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The way to run an automobile company is by putting people who understand and love cars in charge. The bean counters, lawyers and political insiders have their place, but when they take over, there's sure to be trouble down the road.
They're going to care more about Wall Street and Washington than Main Street, and the poster child for it all is General Motors.
Back when Ed Cole became president of GM, it was because of his success in designing and building some of the most successful and beloved automobiles of all time — the Chevrolets of the late 1950s.
Just ask any classic car enthusiast. If you don't know one, ask your grandfather. If he's 70 or so, he either had one or wanted one.
Sometime between then and now, the car guys stopped getting the top jobs at GM, to be replaced by bean counters — people who supposedly put company finances first, but who never really understood the relationship between the product line and the bottom line, or the arts and sciences necessary to know or craft what the consumer really wanted.
As the overall influence of the engineers and designers declined, so did the company. Wages, pensions and benefits skyrocketed out of control, ever-increasing government regulation took its toll, and most importantly, the product line had less and less appeal to the car-buying public. Increasingly, people turned to other manufacturers.
Eventually, the worst-case scenario came to pass, and Washington took over. The pols just don't get it, the evidence for which is the man they put in charge — Dan Akerson, who came to the job with no experience in the car business, but the perfect resume from the viewpoint of the pols and bean counters.
How so? He had a Wall Street type job in charge of leveraged buyouts for a private equity company, but he was based in Washington.
Predictably, none of GM's old problems have been solved, and the product line has moved even farther from the goal of customer appeal. What matters to the folks in charge today is ideology.
In his new book, former GM Vice Chairman Bob Lutz recounts how prominent Democrats were adamant that "if they get our money, they're going to produce the kind of vehicles we want them to produce."
The result is the Volt, a car only left-wing politicians could love — and even they apparently aren't buying it. GM is still selling only a few hundred of the battery-driven Volts a month, less than a third the sales of Nissan's all-electric Leaf.
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Posted By: breakthebank(1825) on 8/11/2011 | 12:01 AM ET
I wont be buying another GM product, can't them to fix the AC. Its been 100+ temp for over thirty days, every time I get in my car I gots to punch (not press)the recirculate button, cause I can't get GM to make it a default setting. Even Dodge set it as a default when asked. I'd co-*** that stupid DA if I ever met him. customer service my A$$!
Posted By: czarrboro(7630) on 8/10/2011 | 11:54 PM ET
It's likely that GM will eventually fail again. No rational person would invest in such a company. Too bad but appropriate.
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