Dear People of the World,

"Arch Duke Maxyenko, Shit Talk Extraordinaire" (arch-duke-maxyenko) 12/19/2013 at 00:11 • Filed to: Rant

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Please stop believing that GM doesn't have the technology to make an electric car that would be better than a Tesla or a world beating supercar. GM is one of the world's largest corporations with an R&D division that you could not fathom. To believe anything else is pure ignorance. The technology is all there, it just comes down to budget, as all things in life do. So, stop thinking that just because they made the Caviler, they can't build something better than anyone else.

JustWaitingForAMate > Arch Duke Maxyenko, Shit Talk Extraordinaire 12/19/2013 at 00:17

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When Tesla starts to drink their milkshake you'll see GM react, and react hard.

daender > Arch Duke Maxyenko, Shit Talk Extraordinaire 12/19/2013 at 00:19

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It's not the technology, it's how it's implemented and carried through. Also their past history with electric cars.

EV-1? Decent electric car, great testbed for ideas and concepts, did okay in the real world. What did GM do? Crushed it and lost valuable future research on electric vehicles as they get older. Also pissed a lot of owners off.

I won't forget when GM bragged about "230 MPG" and that stupid plug-face logo when the results were much less than advertised. I'm not saying GM's incapable of creating a good electric car but they have a good history of shooting themselves in the foot when they had great opportunities to succeeded (their "managing" of European companies for example).

themanwithsauce - has as many vehicles as job titles > Arch Duke Maxyenko, Shit Talk Extraordinaire 12/19/2013 at 00:21

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Having grown up literally a stone's throw away from the GM tech center, I can 100% confirm that GM has some of the most impressive R&D capabilities in the world. Whether or not the rest of the company listens to that group is another story. My mom used to work in the tech center as a buyer and so I got regular tours of the place growing up. Some little known facts

-The saturn sky was originally concieved as a four/five seater convertible before it became a two seater coupe and then a solstice clone.

-The colorado design concept was done as early as the late 90s. It was a black and orange (later black and green) truck conceived as the S10 "Xtreme" redesign but was shelved until the colorado/canyon came out.

-All those weird corvette concepts are only about half the story. THere are dozens that never got enough attention to be made into concepts that are equally as mind blowing. I saw a "Group C" vette for the streets in some drawings. I think I still have a copy of those sketches made during a "tale your child to work day". I also have the designer sketches made during that day of the venture minivan as they were using that day to get "child feedback" of some of their design ideas for layout and everything else. I miss those "take your child to work" days. It almost made work look fun. It was like a mini-NAIAS there were so many people and so many cars and so many displays........

Damn, just got lost down memory lane for a while.

Arch Duke Maxyenko, Shit Talk Extraordinaire > daender 12/19/2013 at 00:21

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They didn't crush them all.

Arch Duke Maxyenko, Shit Talk Extraordinaire > themanwithsauce - has as many vehicles as job titles 12/19/2013 at 00:23

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And don't forget about all of the universities that the work with.

beardsbynelly - Rikerbeard > Arch Duke Maxyenko, Shit Talk Extraordinaire 12/19/2013 at 00:24

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Chevy Volt is probably a better Prius.
Chevy Spark EV is better than an iMiev
extrapolates to
Chevy Camaro EV is better than Model S?

God, a Malibu EV would actually be interesting.

Satoshi "Zipang" Katsura > Arch Duke Maxyenko, Shit Talk Extraordinaire 12/19/2013 at 00:26

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It was still a good project, with a majority of them gone. Oh, and the few examples that weren't? GM pretty much told them not to start them up, ever.

Glad to see a few people giving Gritty Motors the bird.

daender > Arch Duke Maxyenko, Shit Talk Extraordinaire 12/19/2013 at 00:26

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Okay, that's true, but most of them went to the crusher and some of those remaining were stripped of their systems. Just saying they had a good shot at lots of long-term R&D by keeping that fleet going.

phenotyp > Arch Duke Maxyenko, Shit Talk Extraordinaire 12/19/2013 at 00:27

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Of course they do. They have had better tech than pretty much everyone since the 50s. And don't think they haven't stayed that far ahead. The problem is the market. No one who's spending big bucks on a car wants one with any of their badges. And they have some fantastic, world-class designers and engineers. They can't get past their customers, though— no accountant will greenlight a risky or potentially divisive concept. The TT was a fuck you car, a love it or hate it statement of intent, from a company that had had all but abandoned the US and would have been a less-than-Skoda in the euro market, and the stuck that like a flag on the moon and look where they are now.
GM still hasn't been able to do something like that.

Arch Duke Maxyenko, Shit Talk Extraordinaire > Satoshi "Zipang" Katsura 12/19/2013 at 00:30

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No, those who had the remaining ones could do whatever they wanted to do with them, OSU put their drivetrain in a race car.

Arch Duke Maxyenko, Shit Talk Extraordinaire > phenotyp 12/19/2013 at 00:31

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Exactly C.R.E.A.M.

Satoshi "Zipang" Katsura > Arch Duke Maxyenko, Shit Talk Extraordinaire 12/19/2013 at 00:34

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Actually, two universities from the grapevine ended up getting Cease and Desist letters reminding them of the agreement - to never, ever reactivate an EV-1 on the premise that it mars GM's image. No word as of yet if Legal action ever been pursued.

I know GM could try to make an electric car, but after the clusterfuck called the EV-1 went by... I doubt anyone would want one from them and them alone.

Icemanmaybeirunoutofthetalents > Arch Duke Maxyenko, Shit Talk Extraordinaire 12/19/2013 at 00:34

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Until they do, they haven't. Ability to produce anything doesn't mean shit :)

phenotyp > Arch Duke Maxyenko, Shit Talk Extraordinaire 12/19/2013 at 00:34

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No, it's... SSIICOCREAM.

Short-sighted idiots in charge of cash rule everything around me.

But Method Man would have had a harder time with that.

Manuél Ferrari > themanwithsauce - has as many vehicles as job titles 12/19/2013 at 00:34

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I agree it's all about what management does. GM has excellent engineers. Lack of engineering chops has never been their problem. Their problem has been the same as many other American companies - great engineers were stymied when the bean counters slashed budgets too much. When you give bean counters too much control you get crappy products. Because anytime a company is looked at only from an accounting perspective product suffers. The accountants don't think of customers as people. They think of them as numbers. Engineers and product people actually think about the customer. They want the customer to love the product. The worst thing that happened to our economy was the rise of the MBA mindset in the 1970s. The mindset was flawed. The MBA crowd thought that finance and statistics was all you needed to run a company. But you can't run a company with numbers alone - you need to be passionate about the products.

GM has learned from its mistakes and is cares about product again. That's why instead of this:

we have cars like this:

And we also get cars like this:

Arch Duke Maxyenko, Shit Talk Extraordinaire > Satoshi "Zipang" Katsura 12/19/2013 at 00:37

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Satoshi "Zipang" Katsura > Arch Duke Maxyenko, Shit Talk Extraordinaire 12/19/2013 at 00:40

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... Oddly enough, this is one of their offerings I have yet to hate with great vengeance and furious anger.

The Toyota PremiAqua is tied up there, though.

nafsucof > Arch Duke Maxyenko, Shit Talk Extraordinaire 12/19/2013 at 00:47

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So you are saying their mediocre stuff is on purpose and that they can build better stuff than tesla but don't? I think they were caught, just like everyone else with their pants down. I don't believe they have the emotion, passion or creativity to build a car that's competes with the model s. (I'm not saying they're not passionate or creative with the cars that they do well like the vette.) Or they would have. And no they don't have the tech or the elr would be better. It's the battery tech that they just like Toyota(rav4 ev as evidence) don't have.

Grindintosecond > Arch Duke Maxyenko, Shit Talk Extraordinaire 12/19/2013 at 00:51

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I have no problem with believing that GM can do wonderful things. The fact that with all of that wonderful R&D at their disposal that they CHOSE to green-light the Cavalier is what disturbs me. They CHOSE to build the colorado truck.

They are on the mend and on the right road but I wonder what they will choose to do next now that the Govt. is out of their boardroom. I hope they can do awesome and become a leader again. It would be a great thing and I hope to see it soon.

orcim > Manuél Ferrari 12/19/2013 at 01:01

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I agree that they have great tech, and that budgets were lowered "by bean counters". Relatives were GM Delco R&D types. I remember, in the 80's, when they had their prototype 1 wire (for power) to every switch and appliance in the car, but were using digital signals over and above the wire to turn things on and off. Think of how simple the gross parts (not sensors) of a wire harness problem would be? *swoons*

But a bean counter is subordinate to leaders, and leaders are paid to make bets. Accountants, lawyers and other support people advise, the leaders take the business risks maybe in spite of that, putting their bonuses in jeopardy and their careers. Safety isn't how great companies work (imo).

Krieger (@FSKrieger22) > Arch Duke Maxyenko, Shit Talk Extraordinaire 12/19/2013 at 01:03

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Meanwhile, my father thinks that GM (and Chrysler) is on its deathbed. In 2013/14. Really. Somehow just pulling Chevy out of the UK market and Holden's engineering side means your company is going under. But hey, he regards everything that doesn't meet his world view as heresy...

Manuél Ferrari > orcim 12/19/2013 at 01:07

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That's interesting how they had 1 wire prototypes in the 80's. Imagine what they could have accomplished if they had less models and higher budgets for each model..

Agree that it's the leader's job to take the risks. I think the problem is that too many accountants, lawyers, etc. were promoted to leadership positions. Those people are very important and have necessary skills. But most of them don't put product first.

Hopefully GM continues to improve as they have been. And hopefully other big American companies with uninspiring leaders get good new ones. Microsoft will have a new leader soon and hopefully for them that person will really care about product. A good leader will understand that marketing can't sell product on its own. Businesses and consumers need to actually want to buy the product.

153624 - Straight Six > phenotyp 12/19/2013 at 01:07

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I was very surprised when doing research for a paper to find that GM has often been on the forefront of safety equipment adoption.

phenotyp > 153624 - Straight Six 12/19/2013 at 01:15

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Ford was at the forefront of safety stuff, but GM was always ahead of the world when it comes to visualization.

themanwithsauce - has as many vehicles as job titles > Arch Duke Maxyenko, Shit Talk Extraordinaire 12/19/2013 at 01:26

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I went to one of those universities - Kettering. We have an EV1 in the basement. Be jelly :)

Arch Duke Maxyenko, Shit Talk Extraordinaire > themanwithsauce - has as many vehicles as job titles 12/19/2013 at 02:12

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I got accepted there for mechanical engineering, even got a merit scholarship, but they wanted way more than I could afford, and then they told me that they would only take 10 credit hours of transfer. So I went to NKU.

Arch Duke Maxyenko, Shit Talk Extraordinaire > nafsucof 12/19/2013 at 02:21

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Go back and re-read what I wrote. The go look all the GM R&D facilities in the world. Yes, the have the tech, but the budget people only approve so much when it comes down to production.

nafsucof > Arch Duke Maxyenko, Shit Talk Extraordinaire 12/19/2013 at 02:48

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I don't believe that they have good enough batteries to go more than the besides tesla industry standard of 100 miles. That's why they made the volt. It does a fine job but by no means is up to the same level tech wise. I do believe they have the ability to get there with all of the RnD they have but at current, if they possess the ability (read: have the tech) they are fucking stupid to shelve it. They have cadillac and a CTSe could be good but until they dedicate a platform to pure electric they don't compete. I could be wrong, but I don't see people cross shopping the elr and the model s. Having your foot in the water is not considered swimming.

What Gm doesn't have is new school thought and tesla has NO old school. That is the big difference. GM is evolutionary and Tesla is revolutionary.
I don't think GM knows how to think like a smaller more agile company that they are creating erasing Holden and Opel.

To finalize, I believe they have the capacity and the ability, but should consider just licensing teslas batteries like Daimler will and Toyota has.

AthomSfere > Arch Duke Maxyenko, Shit Talk Extraordinaire 12/19/2013 at 07:46

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The problem isn't capability... Its a century of group think. 50 years of watching what works, and then sending R&D after that to under cut whoever.

They could R&D a car to get us to the moon on a single tank of Coca-Cola if they desired... But only if Ford, Honda, Nissan, Hyundai, etc. did it first and the thing sold well.

Tom McParland > Arch Duke Maxyenko, Shit Talk Extraordinaire 12/19/2013 at 08:01

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As others have mentioned GM doesn't want to play with Tesla in the 70k+ electric market. No one wants to buy a 70k+ EV from GM even if it did have a Caddy badge on it. Now when the Model E comes out...GM will start to take things more seriously, and as will everyone else.

oldirtybootz > Arch Duke Maxyenko, Shit Talk Extraordinaire 12/19/2013 at 08:47

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I was reading about the Spark EV on Autoblog. That thing is a little monster.

Rico > Arch Duke Maxyenko, Shit Talk Extraordinaire 12/19/2013 at 13:42

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They do have a massive R & D division but they can only succeed if they don't let the bean counters interfere. Tesla set out to make a no compromise all electric luxury sports sedan that wasn't ugly as sin and succeeded. They didn't let the accountants say "NO!, put a 5" touch screen in there!" or "NO! It's can't be that luxurious!".