at the Elizabeth factory around the intro of the VE commy as well.

To make matters that little bit worse the CEO, Denny Mooney, wanted to import Caddy into Australia. I hope he doesn't spend a $ of Holden's money to do that as he has taken Holden from the golden years under Peter Hanenberger to massive cut backs. Hopefully Mooney has backed off on that position now.

From the star of GM, to strangled to within a inch of its life.

Please come back Hanenberger, please.

 

that sucks

 

I hope this isnt true. I really do. If it does happen i would understand if you hate us. this is definately a good reason for it.

 

It's a real shame that all this happened the way it did. I mean Zeta N/A should have been taken care of by N/A (financially) but I guess Holden invested in it for particular reasons...

Hopefully as GM gets healthier when GMT900 launches and beyond the money will start trickling down to various projects and Holden gets some of their costs recouped...

 

It seems that whatever GM-NA gets its hands on turns to ****. That's it. I don't care for GM one bit anymore. I HOPE they sink! It's clear they don't know what they're doing and all they ARE able to do is ruin things! They deserve to tank to infinite depths and be devoured by the free market. I only feel bad for all the good people that are going to lose their jobs in the process.

 

That blows

 

Lets paint this a little differently shall we?

GMNA said Holden, "We want to give you a big budget to make world wide cars and to make them top of the line." Holden says "sounds good to me."

Holden starts work on VE in Aus and works the math for the NA cars when GMNA decides "We won't be able to sell these cars in the US for cheap enough to make them profitable, after they go through our horribly long, tiresome approval process, so lets not do them in NA."

Holden has done all the ground work that they would have to do in AUS in AUS. They crunched some numbers for NA through hyperspace. There may have been some computer modeling and crash testing in hyperspace. Holden still has a larger budget for VE than they would have had. Some money was wasted, a lot of time was wasted. VE should be really good and be out on time, even if just the sedans at first. Holden will do just what they did with the current V series they will introduce new body types after costs have been subsidised by the sales of the sedans. The coupe should be quicker than the last one and higher production, especially if NA gets the GTO from Holden. The Ute may even make a small appearence in the States. Holden will probably build the current V series Ute and One tonne till the new ones are ready.

So before everyone starts calling for someone to be fired I suggest that you look and see the glass may not be half full but you have something to play with. Holden will have a world class Sedan NOW. It will have a world class coupe and Ute in the future. If Holden gets itself straightened out quickly enough you may even get the Wagon/crossovers quickly.

The world is not ending and Holden will not go under, no matter how much NA tries,

 

love your work. well summed up.

also, don't forget, it took holden seven years to get its current array of models...

nothing happens overnight in a small company. they just don't have the resources to punch everything out at the same time.

but don't be surprised if a traditional wagon is not part of the model plan