bt4

GM posted its 4th consecutive losing quarter

http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll...TO01/808010409

15.5B is a big number. In Feb. GM posted a 3rd QTR (2007) loss of 38.7B, the largest in automotive history. Those are some staggering numbers. It stands as a testament to just how huge GM actually is. It's hard to imagine any other company absorbing those kinds of losses and still being in business.

I hope they can turn it around. But, I think it might take more than a new Camaro to right the ship.

Zastava_101

Ouch.

It's amazing how much money Big 3 are losing, but they are still in the business.

Hollywood_North GT

Keep hemorrhaging like that for a few more quarters and it won't matter anymore; they'll be done.

Shame, cause they're producing the best products in their long history right now.

Shows what happens when greed and hubris are combined with shortsightedness and poor planning - which is what GM and Ford have engaged in since about 1990, if not sooner.

I suspect we'll soon learn if GM has already passed the point of no return.

Zastava_101

I don't think sales are the problem since they are still very high.

Problem is GM's and Ford's management.

jsaylor

No company can continually bleed money like this and remain solvent. And this is why I have been rallying against the notion that GM can build 'better' cars which don't make money in an effort to bolster their image. GM has to make money right now, and by this juncture even right now may very well be too late.

The most astounding part of all of this is that they keep making mistakes other automakers aren't and are only now showing that they understand how the market is transforming. They have as much as admitted that they were still planning to rely on the same basic V8's they began building as far back as four years ago to power a rather large number of their vehicles until the early portion of the next decade. And reductions in product plans for the Zeta chassis have likewise informed us, indirectly, that they intended to expand their lineup of large, V8 powered automobiles well into the same basic time period, and to do so by some margin. By all accounts these areas represent the bulk of their investment until very recently. Short sighted doesn't begin to cover it. Even worse? Every C segment and smaller offering currently undergoing development for the US market is being developed by GM's Korean arm meaning that they are all, effectively, Daewoos. Brilliant. One word Bob...priorities.

Of course, the truth is all of this was painfully obvious some time ago. But I will admit that I was caught by surprise when GM continued to travel down the path to oblivion well after the writing was on the wall. Wags and Lutz are truly idiots.

FLAstangx3

Hey, they are just waiting for the Government to bail them out, like do all other's. Interesting fact that only in North America are both companies faultering.

jsaylor

Yes, but arguably for different reasons...at least in some important aspects. Ford suffered through a couple of CEO's who were incompetent to say the least. Of those the most notable is arguably Nasser who was a complete disaster. He was a snob who somehow managed to become CEO of a brand he went out of his way to show disdain for, apparently viewing Ford as little more than a highly profitable truck company, the profits from which could be (and were) funneled into everything but bettering the cars made by Ford North America.

Every time you look at Ford Europe and wonder at the cars they produce realize that a decade or so ago they were ailing badly.......so badly in fact that their future was in jeopardy......only to be bailed out by profits made on trucks manufactured and sold by Ford's core North American operations.