Home | Cars And Trucks

General Motors Comes Back From the Brink

By: Nick Messe

Read More About Cars and Trucks

After almost 50 years of successfully building and selling cars and trucks by the 1950s and 60s General Motors had become an unmistakable part of the American landscape. It had been the world's largest producer of vehicles since 1931, and by 1963 ten percent of all vehicles sold in the U.S. were Chevrolets.

In the post-war years European and Japanese vehicles started to make inroads into the North American market. To the casual observer the decade of the 1970s had the appearance of a turbulent time for car manufacturers. The spike in oil prices in the early 70s made consumers aware - at least temporarily - of gasoline prices and the need for better engine efficiency.

As a result General Motors forged alliances during this period with European and Asian manufacturers to produce smaller more fuel efficient vehicles. This led to some fairly half-hearted attempts to address the evolving needs of North American drivers. In retrospect General Motors was never really committed to the idea of small fuel-efficient cars. And the reason is fairly obvious: their core market did not want them. What they wanted was large comfortable vehicles, and that is exactly what GM continued to give them.

While penetration into the North American market by European and Asian car makers continued unabated during this time, GM's customer base remained relatively loyal. Enough of them were content to continue to buy second rate smaller vehicles as long as they wore a General Motors badge of one kind or another.

But more importantly the alliances created with European and Asian companies led to a globalization effort by GM. The loss of customers in the U.S. and Canada was more than made up by new customers around the world in Europe, the United Kingdom, Australia and other parts of the developed and developing world.

As a result General Motors continued to grow and expand rapidly during the 1970s. By 1980 the company was at its largest in terms of total employees, global sales and number of production plants. In the early 1980s General Motors employed more than 349,000 people worldwide and had 150 assembly plants around the world.

From there, as we now know, it has been a gradual down-hill descent for GM. Somewhere along the way the company's huge size started to catch up with it. Innovation seemed much less important and became much more difficult. While competitors like Toyota consistently built higher quality, longer lasting and more fuel efficient vehicles, General Motors was unable to make the necessary changes. It has been a classic example of how difficult it is to turn an ocean liner around once it gets going in a certain direction.

In spite of all the doom and gloom surrounding General Motors these days, GM's total vehicle sales in 2008 were still a whopping 8,283,000, down less than 4% since the year 2000. The story of how GM was overtaken by Toyota for the number one spot is not yet completely written. This was made clear by recent news that Toyota has lost billions of dollars during the current economic downturn, and admissions by Toyota executives that the company expanded too quickly.

As it stands now, General Motors was reorganized in early 2009 with the U.S. and Canadian governments making it possible for the company to file for bankruptcy and then emerge quickly as a new, "clean" entity with much less debt. In effect, the U.S. and Canadian governments took on much of the old debt in order to give the company a chance to reinvent itself.

From the halcyon days of the early 1980s when the company employed almost 350,000 people it has reduced that number to just about 245,000. And those numbers do not even include the elimination of almost 40% of its U.S. dealerships in the aftermath of the 2009 restructuring.

Whether the company will actually be able to survive in its new form is a question that will not be answered for at least a year or two. However, it is hard to believe that a company with the history, experience, market share and talent pool of General Motors will not be able to make a go of it in one form or another.

Article Source: http://depositarticles.com/

Nick Messe is president of The Lead Frog LLC. Roger's Auto Group has the most affordable cars in the Chicago land area with the best collection of Chicago Hyundai and other Chicago GMC cars and trucks. When you buy a GMC vehicle you are buying today's innovation for tomorrow's future.

Please Rate this Article

 

Not yet Rated

Click the XML Icon Above to Receive Cars and Trucks Articles Via RSS!
Additional Articles From - Home | Cars And Trucks
Sign Up for a free account.
Our other websites
All about SEO
Beauty Tips Forum
Submit Articles
Member Login
Link Us
Submission Guidelines
Ezine Notifications
Article RSS Feeds
Sitemap
New Stuff
About Us
Developer
Good shopping portal
Link to Us
Contact Us
Privacy Policy
Terms of Service

counter easy hit

Powered by Article Dashboard