Dave Lewenz

GM Volt: Dream Car or Road to Bankruptcy?

The ability of GM to turn around its North American Operations is marginal at best. If you look at the product line and lack of American acceptance which is evident in monthly sales reports. Burning a Billion of dollars of cash a month, with falling sales numbers which has been the case for the last 60 months, demonstrates the companies inability to Wright it self to a profitable company. Now take a deepening recession that appears based on consumer spending habits over the last 6 months may turn out to resemble the 1930’s

What you end up with is a company that simply runs out of money some time next year, as the burn rate of a billion will significantly increase based on double digit sales losses for the foreseeable future.

The word BRANDING can be debated at GM is debated every day. But the GM Brand’s do not carry a positive thought in many American consumers eye. Turning around the GM brand’s will require a tremendous amount of creative marketing and money neither of which they have today.

Think about REASON TO CHANGE YOUR AUTO BRAND AS A CONSUMER? American foreign car buyers love their cars and continue to repurchase Asian and German brands. One only has to look at the beer wars between 1979-1990. Anheuser Busch spent billions of dollars to convert young Miller, Stroh, Coors drinkers, they were successful, but it took selling to a new generation and converting an existing consuming generation and 11 years to work.