"No more crappy cars" from GM

[Laconian]

GM's Mary Barra to staff: "No more crappy cars."

http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/2013/10/gm-puts-mary-barra-in-charge-of-purchasing-too-says-no-excuses-no-more-crappy-cars/

...
The move was made in early August, with no announcement, but the Automotive News has reported that GM purchasing head Grace Lieblein now reports to Barra, not vice chairman Steve Girsky, as she had been doing. The consolidation of oversight of product planning and purchasing is hoped to reduce conflicts between engineers and purchasers.

The news comes just a few days after Barra told Fortune magazine's Most Powerful Women Summit that her directive to GM's designers and engineers is simple, "No more crappy cars", with "no excuses".She said that she told GM employees that if GM is going to compete in a market segment, they'll be competing to win. "I think there was sometimes so many boundaries put on them [employees] that we didn't give them a recipe for success. So now were saying no excuses, if its budget, if its resources, we have to do great cars, trucks and crossovers and it's our job to enable you to do that," she continued."The simple thing I said was no more crappy cars."

[2o6]

They've been at the top of their game lately, I wonder what she's going to do to top that

[Rich]

The Malibu has been flopping hard.  I'm not sure how the compacts have been doing, sales wise.

It'll be interesting to see whee GM goes!

[MX793]

IIRC, GM has a single vehicle in the 10 best sellers in the US this year (the Silverado).  Not a great sign for the largest domestic automaker.  Ford has 3 models in the top 10, including the #1 best selling vehicle.

[FlatBlackCaddy]

They used to say this every 5 years or so since the 1980's.

[280Z Turbo]

They used to say this every 5 years or so since the 1980's.

Yeah, they've been actively apologizing for shitty cars since 2003 or so.

[Laconian]

Yeah, they've been actively apologizing for shitty cars since 2003 or so.

This is my impression of things. Mea culpa! The Cavalier is trash, and we know it's trash, so obviously we won't make the same mistake twice with the Cobalt!

[Soup DeVille]

What a brilliant idea.

I wonder why nobody has tried this before.

[2o6]

I'd rock a Cruze

[Secret Chimp]

Maybe stop pulling over existing architectures from Opel? Or friggin Daewoo?

[2o6]

Maybe stop pulling over existing architectures from Opel? Or friggin Daewoo?

So you'd rather them un integrate and make things more costly? Develop three seperate model lines with no mechanical relations?


That's what got them the shit reputation in the first place


Daewoo and Opel have been GM for a long time. Complaining that they "use" Opel or Daewoo engineering is like getting mad for Ford using Volvo or Mazda tech.

[cawimmer430]

I'm gonna miss the CRAPalier! 

[MrH]

I feel like I hear this from GM every couple of years. It's one thing to say we're done building shit. It's entirely a different thing to actually do it.

GM is so large they still shock me with some of the things they pull off. They have the ability to throw people at things which is pretty amazing. But statements like these are meaningless. There's a huge cultural problem at the company, one that won't change anytime soon. Just like when they got bailed out, they kept pitching it was a whole new GM... But it's the same good old boys running the show for the most part. It's going to take a long time to make big changes there.

[Laconian]

Like a Honda V6 engine.

[2o6]

I feel like I hear this from GM every couple of years. It's one thing to say we're done building shit. It's entirely a different thing to actually do it.

GM is so large they still shock me with some of the things they pull off. They have the ability to throw people at things which is pretty amazing. But statements like these are meaningless. There's a huge cultural problem at the company, one that won't change anytime soon. Just like when they got bailed out, they kept pitching it was a whole new GM... But it's the same good old boys running the show for the most part. It's going to take a long time to make big changes there.

I don't understand this either, they move six steps forward, and five steps backwards.


IMO, most of the interiors dominate their respective classes, but it seems like they have a lot of waste within their corporate structure that makes no damn sense.



I think Chevrolet itself is fine (Malibu "sucks", but the Cruze, Sonic, Spark and Impala hold their own in their respective classes), but IMO Cadillac has yet to impress me. I don't like the new Escalade, nor do I care for their Interior or exterior design as well.

Buick seems OK, I guess.

[Mustangfan2003]

Speaking if crappy GM cars the old Impala will still be sold to fleets till 2016.  Say hello to the GM Crown Vic. 

[280Z Turbo]

I've been working with GM for almost 2 years now and I would describe them as being inconsistent, bureaucratic, and slow moving at the supplier level. Exactly what you'd think.

[2o6]

I've been working with GM for almost 2 years now and I would describe them as being inconsistent, bureaucratic, and slow moving at the supplier level. Exactly what you'd think.

Comes across in their product line

[280Z Turbo]

We get new engineers from GM coming in all the time. There's no constancy of purpose from person to person.

[2o6]

We get new engineers from GM coming in all the time. There's no constancy of purpose from person to person.

Why do these three cars share the same platform basis, but not that much mechanically? It makes no damn sense.

[MrH]

I've been working with GM for almost 2 years now and I would describe them as being inconsistent, bureaucratic, and slow moving at the supplier level. Exactly what you'd think.

I'm going on 2.5 years with two different suppliers, and I agree completely. On a higher, strategic level, they're constantly making terrible mistakes by shooting from the hip and trying to play catch up to fix it.  The most frustrating thing is the blind following of standards that are overbearing and make little to no sense.  Most engineering underlings just follow the "GM rules" at the cost of the big picture until management realizes the fuck up.  Half the time they still go through with it because they don't have time to fix it.  The other half, they spend ass loads of money and time fixing what should have been done in the first place.

[280Z Turbo]

I'm going on 2.5 years with two different suppliers, and I agree completely. On a higher, strategic level, they're constantly making terrible mistakes by shooting from the hip and trying to play catch up to fix it.  The most frustrating thing is the blind following of standards that are overbearing and make little to no sense.  Most engineering underlings just follow the "GM rules" at the cost of the big picture until management realizes the fuck up.  Half the time they still go through with it because they don't have time to fix it.  The other half, they spend ass loads of money and time fixing what should have been done in the first place.

"I have a bad idea."

"Great! Let's make it best practice! Let the suppliers worry about it! What the hell do we care?"

[Soup DeVille]

"I have a bad idea."

"Great! Let's make it best practice! Let the suppliers worry about it! What the hell do we care?"

More like "it worked well this one time for this one particular situation, and/or its my own pet project and I really really believe it'll work, so lets have everybody do the exact same fucking thing. For everything even remotely similar. Every time. Forever."

[280Z Turbo]

Yes, pet projects are also a huge problem at GM.

[Secret Chimp]

It sounds like GM is kind of the Microsoft of the car industry.

[Soup DeVille]

It sounds like GM is kind of the Microsoft of the car industry.

GM seems to always have all these competing camps, and everybody is either going through the motions or trying to get a leg up on one of their coworkers. Not to say other companies I've worked with didn't have issues, but GM's seem much more endemic.

[MrH]

More like "it worked well this one time for this one particular situation, and/or its my own pet project and I really really believe it'll work, so lets have everybody do the exact same fucking thing. For everything even remotely similar. Every time. Forever."

Oh dear god.  This, times a fuckin billion, is GM in a nutshell.

It's just countless morons defending "best practices" they don't even understand.  People in purchasing trying to beat up suppliers who specialize in the product about what's "best".  I'm all for having standards and specs to meet, but they have to make sense.  Working once on something that was kind of the same is not reason enough to apply to every vehicle thereafter.

[280Z Turbo]

Yes, I'm sick of GM acting like they are the experts on automotive lighting.