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• Lutz: No Beat for the U.S., smaller CUVs on the way, Insignia stalled

  Filed under: Concept Cars , Economy , Sedans/Saloons , Plants/Manufacturing , Crossovers/CUVs , Chevrolet , GM , GMC , HUMMER , Pontiac , Saturn , Opel , Vauxhall General Motor's car czar, Bob Lutz, sat down with the little people of the blogosphere after GM's announcement that it would be reducing white collar expenditures by 20-percent, cutting truck production and eliminating retired health care for salaried workers over 65, all in an effort to boost its liquidity by $15 billion by the end of 2009. Maximum Bob addressed questions about GM's entire brand portfolio, saying, "Pontiac will be nourished with products" and confirming that GM is in talks with financial institutions about HUMMER, and that, "If we could sell the brand, we'd be interested in doing that." Predictably, much of the conversation centered on fuel efficiency and the General's plans to address the growing demand for miserly transport in the U.S. Lutz made it clear that "as... Posted Jul 15 2008, 04:53 AM by Autoblog Filed under: Crossovers/CUVs, BobLutz, Bob Lutz, GM, Sedans/Saloons, Chevrolet, Plants/Manufacturing, Economy, Concept Cars, breaking, Pontiac, general motors, GeneralMotors, Saturn, Opel, Hummer, GMC, Vauxhall, Beat, cruze, cruza

• Micro to become macro? GM looking at competing with the Nano

  Filed under: Economy , China , GM Click image for a gallery of the GM China Chevrolet Spark If everyone else is going to build cars like Tata's headline-grabbing Nano, GM's going to pile on, too. The Lutz cites GM's part-ownership stake in Wuling Motors, a Chinese manufacturer of sub-$3,000 utility vehicles as a possible source of a GM Nano competitor. Lutz went on to say that one way to make an inexpensive car for the developing world is to repurpose a legacy platform that has become obsolete. The tooling and design will have long been paid off, and there'll be plenty of experience from the manufacturing side, too. This is essentially what GM China is already doing with the Daewoo Matiz/Chevrolet Spark. It might smack of dumping an old product that isn't safe or clean enough for mature markets, but is "good enough" in other parts of the world. That said, it could also be a way to maximize the life of an investment while also providing developing markets with... Posted Jan 26 2008, 06:02 AM by Autoblog Filed under: BobLutz, Bob Lutz, GM, China, Economy, general motors, GeneralMotors, tata, lutz, saic, nano, wuling