Surely there was another brand that GM recently cut while saying it would support its former customers… was it LaSalle? Geo? Wait, no, it started with a “P”… was it Passport?

Production of Chevy Volt “integration models” began last week, as Hamtramck tools up for final production of GM’s wundercar, but GM still isn’t saying anything about the car’s two most important features: the pricetag and EPA rating. The General has hemmed and hawed on the Volt’s price over the last several years of hype, but it hasn’t ever been shy about touting an “expected” 230 MPG rating. Because apparently it’s the EPA’s job to clear up GM’s misleading marketing claims. So what is the deal with that 230 MPG number, anyway?

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Our oracle of Shanghai, Kevin Wale, president and managing director for GM’s China operations, is chickening out. “Anything is possible in China. We are very bullish about future potential here,” he said. And then he predicted that GM China will sell 2m vehicles this year, China Daily reports. Why is that chickening out, you ask? (Read More…)

Japan’s Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry is electrified. They think, next-generation automobiles will make up as much as half of the new passenger cars sold in Japan in 2020, says The Nikkei [sub].

By 2020, the ministry aims to have 2 million household chargers for electric vehicles installed, along with 5,000 fast-charging stations for commercial fleets. The ministry promotes joint development of infrastructure projects between the government, industry and academia to help pave the way for Japan to become the world’s most electrified nation.

People who make cars for a living have a more conservative outlook.  Privately, they think the ministry should lay off the sake. (Read More…)

Over a year now, the launch of Buick’s new LaCrosse gave us pause to consider the average age of Buick buyers, and the future of the brand’s demography. At the time, The Detroit New claimed the average age of Buick buyers was 63, a fact that gave the paper cause to celebrate Buick’s new lease on life. And considering that the brand once attracted buyers of an average age of 72, that wasn’t a bad trend at the time. Today’s DetN has a similar story, lauding Buick’s newfound youthful appeal with such quotes as this one from IHS Global Insight’s Aaron Bragman:

They are making definite improvements in the U.S. To kill Buick would have been crazy. It’s one of the most important brands in the Chinese market…. It’s still too soon to really come to a verdict on how Buick is doing in the U.S. But nobody can say those are old person’s cars anymore. Because they aren’t.

But this latest round of Buick-boosting is still based on the old reference point of a 72-year-old average buyer demographic. Compared to a year ago, Buick’s average buyer age appears to have crept back up again, as the Detroit News cites a current average demographic of 65.

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GM’s CEO Ed Whitacre has told the remaining employees that his purges of senior management are complete. “I want to reassure you that the major leadership changes are behind us,” Whitacre wrote in a March 31 letter obtained by Bloomberg. “The team we have in place today is the team that will take us forward.” (Read More…)

Chinese automaker SAIC has concluded its deal to assume control over its joint venture with GM [via the WSJ [sub]], and to keep its momentum going, it will be releasing its first hybrid vehicle this year. Reuters reports that the Roewe 750 Hybrid will be released this year, making SAIC the second Chinese firm to offer a hybrid drivetrain after BYD. SAIC may even deliver … (Read More…)

As if to confirm that GM’s  benefit obligation situation could actually be worse than today’s GAO report lets on, Automotive News [sub] is reporting that the UAW has sued GM over $450m in unfunded healthcare obligations for Delphi retirees. GM promised to fund a $450m Voluntary Employee Benefit Association for Delphi retirees in 2007, and Delphi’s bankruptcy court confirmed the commitment in last October. But, according to the UAW suit:

the UAW made a written demand that the company honor its contractual obligation to make the foregoing payment [last October… but] that UAW demand was rejected and since that time the company has failed and refused to make the contractually required payment.

That obligation apparently was not voided by GM’s bankruptcy, although The General’s spokesfolks have yet to officially comment on the UAW’s suit.

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My first day back at the helm of TTAC has been accompanied by an embarrassment of riches, in the form of both a GAO report on GM and Chrysler’s pension obligations, and the release of GM’s first post-bankruptcy, GAAP-approved financial results. We will continue to mine these documents for the most revealing quotes and statistics, but for now let’s take a moment to consider the political tensions caused by the auto industry bailout. TTAC has long held that political conflicts over the government’s stewardship of GM and Chrysler is a pressing concern, nearly on par with the financial ramifications of the auto bailout, and today’s GAO report confirms our concerns. As the following quote reveals, Treasury is under constant pressure to accommodate political concerns over the management of its stakes in GM and Chrysler, and has received no fewer than 300 official letters from congressional representatives, eager to subordinate the long-term health of the bailed-out automakers to their local concerns.

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GM has announced its “fresh-start” post-bankruptcy accounting results, and between July and December of last year, the bailed-out automaker lost $4.3b [press release here, full numbers here, in PDF format]. The loss comes despite $57.5b in global revenue, and $1b in “net cash provided by operating activities.” According to GM’s release:

The $4.3 billion net loss includes the pre-tax impact of a $2.6 billion settlement loss related to the UAW retiree medical plan and a $1.3 billion foreign currency re-measurement loss.

Of course, you have to dig into the numbers to find the bad news, like the $56.4b in “cost of sales,” or the $700m interest cost, or the 48 percent North American capacity utilization in 2009, or the 16.3 percent US car market share. Which is why we’ve included the consolidated statement of operations, consolidated balance sheets and more, for your no-download-necessary perusal, after the jump.

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It would be impossible to blame Detroit’s decades-long decline on a single factor, but if one were to make a list, defined pension obligations to workers would be somewhere very near the top. Thanks in large part to the unionization of America’s auto industry, Detroit has groaned under the weight of crushing pension obligations since time immemorial. And, according to a new report by the Goveernment Accountability Office [full report in PDF format available here], last year’s bailout of GM and Chrysler has not eliminated the existential threat that these obligations pose to the industry. In fact, the taxpayer’s “investment” in GM and Chrysler appears only to have exposed the public to even an greater risk of catastrophic pension plan failure.

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When you are a Chinese car company, especially one that is mostly government owned, reporting profits is not one of your prime objectives. As long as you don’t lose money hand over fist, as long as you provide jobs for many people, as long as you grow in market share and influence, having money left over is sometimes just a (taxable) nuisance. But in times like these, it’s unavoidable. And it doesn’t hurt your stock when you are a publicly traded company. Shanghai Automotive Industry Corporation, better known as SAIC, has announced that their net profit for 2009 jumped 900 percent from the previous year, reaching a record of nearly $1b ($966m, to be exact.) (Read More…)

It’s that time of the month again: In the first days of the month, market observers in China eagerly await the GM China sales number. GM usually is first to report. What’s more, GM is the canary in the (ooops) Chinese coal mine, a very good indicator for the overall market. Looking back at March, that canary happily tweets that GM’s March sales in China, including Wuling vans, accelerated 68 percent to 230,048 units. Shanghai GM’s sales of Buicks, Chevys, and a few Cadillacs rose 89 percent annually to 86,967 units. That according to Associated Press. This is another record Middle Kingdom month for GM, the 15^th in a row, and it indicates a March surprise for the Chinese market. (Read More…)

The literal answer is that it’s not the very last vehicle built at NUMMI. A red Corolla had that honor, but this is the very last Tacoma to be built by the UAW. And with that, the grand experiment between GM and Toyota is over. Could anyone have guessed way back in 1984 that the joint venture would eventually fall victim to a GM bankruptcy and Toyota overreach? Perhaps a few, but then who can say  what firm, or even what industry, will be busying NUMMI’s production floors 26 years from now? The times, they are a-changing.

With the industry locked in the first incentive war of 2010, analysts have been predicting big sales numbers for March (especially in comparison with March 2009’s weak sales), and GM did not disappoint [sales spreadsheet available here in XLS format]. The General got big numbers out of its newest models [press release here], with the Buick LaCross selling over 6k units, the Cadillac SRX topping 4k, Camaro coming up just shy of 9k units and Equinox moving 12,805. By brand, Buick improved its sales by nearly 76 percent over February 2009, Cadillac bucked its underperformance, ending up 41.8 percent, Chevy added 40 percent and GMC was up 45 percent.

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