The company made the decision as part of a strategic move to free up $6 billion annually. That money will then be used to invest in new technology, including electric and self-driving cars as well as a ride sharing service. By making these cuts, GM believes they can save $2.5 billion in 2019 and a total of $6 billion by next year.
General Motors is sticking with its plan to close plants and lay off roughly 15 percent of its workforce. Starting tomorrow, what the automaker is calling “Black Monday,” about 4,000 salaried workers will get the word that they have been chosen to go first. More
The layoffs are probably going to look a little something like this Watch
Do the right thing, obamamotors. Liquidate your assets and pay back the American people for your theft under Barky.
None of us will ever buy your crappy cars again. Ask Mahk.
If it wasn’t for GM I wouldn’t know how to repair cars.
..I’m old enough to remember when GM COULD make cars. The GTO, the 442, the ORIGINAL Cameros and Firebirds…yes, they had terrible cooling systems and you spent a LOT of money on front end parts, but they were high-speed, high-power conveyances of free and proud men that only had seat belts as an OPTION. Yes, they were steel inside and out and didn’t have “Crumple Zones”, but that was so, if you proved that you weren’t capable of handling American power, they could just hose it off and sell it to the NEXT guy.
…now, I go down the road, passing Chevy Volts and Bolts and Sparks and Sonics like they were kids pushing wagons down the road with one foot on the road and one knee in the wagon, puttering along in my way with their butt-ugly, paint-peeling abomination that couldn’t survive an impact with a medium snow bank at 10 MPH, and reflect on how easy it is to see A) what happens when a car is designed by a Government Committee, and B) why GM workers are gonna be pounding the pavement here in the very near future.
GM is just a case study of what happens when Government interferes with the free market to keep something no one wants alive. It only works as long as the Government KEEPS giving them money. The product remains unwanted and unable to survive on its own.
Can you imagine if the Yugo had existed during the Obama administration, complete with the Communist government that sent it to America? We’d still be driving their tin cans of death by Government mandate as Barry tried to use our money AND take our freedom to prop up the useless car line of a fellow traveler Government.
That’s kind of what he did with GM. They served his Statist appetites, so he used OUR money to help them live. With no incentive to actually make anything anyone WANTED, they just made what the Government prescribed.
And now, the current Government is not going to keep propping up their failure.
So long, GM, it was fun about 40 years ago, but now it’s over. You’ve become the Northam of the car-buying public, refusing to leave even though NO ONE wants you, so it’s just going to have to end in embarrassment for everyone.
Leave, or be left. Those are your only choices.
The $80 Billion bailout was used for what?
Built more manufacturing plants & vehicles in China to ship here.
GM went full communist by taking taxpayer money, screwing American workers and communities.
Never gonna buy another GM product.
Didn’t GM also steal money from their premium bond holders? A class action lawsuit from those bond holders would be nice. Good riddance, GM.
Prediction: The journos are suddenly going to love the “learn to code” meme again in a couple of days.
…I bet Northam only remembers GM for the acronym derived from PONTIAC…
From what I read, over 25% of GM’s North American production is now in Mexico and it has become the largest car manufacturer there.
I’m sure Mexico’s economy will be seriously hurt by these cuts, and probably the closure of Mexican GM factories as well.
I had a Chevy truck I bought new in 2010. Computer problems, oil pump, front end repairs for no reason then the paint started to go.
Got me a Toyota Tundra this year. I said no to GM because of the bailout.
Thanks Barry, Osama’s dead and so is GM
Dead to me.
My next ride is a Honda Ridgeline
I drive an old Pilot, best damn car I ever owned, and I put 70K minimum on it per year. Closing in on 300k and going strong.
Keep your overpriced money traps.
@ Supernightshade
GM has made its mark on automotive history. Of particular note is the Chevy Smallblock engine. (Ask Smokey Yunick)
https://www.good-guys.com/hotnews/smokey-yunick/
The NEWEST GM product I ever owned was an ’86 K10 Silverado, a flimsy piece of junk.
All my others were built between ’56 and ’71. Reliable and easy to work on if the need should arise. Parts interchangeability also a plus.
Anybody remember carrying extra ignition modules in the glovebox for GM’S during the late 70’s/early 80’s. I do.
Yeah, I remember them shutting down Chevy and Dodge dealerships if their ownership had a history of contributed to Republicans during that fiasco.
…I LOVED my ’73 Cutlass Supreme, @Tom Dually. 2 HUGE doors, 350 BIG block, 4 bbl carburetor, dual exhaust… it had a nod towards emission controls that were juuust starting to take hold then, but for SOME reason they weren’t on my secondhand car when I got it (although it was jacked up quite a bit in the back, with Cragar 60 wheels, so the previous owner probably wasn’t that worried about them), and since my STATE didn’t care, I never got around to putting them back ON for…some…reason…
…That car’s weight was just under 6K, but the way that plant moved it, you’d think it had a Laguna Seca pedigree. I can’t report the top speed that I ever achieved in it because there may still be warrants out, but it was…pretty toppy! And huge, so whatever was happening outside was WAAAY at the end of your fenders, so far from the cockpit it might as well be something you’re watching on the news about a foreign country for all it seemed to affect you in cabin.
…and, having had that and an Electra 225 among others (I had a number of years that I ran as a FF/EMT and the Buick made a hell of a response vehicle with the addition of some Code 3 lighting on top, I called it “Rescue 1/2” for all the emergency gear I carried around at high speeds in it, but that’s another story), and also having worked on cars professionally at the time, I can tell you that GM engine artistry stopped at the radiator, so you could run the heck out of these things but, no matter what you did with the cooling system it always ended up spouting steam like a malevolent basement dehumidifier, but they would continue rolling over anything and everything in their path like the juggernaut of Vishnu in metal armor.
…that’s what made looking at what GM did to this once-proud line during and after the Carter years so sad. And why the kids will never know what this marque once was unless they go to a Muscle Car Museum, where the cars look as much like their modern counterparts as a paper airplane looks like an F117, so they can’t even see what the one has to do with the other.
And neither can their current customers. Which is why GM will go the way of Sears and flail around a bit, maybe get some more of our money from Democrat Socialist down the road, but ultimiately it will go the way of the Hupmobile, although with less-creative names to remember them by….
I went to Colorado to hunt elk with a friend. We took his Chevy truck for the 1,400 mile trip. Before we left, he went to the auto parts store and bought a new starter, alternator, carburetor, distributor, fuel pump, water pump and other parts. I saw the parts and he said it was insurance against breakdown. We broke down near Fort Worth. It was the electronic ignition module which was one of the parts he didn’t buy. Luckily, there was an auto parts store within walking distance or else the whole trip would have been a bust. Screw Chevy!
I only owned American tin until the Army sent me to Germany in ’67 and I discovered Volkswagens were superior to the junk Detroit was pooping out. In 1979 I found that Toyotas were even better than VWs. Haven’t owned anything else since then, and I’ve never regretted it. I hate owning cars that need to be messed with all the time.
One of the earliest family cars I remember was my parent’s Chevy Caprice. We took that thing to a Ziebart in Gary, Indiana and had the seats covered with that clear, heavy vinyl to protect them. Gawd, what a nightmare that was in the extreme heat of summer, or the cold of winter.
Later, my dad had a ‘75 Chevy Cheyenne pickup; black, long bed, 4×4, lifted, chrome rally rims, 350 cid. That thing ran forever. Baddest truck in town at the time.
I was the proud owner of an ‘81 Chevy Citation, the first car I ever had cock roaches in, then owned a 1977 Pontiac Grand Prix (SJ model. The last year before they started chopping the bodies and sticking v-6 motors in them). Not a true muscle car even though it had a 400 in it, but a beautiful car.
I guess what I’m trying to say to the unfortunate GM employees losing their jobs is: just accept it, your job is not coming back. Begin re-training now for your new job in the emerging economy. Thanks, Obama.
“The last year before they started chopping the bodies and sticking v-6 motors in them)”
…and GM got pretty bizarre with the early EFI V6s too, @Ted Nougat, because to save money on making a V6 distributor, they just took the V8 one, put tangs inside on 2 of the contacts to make it one LONG contact in 2 places, and the “odd firing V6 (THEIR name) was born.
…you’re lucky you missed it. It was junk.
…when they went full-retard cheap like THAT to appease early Carter diktats about fuel economy, and kept it for YEARS, the handwriting was on the wall…
Of course, the Media will point to this and declare “Trump is killing the economy!”
The word obama is synonymous with all things that are shit.
Just bought our first new vehicle since 2001 – it wasn’t a big 3 model, either.
I had a ’68 4-door Buick Electra 225. The 430 ci V8 had plenty of power for that big ‘ol boat- smooth as silk and got decent gas mileage too. Rode like a dream and handled surprisingly well.
You could fit a 55 gallon drum in the trunk.
Don’t forget, when GM went bankrupt, Obama shut down non-union plants in right to work states. Union employees saw their pensions protected, non-union employees got screwed.
Having said that, my 2007.5 (pre-bankruptcy)Silverado Duramax is the best truck (or vehicle) I ever had. And I’ve had a few. Dead nuts reliable at 150,000 miles. And I still have my 1970 Nova SS (bought new).
Remember also their ignition problems (shutting off while driving) because it would have cost, if I remember correctly, 50 some odd cents per ignition to correct. They knew about the problem but didn’t want to spend the money to fix it.
@Tom Dually February 3, 2019 at 2:04 pm
> I had a ’68 4-door Buick Electra 225.
…
> You could fit a 55 gallon drum in the trunk.
Everything old is new again. The time has come, that all people, of good conscience, again, need vehicles that can fit 55 gallon drums.
Just a little while ago the federal Liberal Party wrote off the billion dollar loan the Conservative Party (when they were in power to keep Canadian plants open) gave to GM back during the financial crisis. I do hate the Libs but I guess I understand why it was time to get it off the books but I would have preferred them to take GM to court to try to recover the cash.