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From: http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=businessNews&storyID=6941719
General Motors' Swedish brand Saab needs more models and a clearer identity, GM Chief Executive Rick Wagoner said in a newspaper interview, adding that designing and building cars in Sweden alone will not work.
Calling Saab an "underperformer," Wagoner told Automotive News said the weak dollar exposed a flawed Saab structure of having costs centered in Sweden and Germany while 40 to 50 percent of its sales volume came from the United States.
"Second, having a robust brand with basically two entries that you really can't afford to update more than every seven to eight years looks like a tough way to compete today," he said in the interview conducted last month and published on Monday.
"My sense is they're going to have to offer a broader portfolio and they're going to have to rely on the GM family to provide the architectures," he said, referring to components shared among model families to cut costs.
"Then we need to bring more clarity around the specific advantages and positioning of the Saab brand. And so what we know now is if being effective as a Saab requires that you be designed, engineered and built in Sweden, we know that model doesn't work for us. So we have to come up with a more expansive model," he said.
His remarks come as the world's biggest carmaker works to cut 500 million euros ($662.7 million) a year from its fixed costs in Europe, a region where it has not made a profit since 1999.
GM is also close to deciding where to concentrate production of the next-generation midsize car to replace the Opel Vectra and Saab 9-3, a contest that pits the Saab plant in Trollhattan, Sweden against an Opel plant in Ruesselsheim, Germany.
"Generally our experience in the engineering cost, per hour of engineering, is quite effective in Sweden," Wagoner said, but he added that Sweden was neither the best nor the worst when it comes to manufacturing costs.
"The idea of them sitting up there doing their own thing isn't going to work. We do need to bring the forces of leverage to support the Saab brand. That's really been the direction we've been on," he said.
On other subjects, Wagoner declined to say how much GM was going to feel the pinch from higher steel prices.
"It's more expensive. They're going to feel some pressure. It's manageable in the context of a $170 billion business, but we're seeing some pressure on steel prices," he said.
He also said GM did not intend to cut back in North America the way it is in Europe, where it has said it may chop up to 12,000 jobs -- roughly a fifth of its workforce.
"I don't anticipate a similar type of solution in North America. What I anticipate us doing is a continuous improvement approach," he said. ($1=.7545 Euro)
posted by 198.103.16...
, Thu, 9 Dec 2004 10:45:01
, Thu, 9 Dec 2004 14:33:25
, Thu, 9 Dec 2004 16:27:45, Thu, 9 Dec 2004 14:40:56, Thu, 9 Dec 2004 14:42:23
, Thu, 9 Dec 2004 16:39:26, Thu, 9 Dec 2004 17:32:35
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