GM & Ford and India

This posted from Insideline…

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DETROIT — Chrysler and General Motors appear to be following Ford's lead in cultivating closer ties with India's automakers. GM is discussing the sale of its Hummer brand to Indian SUV specialist Mahindra & Mahindra, while Chrysler is negotiating a possible alliance with Tata, the Indian company that last month acquired Jaguar and Land Rover from Ford.

It would have seemed like a bad joke to even consider selling any premium mark to a foreign government much less India..Insert crude Joke here…

India is now one of the worlds fastest growing economies, and with its share of Billionaire entrepreneurs, and a possible perfect fit for an ailing domestic auto maker to sell or strike up an alliance.

You can’t blame ford or GM for trying to stake territory in a country with the kind of potential that India shows,my only guess is that both automakers would probably come to the negotiating table in a position of weakness and may not be able to strike the most lucrative deal.

Otherwise it looks like GM may be stuck with Hummer for a while and Ford

is still looking for answers to it’s financial predicaments.

Link

Chrysler to stop leasing programs

In what must be one of the unbelievable moves to come in a long time, Chrysler has made it’s intention to stop offering leasing programs for the their dealerships known.

While this is certainly causing reverberations in Chryslers dealer body its really not surprising to anyone watching the the worsening financial pictures for the automakers, and with resale values of large trucks and SUV's plummeting. it was only a matter of time until the leasing programs where reduced or pulled all together.

While leasing can be seen as one of the smarter moves of the Auto makers to improve sales and the various programs did. It was for the most part seen as a sign of the bigger problems facing the industry in general.

Over the last 15 years as cars have become increasingly more expensive and and the average salary hasn't kept pace new more creative ways where devised to increase the sales for the various manufacturers.

In other words, leasing is a way for people to Rent a vehicle that they would otherwise not be able to afford, but with many cars now costing the average consumer 20 to 30 or forty thousand dollars, there’s only so many ways to package money and make it work.

This isn’t just a problem for Chrysler,when other companies such as BMW need to increase sales and market share, finding ways for people to buy increasingly expensive cars and Sporty SUV's.

What's really needed is some lessons on better financial common sense and that may be a bigger mountain to climb  then the unaffordable price of cars.

The good old and care free days of free spending and eternal optimism may seem like a long time ago, buts its generally these environments that make for creative thinking.

Now's the time.

General Motors latest Powertrain center

GM let the press get a good look at it’s new powertrain center on Friday July 28th, with out getting into all the details I’ll just provide a Link

Autoweek…

GM unveiled the center in Pontiac, Mich., on Friday, July 25. It consolidates 1,200 workers from four other sites under one roof. It has 120 flexible dynamometer test cells--which test engines and transmissions, more than 100 stands to test components and will use 68 new calibration techniques. They will help GM chop an average of 10 weeks off its powertrain development process. GM expects to save $200 million this year from the streamlining.

While the economy and high gas priced continues to drag down GM’s profits, the company continues to streamline and reorganize.

It’s unfortunate that this kind of thing doesn’t make the local and national news, whenever one of the domestic automakers runs in to trouble, the media always considers that news worthy, but something like this which can only have a very positive long term impact on the company goes unmentioned.

Doom and gloom is always the first order of the day.

Jump to the story

Podcast coming soon

Well it seems that yours truly is a glutton for punishment, and though I don’t have  enough time to do all the things that I need to do I haven't been able to get past the burning desire to do my own Podcast.

Be forewarned, it will raw and unprofessional as I’m in unfamiliar territory and have yet to become acclimated to this kind of media.

While I’m somewhat late to the party, some people have already been doing this for quite some time and have already recorded hundreds of Podcast's, hey Sam Walton never considered the fact that Sears had been doing it for many decades before he opened his first store and I have my own style and way of expressing my self.

While dawn and Drew may have made it to the big leagues, I hope to just find that I enjoy this or this little project will be short lived.

Here we go.