Mach80Mako

In the past when the USA found itself in the chithole, GM stepped up. They were experienced in building cars, then decided to say "FVCK IT, We're going to build airplanes to bomb someone on the other side of the world".



My guess is the Wharton MBA types FVCKED this one up like they've been FVCKING everything up for the USA for the last 30 years. They even managed to destroy Boeing.

mbb

Go used car shop for ~ 5 -10 yr old vehicles, just for fun.
Stuff like clear plastic laminate on emblems and trim peeling off....still. headliners falling. Plastic trim cracking . dashboard cracking in the sun. Same as 1975.

​​​​​​I had a z71 that ran ok....everything else fell apart. replace so much stuff on that vehicle from windshield wiper modules to air conditioning control boards, to the switch that turns a light on when the door is opened . Interior was literally cracking apart by the time I got rid of it

GM truly still builds some of the lowest quality vehicles on the market. Nothing's changed in 50 years.

Doesn't matter for people who buy a vehicle for 4 years maybe and then buy another one. You cannot plan on keeping it longer than that. Which is the problem when you have to finance some for 7 years now. That could be a hundred fifty thousand miles on the vehicle, it's going to have all kind of problems before it gets to that mileage.

should have been let go under in 2008 and not bailed out.
​​​​​​

jbdba01

Partner up with HD and tell GM to pound sand. It ain't rocket science. PVC and some open source software and were done with these shenanigans.

https://www.gainesville.com/news/202...diy-ventilator

baypro21

Don't put me on some F'd Over Rebuilt Dodge ventilator, roll the mac daddy GM into my room.

baypro21

GM and Ford are volunteering/being asked because they have factories sitting idle. They are a manufacturer, they have resources, they have scale, it didn't seem out of the realm to me that they could re-tool quickly and start manufacturing something else.


My 1st car was GM, '79 Camaro. My current truck is a 2012 GMC 2500 w/ 6.0 gasser, awesome truck. Got a 2006 Chevy 2500 cargo van with 230k+ miles, a 2012 Ford 250 cargo van, a 2015 Ford cargo van, 2 more GM cars, and a Jag...all have been extremely reliable. Anybody shitting on GM or Ford doesn't know how to maintain or is trying to do stuff it's not designed for i.e. modifying the Ford diesel 6.0 was not a good idea but when left alone they will go 1/2 M miles. I cringed when my buddy bought a F 6.0 diesel yrs ago because I believed some of y'all on here. Turns out y'all were wrong and his Ford 350SD has been very very reliable but he didn't try to get 1000 ft lbs of torque out of it and break head bolts. I think I'll keep trusting my personal experience and keep buying GM and Ford since I can't trust people here anymore.

PeteVB

How do you re-tool an auto plant in a hurry to make a ventilator? I cant think of one component shared between the two, why wouldn't you go to the current ventilator companies and see how to increase capacity?

polarred21

Walleye Guy

Yesterday, either on Outnumbered or The Five they had talked about this and why Trump was pizzed.

According to what Fox said, GM originally quoted a price and a volume of what they could manufacture (a day, week, or month). According to Fox GM came back and severely lowered the volume and increased to price quite a bit.

True, I don't know if this is THE story and can't form an opinion. But I've had this happen to me on occasion at the company I worked for. People see huge potential $$ and they can't help themselves to quote such a low price, high volumes to produce, and a short lead time to deliver. Then my company changed their minds.

Then a guy like me has to go back to the customer and explain why we were so incompetent. Not fun for anyone.

kone

Seemed like a sketchy idea from the git go to me. Maybe GM/Ventec just figgered out that refitting a plant (idled for years no less) that made auto components into one that made ventilators would be more difficult and more expensive than they thought? At most maybe all they're guilty of is being too hopeful up front? Ventec folks probably took one look at the plant and said, "WTF!?" (paraphrasing)

As for the $1 billion number being reported, #1; the truth is in short supply. And #2; we are throwing ~$5 TRILLION at this virus dumpster fire, $56 billion at Boeing alone. What's $1 billion to build stuff we really really need?

Gotta be better candidate companies out there than GM or Ford.

JMO

OldPete

Read up on what happened to original GM shareholders... yet, the brand, the factories, and everything is still there.

GM is a sleazy. I remember when I got my 2006 W/T 1500 (half price, or I'd never own a GM-Junk product)... they were advertising "American" made with a huge US Flag in the bed...

My truck is made in America. North America, Mexico.

Those shareholders got the shaft...

I hope Ford hangs on.

jpcanning

TIRES, CAN THEY BE BOUGHT IN THE FOOD STORES ?

asking for a friend

LI32

I think the issue is two fold: the price GM originally agreed to is the same price that Ford is making the same ventilators (which is still somewhat higher than the actual manufacturers are selling them at) for and now GM wants something like double the price more per ventilator (which just seem like greed); and GM also said they could start production and build x-number, which was less than Ford promised, but still quite a bit, and now said they can only make less than half that number at a much slower rate.
Simple fact is, GM's management are fools/tools and stupidly bet Trump would say okay instead of just blasting them in public and via the War Powers Act put an overseer in place to force them to do so - which the act allows. You can bet that if GM takes federal dollars, Mary Barra will be "retiring" from GM this year as a condition of them getting those dollars.

kone

ok, assuming what you (and all the GM haters) say is true, or even close to true... why would anyone choose them to do this vital work in the first place? Wouldn't you know they are sketchy, greedy, anti-American, yada, yada? And now you force them to do it? Say no thanks and ask them to build hospital beds, partitions, or something, and find a company and location better-suited.

Just seems like a complete mismatch in every way, including, maybe more critical, Trump vs Barra.

ericinmich

Yamaha and Toyota don't make any electronics.

kone

Everything y'all are saying about GM could be correct. Then add the Trump v Barra angle. Why would you choose, then force, them to build these critical, highly specialized, pieces of medical equipment? Makes zero sense to me.

Ask them to make hospital beds or wall partitions (things that won't kill someone if they break).

kone

really.

LI32

First, I have no dislike for GM. Second, the Defense Production Act of 1950 (War Powers Act) details the methods for doing so, which can realistically only be imposed on large manufacturers that are owned by US entities. Third, GM, like Ford would be assembling the components into a ventilator, not literally making all the parts for them, and assembly is what auto manufacturers do best. So with all that in mind, it would seem like Ford and GM are the most viable choices - maybe the Act should be updated to allow the commandeering of foreign owned manufacturing plants like Honda's & Toyota's, but right now that can't be done under the 1950 Act.

ericinmich

They buy them from suppliers.

aquaholic23

How muck for the tahoe ???

kone

Good points. Very well could be. I thought a lot of companies were begging to help, foreign-owned and domestic. Maybe none were better suited than GM? Will be interested to see how Ford does cause, let's be honest, their cars aren't a whole lot better than GMs.