GM China Motors

[2SSRSinBama]

I would bet 7 out of 10 Chevrolet cars are made out of the US... why? 7 out of 10 vehicles being sold are in China... and it might even be higher than that, lol... the fact is, more and more Chinese people are buying cars these days, Chevrolet would be stupid to sit back and let that market go... they'd also not in ANY WAY be able to compete importing cars to China... why do you think the Japanese automakers made strives to get plants here in the 1990s? to cut down cost of importing cars

at the end of the day, with all these cars sold in Asia, guess where that money is coming back to: GM headquarters... and where at they? Michigan

not Tokyo City, Japan

as far as the "Union" causing this, need I remind anyone that Japan is FAR more organized with Unions than the United States.. or that during the GLOBAL economical crisis Germany came away with the strongest economy, and Germany is far more Organized(I.E. Union controlled) than any other economy on this planet, they are also one of the few economies that still exports more than they import

THAT is why our economy sucks, you can say the world is now a "global" economy or whatever, the fact is corporations have become so money hungry in a fight for profits, they've forgotten what its like to share the wealth... the days of turning to the lumber yard down the road, importing steel from a mil a couple hours away, etc... have long gone... sure they saved a few dollars, and in the process destroyed a damn Economy

we are not too big to fail, the strongest, baddest civilizations all through time have one thing in common: a fate of failure

we will be no different, doesn't matter who we vote in or how many times you pray... we're heading toward collapse, its not one thing that triggered this, its the cycle of life

[oortcloud]

Collapse? Hardly. I live outside the USA. Trust me, you have no idea how good you have it.

Brazil is in expansion mode, but still doesn't hold a candle to the USA. Of all countries in north and south america, brazil is #2 behind USA. But the total GDP of Brazil is worth 1 state in the USA. California's GDP is about the same size as all of Brazil.

IMO Brazil is not investing enough in its infrastructure. They have no major 4 line highways like we do. Huge parts of the country are connected by small 2 lane highways. This makes commerce much harder due to shipping problems. Not to mention it makes personal travel much more difficult.

In the long run I worry about Brazil's growth. It doesn't seem sustainable. I feel the same about china. They will peak at some point and then start a decline and not have the infrastructure and freedoms to sustain it like we do.

BTW my first car in brazil was a ford, and it was manufactured in argentina. I think GM makes cars here in brazil too. All the big car makers are all over the place now.

[camarozzzz]

I am not even American, but I want Camaros etc. to remain as American made cars...too many bad experiences buying cheap broken crap from China...

[oortcloud]

Another thing interesting about Brazil. A 5th gen Camaro is considered a luxury exotic import. They are extremely expensive due to import taxes.

A 2012 Camaro SS runs about $100k here. And that's no exaggeration. If you go to the chevy brazil website they even list the price there.

They love US made cars. Although I never see mustangs here for some reason

[tonyfred]

Originally Posted by camarozzzz

I am not even American, but I want Camaros etc. to remain as American made cars...too many bad experiences buying cheap broken crap from China...

You do know that Camaros are produced in Canada?

[TheHorse13]

Originally Posted by oortcloud

Another thing interesting about Brazil. A 5th gen Camaro is considered a luxury exotic import. They are extremely expensive due to import taxes.

A 2012 Camaro SS runs about $100k here. And that's no exaggeration. If you go to the chevy brazil website they even list the price there.

They love US made cars. Although I never see mustangs here for some reason

A 1SS is $97,415.34 in Brazil. Good lord...lol.

[SpectroBR]

Originally Posted by oortcloud

Collapse? Hardly. I live outside the USA. Trust me, you have no idea how good you have it.

Brazil is in expansion mode, but still doesn't hold a candle to the USA. Of all countries in north and south america, brazil is #2 behind USA. But the total GDP of Brazil is worth 1 state in the USA. California's GDP is about the same size as all of Brazil.

IMO Brazil is not investing enough in its infrastructure. They have no major 4 line highways like we do. Huge parts of the country are connected by small 2 lane highways. This makes commerce much harder due to shipping problems. Not to mention it makes personal travel much more difficult.

In the long run I worry about Brazil's growth. It doesn't seem sustainable. I feel the same about china. They will peak at some point and then start a decline and not have the infrastructure and freedoms to sustain it like we do.

BTW my first car in brazil was a ford, and it was manufactured in argentina. I think GM makes cars here in brazil too. All the big car makers are all over the place now.

Bullseye. Or, how we say it, "na mosca"...

[SpectroBR]

Originally Posted by TheHorse13

A 1SS is $97,415.34 in Brazil. Good lord...lol.

I think they're 2SS (leather seats), but no RS package - our laws for HID lamps are quite stupid.

[fbodfather]

Originally Posted by ss/rs-matt

I know, I know he is a polarizing person but he did fight for the working man in 1989 "Roger and me" film. He is still banned from entering GMs building in detroit for calling them out on laying off American workers. He grew up in detroit and his dad worked the assembly line at GM. Its a good film and should be watched with an open mind.

Fact is GM is a corporation and like most corporations they don't care about the working man, they care about wall street, period. We all bought camaros and in doing so helped the Canadian worker and lined the pockets of the top 1% here in the US.

I don't even know where to start with this one......

1. - he didn't do this for the working man - don't kid yourself. Good film? I won't change your mind......but it's pretty much like any M.M. film - full of half-truths and outright fabrications.

2. - he did not grow up in Detroit - he grew up in Davison, MI - an upscale community south of Flint, MI. I suspect he'd love for everyone to think he's just "one of the guys" and an "everyday kinda guy" -- (I've seen him in operation on a Northwest Airlines flight - trust me, your opinion of him would change in a heartbeat.....) He worked for GM for one day on the assembly line - and then quit.

3. I'm a working man. I work 7 days a week. I believe GM cares about me. That said - GM and every other publicly traded company needs to worry about wall street -- just as you, if you have a 401K or pension plan need to -

4. Yes - you helped a Canadian worker - just as Canadians buying GM cars built in the U.S. help American workers. There are no trade barriers with Canada - UNLIKE trade barriers that have been put in place by the E.U., Japan, Korea, China -- the list goes on..........

5. -- and you are wrong about the 1 percent.

The remark about laying off American workers reminds me of a headline that a local paper ran in Westchester County, New York when we announced that the Tarrytown Plant would be closing: "GM Abandons Westchester County!"

......at the time, over 70% of the cars and trucks purchased by the people living in Westchester County were foreign cars -- so - who abandoned who? Is GM and Chrysler and Ford supposed to continue to build cars that people are not buying and let them rot in a field? I realize this is a simplistic example -- but it certainly is food for thought.

Another tidbit: Honda is curtailing their shipments to the U.S. from Japan - why? Because it costs too much money to do so.......with the manipulation of the Yen vs Dollar.......


I don't mean to belittle you - but things are never as simple as they seem - and it seems in vogue to beat up Corporate America (...or America, for that matter) -- and it's half-truths and misleading information that only makes it worse.

[meissen]

Originally Posted by JusticePete

World's Largest Car Markets

#1 China
#2 USA
#3 Japan

GM is a global company. We know that GM and ALL USA based auto manufacturers failed to gain any share of substance in Japan. GM is doing GREAT in China. China is profitable business for GM. We should be cheering them on for their strategy and success. The USA is the 2nd largest car market. GM is highly profitable in North America. We should be cheering them on. GM loses money in Europe. Why? Bad deals with the unions. The labor cost is too high. They need to cut labor costs in Europe.

This is business in a global economy. GM didn't create this mess. The United States Government, with our votes for elected officials WE created a disaster for the working man. You can thank our Federal tax and trade policies along with the Sates. It started in Kentucky with huge tax subsidies for the first USA Toyota plant. Kentucky is not a big union state and the new Toyota employees would be paid half of what the UAW members earned and the cost of benefits to Toyota was a fraction of what the Big Three were paying. They had no legacy health care or retirement costs. The theory was there would be unlimited growth in the US auto markets so the Toyota jobs in Kentucky would be a net gain. It didn't work out that way...

No worries will sell cars in Japan. A six cylinder Chevy Camaro retails for $45,325 USD in Japan. A Camry is $24,000 in the USA. Is there a problem here with tax and trade? Our markets are open to the world and the world markets are not as open to products from the USA. When we allow imports into the USA we are not importing low cost goods. We are importing third world wages.

Ford was lucky to have mortgaged their future just before the xxit hit the fan. They did it because they looked at the books and knew that in another year they could not get access to funds at any acceptable interest rate. They were on the way to going broke. The huge loan was a Hail Mary Pass. GM and Chrysler were more financially sound. As long as they could move iron they would be fine.

This is a mess that was created by the US Government with idiotic tax and trade policies. Couple that with out of control union contracts that only made sense when Chevrolet had over 50% of the US market and you are looking at a crippled company. We can blame quality or management or numerous other factors but government policies and union contracts with features like jobs banks put GM in an impossible situation.

I am a hard core business man. If you win life is good and you make big bucks. If you lose you lose big bucks. Success and failure agree why we love to play the game. In theory I am 100% against the bailouts across the board, BUT when the government creates the majority of a company's problems the government owes that business. That is and was the case with GM.

The solution is simple. The USA should apply the same tax and trade policies we are subject too with foreign countries. I am not talking about being protectionist. I am talking about being FAIR. The base price for a 2012 Camaro is $23K in the USA yet it cost $45K in Japan. If the US treated a Camry the same way it would carry a $45K price tag. The Impala has a base price of $23K in the USA. Toyota Camry $45K vs Impala $23K. How many cars would Toyota sell in the USA? GM would have 50% of the market...

My numbers may not be dead nuts on, but you get the idea. As an electorate, we do not tell our elected officials to fix the real problems we face. Tax and trade should be the number one item on our list in this election year because it has the greatest impact on USA job, especially union jobs. We all know this election is about the state of the economy and the lack good wage new jobs being created. Stop nit picking GM and start demanding your elected officials address the tax and trade issues that have gutted the American manufacturing sector.

My grand father was born in 1895. He was a union organizer in the early 1900s in South Chicago. He and the rest of the working men needed union protection. They were under paid and working in unsafe conditions. His oldest son went to work as a union employee at US Steel in South Chicago. When he retired in the 1970s he was retired for almost two years and was receiving his full pay for sick days and vacation days he didn't use. His vacation time was up to 13 weeks a year because of his tenure My grandfather the union organizer would shake his head and wonder how the South Chicago Steel Mills could stay in business. They didn't.

This



became this



High labor cost. HUGE legacy employee cost. US Tax Policy makes it more profitable to shut down plants than to reinvest in plants. Low cost steel imported from low wage countries is allowed in by the US Government. The steel industry in South Chicago disappears. Retirement and health care benefits are cut through bankruptcy because of the way the laws are written. This was in the 1970s. Fast forward to GM in 2008 or the airlines or... The problem is NOT GM. It is not partisan. It is the last 50 years of terrible Tax and Trade Policies.

Here is an excerpt from the Automotive News.

DETROIT 2012 -- Honda Motor CFO Fumihiko Ike has acknowledged the automaker is losing money on its exports of vehicles from Japan to the United States.

“Our export business doesn’t make any profit” on vehicles shipped to the United States, Ike told Automotive News Asia Editor Hans Greimel in Tokyo...

So is Honda dumping? Are other Japanese automakers?

Whenever the issue of dumping arises, I recall an interview I did in 1977, back when U.S.-Japan trade disputes were a staple of reporting from Japan.

The head of Japan’s industrial fastener association was incensed at the United States, which was preparing to impose anti-dumping duties on nuts, bolts and other fasteners from Japan. I was interviewing him in his offices across the street from Tokyo Tower.

“We’re not dumping!” he insisted. “Because of the yen’s strength against the dollar, we may have to sell below cost for a while to maintain our market share, but we’re not dumping.”

Read more: http://www.autonews.com/article/2012...#ixzz1xjp6iIFe

Funny how we see the same problems for the 50 years and our government, the people of the USA do nothing to correct it.

How to contact your US Senator, Representative and President http://www.usa.gov/Contact/Elected.shtml

Very well put, Pete. Thank you for an EDUCATED response in this thread. The youtube video is pure bull, and as a GM employee that video makes me

[fbodfather]

Justice Pete - once again, your post sets the record straight - God Bless ya!


GM’s global policy is to “build where we sell.” The benefit of this practice lowers the cost of the vehicle for the consumer. GM does business in more than 120 countries. Roughly 70 percent of GM sales are generated outside of the U.S. In most cases, those vehicles are not exported from the U.S.

•There are no vehicles imported from China to the U.S. Every Chevrolet sold in the U.S., with the exception of the Spark, is built in North America. However, there are some vehicles (the Chevy Volt, Buick Enclave and Cadillac SRX, CTS and Escalade) that are exported from the U.S. to China.


•GM started doing business in China in the 1920s and exited the market following the 1949 Chinese Revolution. GM returned to the country in the late 1990s in partnership with Shanghai Automotive Industry Corp. (SAIC) and formed the Shanghai GM (SGM) joint venture (JV) to produce Buicks in China. Other auto manufacturers like Ford, VW and BMW are now racing to the China market in order to play catch up to GM's sales success.

•GM did not use U.S. government bailout money to build its manufacturing footprint in China. Since the bankruptcy, GM has announced investments at 30 U.S. facilities totaling more than $7.1 billion, which created or retained 17,800 jobs.

•GM emerged from bankruptcy as a more nimble and robust company. GM employs 77,000 people in the U.S. and 205,000 people globally.

•In order to do business in China, every manufacturer must have a JV partnership with a Chinese company. GM has strategic partnerships in 30 countries, including China, that positions the GM brand as a leading automaker in the world’s largest and fastest-growing automotive markets.

•Last year, a Chinese patriotic film, The Birth of the Party, was produced to recognize the 90th anniversary of the communist party. The film was sponsored by SGM, not GM. SGM is a company owned jointly by GM and SAIC, one of the world’s largest industrial companies. As part of the sponsorships, Cadillac SLS vehicles were provided to transport the crew and actors. These vehicles were not filmed in the movie itself. GM did not endorse the film and does not have operational control of SGM.


My question (note I said "MY" - this is MY opinion and not necessarily the opinion of the company for which I work...)

WHEN is our Goverment going to lay the law down and say to Japan and China and Korea and the European Union: "You either play fair - and open your markets to us - or we are going to put the same barriers and tarriffs on YOUR goods coming into the U.S. (and Canada) as you put on OUR goods......

VOTE congress and senate members OUT!

[meissen]

Originally Posted by fbodfather

Justice Pete - once again, your post sets the record straight - God Bless ya!


GM’s global policy is to “build where we sell.” The benefit of this practice lowers the cost of the vehicle for the consumer. GM does business in more than 120 countries. Roughly 70 percent of GM sales are generated outside of the U.S. In most cases, those vehicles are not exported from the U.S.

•There are no vehicles imported from China to the U.S. Every Chevrolet sold in the U.S., with the exception of the Spark, is built in North America. However, there are some vehicles (the Chevy Volt, Buick Enclave and Cadillac SRX, CTS and Escalade) that are exported from the U.S. to China.


•GM started doing business in China in the 1920s and exited the market following the 1949 Chinese Revolution. GM returned to the country in the late 1990s in partnership with Shanghai Automotive Industry Corp. (SAIC) and formed the Shanghai GM (SGM) joint venture (JV) to produce Buicks in China. Other auto manufacturers like Ford, VW and BMW are now racing to the China market in order to play catch up to GM's sales success.

•GM did not use U.S. government bailout money to build its manufacturing footprint in China. Since the bankruptcy, GM has announced investments at 30 U.S. facilities totaling more than $7.1 billion, which created or retained 17,800 jobs.

•GM emerged from bankruptcy as a more nimble and robust company. GM employs 77,000 people in the U.S. and 205,000 people globally.

•In order to do business in China, every manufacturer must have a JV partnership with a Chinese company. GM has strategic partnerships in 30 countries, including China, that positions the GM brand as a leading automaker in the world’s largest and fastest-growing automotive markets.

•Last year, a Chinese patriotic film, The Birth of the Party, was produced to recognize the 90th anniversary of the communist party. The film was sponsored by SGM, not GM. SGM is a company owned jointly by GM and SAIC, one of the world’s largest industrial companies. As part of the sponsorships, Cadillac SLS vehicles were provided to transport the crew and actors. These vehicles were not filmed in the movie itself. GM did not endorse the film and does not have operational control of SGM.


My question (note I said "MY" - this is MY opinion and not necessarily the opinion of the company for which I work...)

WHEN is our Government going to lay the law down and say to Japan and China and Korea and the European Union: "You either play fair - and open your markets to us - or we are going to put the same barriers and tarriffs on YOUR goods coming into the U.S. (and Canada) as you put on OUR goods......

VOTE congress and senate members OUT!

And another well educated response by the man himself. Thanks Scott, very well said!

And I wholeheartedly agree with YOUR question, to quote the ex-mayor of Flint -- "We need FAIR TRADE not free trade."

[tramtwo]

Originally Posted by The_Blur

GM has to make moves in China because China is the place to be for business. As a result, GM has to have facilities, personnel, advertising, and production over there to sell cars. In order to be over there, China has some requirements, including that GM have relationships with Chinese automakers. It might seem to the untrained eye like GM is getting too cozy with the Chinese, but the reality is no different than what the Japanese companies are doing over here. All GM has got to do is follow the rules in China and GM will make a killing. It's all good for American business.

This is the attitude that is killing us...

EDIT: And remember when we talked of human rights... I can make more money too if I was willing to look past the character of the people I do business with. But alas it is our own fault... Nothing wrong with the communist profiting from a little capitalism. Oh I mean... you get the idea.

I tried to go a week without buying anything made in China, tried REAL HARD... impossible. Sorry mom and pop.

[rez333]

Nothing worse than reading/listening to the rantings of a conspiracy theorist. 70% made outside of the US? So what – this has been the case for decades. GM produces cars in Europe, Asia, Australia, Canada, Mexico etc. for decades. The biggest car market is quickly becoming China, therefore if GM wants to survive as a multinational corporation, it must build cars in China for the booming China market exactly like the CEO said. Duh.