Editor’s Note: With GM’s S-1 IPO filing hitting the web today, every IPO and auto industry analyst is weighing in on the offering, and the state of GM. Here’s a collection of some of today’s more notable comments.
It looks to me that GM should be worth no more than Ford. If that’s the case, then the taxpayers will lose about 50% on their investment.
Francis Gaskins, president of IPOdesktop.com, commenting in the WSJ [sub] on GM’s IPO. More analyst commentary on GM’s just-released S-1 filing after the jump.
It’s difficult to compete globally when governments try to pick the winning technologies and the direction changes from administration to administration… the U.S. government is going a bit too far in trying to dictate the powertrain technologies of the future.
BorgWarner CEO Tim Manganello tells Green Car Advisor what he really thinks of the billions of government dollars that have gone into the electric car industry of late. And though the supplier boss clearly has a personal interest in non-EV efficiency solutions (namely dual-clutch transmissions which require some kind of combustion engine), he’s also got a point. Why is the government lavishing unproven (luxury) startups like Tesla and Fisker with hundreds of millions in federal largess, while doing next to nothing to increase the market penetration of proven technologies like clean diesel or natural gas?
I still don’t understand why they are picketing our dealerships when the dealerships have nothing to do with the workers. Our workers make the ultimate decision if they want to unionize or not and for the past 25 years they have said no… Our team members want to make cars for people to buy. They don’t like it when people try to stop you from buying.
Toyota North America’s Steve St. Angelo struggles to understand how the UAW’s tactic of picketing California Toyota dealerships will make Toyota workers anxious to join the union [via WSJ [sub]]. When asked if Toyota would allow the UAW into its US plants, St. Angelo replied in the negative, saying Toyota’s factories have a no-solicitation policy. But, as the photo above proves, this is the UAW we’re talking about, not the Mormons. With the future of the union effectively hanging on the UAW’s ability to make headway organizing the transplant factories, you’d better believe a fight is brewing.
When the New York Times asked me to write an editorial about the Chevrolet Volt, it never occurred to me that it would be published on the day that Barack Obama toured Michigan’s auto plants touting the success of the auto bailout. Because of this timing, however, my piece was apparently taken as a partisan attack on the White House… and it touched a nerve. How do I know? Because, according to the Washington Examiner, on the Air Force One flight back to Washington D.C., White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs joined a proud tradition that dates back to at least my first year of kindergarten: he made a Niedermeyer-based funny.
“Did you guys ever see ‘Animal House?’ Right?” Gibbs asked reporters on Air Force One. “Remember when they go, ‘Neidermeyer dead?’ I’d say his argument is largely there.”
I always feel a little trepidation about abandoning the internet for a weekend in order to focus on a new car review (2011 Jetta, coming soon), but never in my most paranoid moments did I imagine that I’d come back to find the White House press secretary comparing me to the villain of Animal House.
“The only reason we are not making money on the net is that I pay interest on the borrowings I took from the government and I have money in the bank to cover that debt. Actually, against the Treasury we owe them nothing. We have enough cash to pay it all off. But you can’t run a business without cash, so it’s just a function of our capital structure. If we had taken those funds as equity as GM did, we would have been making money, net, right now.”
When Chrysler’s CEO Sergio Marchionne took the stage over the weekend to honor Lee Iacocca with an induction into the Walter P. Chrysler Legacy circle, he admitted to feeling unworthy of honoring Chrysler’s most famous executive in recent memory, and called Ford’s Alan Mulally and the UAW’s Bob King to help share the honor. And being the business-obsessed type he is, Marchionne wasn’t about to let Mulally get on stage without at least a mention of Ford’s just-announced $2.6b profit. And though the recognition and ensuing awkward “moment” helped add to the usual Detroit gala hometown booster vibe, it also highlighted the fact that Chrysler still has yet to announce its Q2 results. Read More >
The walrus is famous for being immense, powerful, and oddly lugubrious, and for having a mouth that looks like Wilford Brimley after nine hours of cunnilingus. Ditto the Lincoln.
Vanity Fair’s Brett Berk channels his inner Robert Farago and comes up with one of the more memorable metaphors we’ve heard in some time. Word to Berk: PR folk don’t tend to celebrate the metaphorical marriage of the ridiculous and the sublime as much as… well, everyone else. As we’ve learned the hard way here at TTAC, sexually-tinged metaphors can get you cut off fromthe press car gravy train faster than you can say “flying vagina.” On the other hand, devastatingly accurate metaphors delivered with little regard for their consequences have a way of endearing you to a the best kinds of readers. And that, after all, is what this whole auto writing this about. Consider us inspired!
If you didn’t know, you might think it’s a Cobalt or a Camry. I don’t think there’s a lot of cachet in having the first one. It’s meant to be a people mover, not a people impresser. It’s not like when you pull into Bob’s Big Boy parking lot with the Volt, you’re going to open the hood.
I caught some flack from TTAC’s Best and Brightest for suggesting that Jay Leno was less than entirely impressed by the Chevy Volt when it showed up at his legendary garage back in December. Today though, Leno’s ambivalence towards GM’s wundercar hit the front page, when the auto-obsessed comic gave the Detroit News a withering reaction [above] to the extended-range electric car. Maybe next time GM will give Team Coco a try… Read More >
Ever since the Subaru brand was introduced to the US market as the makers of “cheap and ugly” little cars, it’s suffered from a tortured relationship with styling. From the unapologetically utilitarian to the downright contrived (hello, flying vagina) and right back to the tragically anodyne, Subaru’s styling has been as consistent as an acid trip… and about as popular with middle America. But now that Subaru is making headway with the buying public, its new stylist, Osamu Namba, tells Automotive News [sub] that it’s time for a change.
We want to broaden the appeal to make it accessible to more than a small, loyal crowd. We need to add a more contemporary element. We have to show the function through design with simple, clean lines. I want a very simple design that exhibits strength. I don’t want it to be just something serious and boring. A lot of people don’t know that Subaru brand. If we can make styling more accessible, it will bring them in
That sounds well and good, but where does Subaru even start going about building a consistent, coherent design language? We hear that Subaru’s Hybrid Tourer Concept is the best hint yet at the shape of things to come…
We have made a decision at the UAW that to do the best job taking care of our membership we’ve got to be out there in the streets fighting for social and economic justice
Newly-minted UAW President Bob King kicks off a “Jobs, Justice and Peace” campaign with Jesse Jackson’s Rainbow Coalition, by feeding the Freep some seriously idealistic rhetoric at a news conference announcing a march commemorating Martin Luther King’s Freedom Walk. But, as King confirms to Automotive News [sub], the best way to live up to these high-minded ideals is to demonize Toyota. Read More >
If you’re reading this article, that means Fuhrer Schmitt has figured out under what moniker this article should be filed under. As far as I’m concerned it should be a “Question Of The Day”, but it could easily slot into “WTF” and “Wild Arse Rumor Of The Day”. So, here we go… Read More >
Well, how’d you like to have a brand-new Chevrolet Corvette?
With that line, GM CEO Ed Whitacre keeps GM’s streak of giving Corvettes away to well-compensated guys alive in a speech at the Austin Chamber of Commerce. When Whitacre asked the chairman of the chamber and president of Tokyo Electron US Holdings Barry Mayer what kind of car he drove, Mayer responded that he drove a Lexus. That’s hardly a surprising response, points out the Freep, given that Mayer is the head of a Japanese company’s US operations. But it surprised and embarrassed Whitacre enough to drop some Corvette keys in Mayer’s lap and offer discounts on GM cars to everyone else in the audience. Because chambers of commerce are, after all, the truly needy. Besides, it’s just tax money…
In what amounts to a landmark policy shift, NHTSA now recommends that customers take quality problems in their own hands, and perform recalls themselves. Take NHTSA Campaign ID number 10V305000. Read More >
Nagare is done. After the 5, it’s highly unlikely that there will be another nagare car. Mazda has moved on
Mazda’s Peter Birtwhistle gives Mazda fans the brand’s best news in a long time [via AutoExpress]: the crazy design language inspired by the Nagare show car of 2006, will die with its first victim, the 2011 Mazda5. Mazda’s new direction?
[Becoming] more like a Japanese Alfa Romeo, producing cars which are great to drive, but crucially that also have the right premium feel, particularly inside.
Great idea. It would have been even better, say, five years ago. Better late than never…
Oh, one other thing, I think its maybe helpful to say what has been my track record in value creation – these are four of the companies Ive been associated with – its worth noting that every financing round in every company has been an up round, doesn’t matter if the market has gone up or the market has gone down, the squiggly line is the market, and the valuations are as you can see somewhat market independent, and I expect that to be the same for Tesla, or to continue to be the same with Tesla
Tesla CEO Elon Musk, in his IPO presentation [via Darryl Siry]. This, apparently, is the answer to the question how does a company that’s sold just over 1,000 cars think it’s going to become an industry player?
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