GM and its supporters have a mantra: product. By continually chanting "product, product, product", they hope the company's critics will believe that a string of hot cars, trucks, SUV's and minivans will pull the world's largest automaker back from the brink. While the argument ignores GM's sky high costs and decades of soured consumer relations, it sounds plausible enough. Chrysler's doing it. Why not GM?

For one thing, GM doesn't know how to sell a hot product when they have one. Take the Pontiac Solstice. No wait, you can't. Despite promising the car for summer '05, production problems have delayed dealer delivery until October. Ish. While GM wants props for selling no Pontiac before its time, you've got to laugh (or cry) at their incompetence. The company finally comes up with a blockbuster, generates massive awareness through a hit TV show, opens a special website for an "early order program" (EOP) and then… nothing.