GM Exec Questions
 

If you could ask Mark Ruess a question, what would it be? Serious only.

What car in the current GM line up is your favorite? How about the past?
Which competitor's car do you find most appealing?
How do you respond to those who say the rear of the C7 looks too Camaro-esque?
Why is Alex Villani spelling your name wrong?

I would ask him why Gm can't build parts to last as long as their foreign competitors?

A big one for me.

"How do you plan on changing people's negative predisposition surrounding the purchase of a domestic automobile given both the recent failures of the US auto industry and its inability to produce a strong competitor to best selling foreign automobiles?"

Does he consider GMs performance division to be open and mindful of those who wish to modify their new car during the development of a new performance vehicle?

When can the public expect higher performance models of the C7 to arrive? Any details he can share?

What are the biggest challenges he sees for GM in the near future?

Will GM be reinventing the Volt or taking a different path with regards to alternative propulsion systems?

How long does the public have to wait to find out pricing and specs for the Chevy SS?

Who were you targeting when you guys were designing the C7?

Will he be participating in No Shave November this year?

Can you hire Al and take him away from us?

This.

Though they might take a hard look at how Ford has turned around the public's perception of that organization - starting with the better-than-GM PR Ford got during the bailouts.

A great question when asked from the 80's to about a few years ago! I think GM, dodge, and Ford have upp'ed their game considerablly in the last few years after the restructuring and streamlining of brands (not agreeing w/the downfall of the bird but i get it). The past few years, the quality and material composition has improved greatly and even though i'm a pessimist i can honestly say the big 3 can make vehicle that can compete w/the likes of honda/toyota and lexus/bmw/infiniti. Its winning over the folks that were burned in the 80's by shoddy workmanship and unreliable cars..thats always the uphill and hardest battle.

My question would be: How do you expect GM to position themselves ahead of the curve??? To me, gm isn't always the innovator, but rather it waits for the market to dictate what to make or watches market conditions rather than set a standard or define a market. Gm waiting a few good years before releasing the retro themed camaro to battle the retro themed mustang. Market share was grabbed up and ford made a boatload of $ while gm was still working on the camaro and its release. We still don't have a great hybrid seller (volt is great in theory but the general public still thinks its an electric=marketing). The hhr was a waited release to battle the pt cruiser, when market share was saturated already by this competitor vehicle. The 130r could be a great car to do battle w/the scion brand (small car/early 20 something niche)...whats the delay?

What i'm asking for is: How does gm position itself to offer a new age cult vehicle offering that will break the mold? aka, like what the 1938 beetle was, what the vette was in '53 or the jeep willys back in early 40's? A model that is an innovator to set the stage and make the competitor retool?

I didn't ask this, but I will help you refine your question.
First, why do you think the US auto makers don't make strong competitors to the best selling foreign cars? What is your basis? Sales?

"GM has been very supportive of racing of their vehicles, and it shows in our warranty and our support by putting together better, well rounded cars."

Stupid question. Are you new to this? Shesh...
Corvette doesn't actually make it into production till later this year, so don't expect to see Z06 for at least another year, with ZR1 coming 18-24 months down the road. Remember that they have to space it out to keep the car in the news as well as freshening up the vehicle, on top of the launching of a bunch of different vehicles, such as the next Camaro.

Paraphrasing, because I had a question that was similar to this. "All four brands are growing in every direction, but getting our dealers to work with us will be important. I have worked at several dealers across the nation to see what we are doing on both the sales and service side." He gave an example that he noticed that a dealer near Bowling Green were doing a lot of diagnostic work on the 6T40E, so he came back and had people dig into it.

I had asked him something similar related to ELR and how that will effect Volt. "ELR has more power but similar range because of the lessons learned from Volt. As time goes on and battery technology improves, we will be improving the vehicle and refining it. We don't want to lose focus on this car as it represents a large technological leap over our competition, but we can't stand still. We will continue to move Volt forward"

No sure date, but as NASCAR opens up, we should hear much more info.

From the Corvette interview, "We talked to both current and non-Corvette owners and ask them what they wanted from the car. We had them sit in interior models to get a feel of the interior." and "the C7's exterior design theme comes from jets, which is something I really enjoy outside of cars. You can see the influence of stealth fighters like the F-22 and F-35's lines in the C7, especially when you look at the tail lights. We wanted them to resemble after burners. We also wanted to make sure that this car appealed to a global market, so we also had to pay attention to tastes from all around the world as well as how the car will handle day to day driving in other parts of the world."

People's perception of Ford has not changed because of bail outs but because of fresh product with global appeal. Regardless, GM's perception will rise or fall based on it's marketing. It's clear with the above questions that most, if not all of you, have a varying degree of negative to very negative view towards GM, and that's based on several different factors.

Ford has a bigger hole to climb out of, and still do. Not many of Ford's new products are performing at the levels of GM's new vehicles, but the perception is still that Ford > GM.

I guess being here makes me more of a nut-hugger for GM, but when most, if not every single question on here had a negative tone to it, I think it's more along the lines that most people on here just don't like them. And that's fine.
I just don't like the connotation that because I like a GM vehicle that I automatically like ALL GM vehicles, and will support them to the end of the internet.

He loves them all, but obviously he loves to go fast. I asked him which of the two cars debuting today does he think will have a bigger impact, the Corvette or the ELR. "Corvette is always great and we have done a fantastic job at making sure that the new car has all the tools to take on the best the world has to offer, but the ELR has a very different approach to the EV market that no one has done yet, at least at the price point. Both cars will mean a lot to their respective brands, but if I had to pick one...ehhhahh...tough to say."

As for the spelling, i guess Autocorrect? Who knows.

Good question that has been asked in various forms over the years.

"Our cars are very innovative! Look at our Volt! No one on the market makes a car that is that technologicly advanced, and no one could do it at this price point. If you look at what Nissan and Ford are doing, the are offering EVs, a car we did in the mid-90s, at the price we are selling the Volt, but Volt has none of the draw backs of having to worry about charging."

"In the past, we took way too long to get to market with vehicles, and when it showed up, it was past due. We have worked on slimming down product development and to make sure we can get to making vehicles quicker."

I would say that you could say that about every single brand. Ford doesn't have a Corvette type car, Chrysler doesn't have a Volt, Toyota doesn't have a GTR, Honda doesn't have a full sized truck, Nissan doesn't have a proper hybrid system. You could go down the line with every brand, sans germans because they love to copy each other, and someone is always missing something that another brand has done.

The Camaro story is a complicated one that has been well documented elsewhere. HHR was born from the same two guys that made the PT over at Chrysler.

That said, there are some huge holes in GM's line up that they should fill, and they haven't.

There is no Cruze coupe. Why? Did GM forget that they used to make compact coupes? Stupid. They have now made a Cruze wagon and hatchbacks for every other region but the US, but we still don't have a coupe? To make it more drastic, we are going to get a DIESEL engine in the Cruze before a coupe.

Why is there no hybrid car? Why? Because in GM's world, they think that going hybrid on a car that gets decent gas mileage already is stupid, but putting it into a truck that gets ****** gas mileage is better. There was a "four mode" system in development, but I bet your ass it was eating too much money and going no where, so in the end they end up making a car that steals sales from Volt. You would think that they could take what they learned from Volt and make a hybrid car, but nooooo.

Malibu is a little off. It's a good car and will make whoever buys it very happy, but the competition stands out much more for various reasons, and Malibu doesn't. GM realizes this already, and they are going to revamp the car within a year.

GM isn't going to give up it's addiction to full-sized, BOF SUVs any time soon, but will continue to overlap the Traverse and Tahoe when they should make a platform that offers all the strength of the BOF Tahoe with the ride, comfort, and space of the Traverse. Unibody design would be a must, but offering both V6 and V8 options.

There is NO midsized SUV. GM will say the Lambda CUVs (Traverse, Enclave, Acadia) fill that void, but they are too big to fill that void. Equinox is too small to slot up, so there needs to be something there to hit that Pathfinder/Explorer/Pilot/Highlander market.

Cadillac is still lost. What is it? What is the mission? You have ATS which was executed almost flawlessly, but then you have XTS, which is not a bad car, but doesn't fit in with the performance-oriented nature of the brand. SRx is a giant pile of dog **** with a nice interior. It sells on low lease rate numbers and SUV packaging, that's it.

GMC is lost in the land of profitability. As long as they make slightly different, slightly higher level Chevy trucks, and pull in tons of cash doing so, they will always be that. It's time for GMC to become something and go global.

There is so much more to talk about, but my laptop has 30% life left and I gotta interview more people.

Funny you say this. Without bringing anything up, a guy I was speaking with this morning said he would never support gm or mopar because they took bailout money. He said he would stand behind ford for doing it without any help. He drives a Toyota Tacoma.

Why wouldn't you expect a sort of negative tone? I actually see that as people caring about the company's well-being and hopes of them growing and developing into something bigger and better. Would you rather questions like, "How did you make such a great motor for xxx?" or "Where do you come up with your lovely interior layouts?" etc etc. That does nothing for company growth. Constantly challenging them to bring a better product to the market will only strengthen them and help them to better control the market.

Excellent point bigals87z28. To me though, gm invested way to much in the volt and will never get that back...marginally a few cents on the dollar. Was it bad marketing? Dare i say too advance yet for the public to adopt when hybrids are becoming commonplace only right now? Gm does do a lot of overlapping though..that is given.

Isn't the current Malibu essentially all new?

Assuming you are being sarcastic but how is this a stupid question? Yes I am aware normal practice is to release new versions of a model to keep the brand fresh. Maybe I am a customer not looking to purchase the new C7 until I know what may be coming down the pike and roughly when? I wouldn't expect him to spill the beans but maybe he will say something to continue the excitement?

Sales numbers, reputation, PR, etc. Not one quality specifically but an aggregate of a few.

There is a large population of people that will not even consider a domestic car. Ever. Japanese is more reliable, German is better engineered and more prestigious, etc. At my company we did a MR study on car ownership back when the Toyota recalls came out and stuff like that was in the results. I think we tested 1100+ consumers.

Could be due to the BS that went on in the 70s, 80s, and I guess early 90s. It's not really a GM-only type of deal; all of the big 3 are at fault. Could be because "foreign is better", just like with wine, beer, cooking, etc.

Any way you slice it, the proof is both in the sales numbers and also what you see running around on the road.

Now there's "Government Motors", bailout talk, tax payer support, and all kinds of negative PR. A lot of the general population has lost faith in the American auto industry.

I want to know what he is trying to do to reverse the trend. In my humble, non-auto industry opinion I don't think "building better cars" is enough.

If you are looking for a financial ROI for Volt, then you missed the point. Toyota, despite the Japanese government footing 70% of the bill, still doesn't make money from Prius. Why do you think there are 500 different hybrid models? Spreading the cost out to help gain some of it back.

GM's stupid, blind, half-retarded marketing team couldn't figure out how to tell the public what the car is. They over-complicated the marketing, and then it became a political part for dumbasses to point to.

The new Malibu is all new, inside and out. The new Malibu is a very good car (I suggest the turbo) but it's a B+ student in an AP class.

As usual, semi-sarcastic. GM doesn't talk about future product unless it's around the corner. These guys don't slip up on questions like that. You have to be trickier than that, sir.

To cut to your last point, what would you like to see? The people that are going to hate GM for BK or have totally left any of the Big 3 for ToyHonda are not going to change their minds, ever.
Building better cars is CLEARLY working, as GM was selling a lot of their great new cars right after they came out of BK, and they are still big sellers.
Ford is also seeing a big increase, as is Chrysler. The concern for the Big 3 is to retain market share. GM's retail share is dropping, but as of right now they have one of the oldest line ups in the biz, and the oldest car that will be sold by GM by the middle of this year will be Equinox and Camaro.

GM, Ford, and Chrysler have had major success at the hands of the American people helping them out. They have turned in profitable quarter after profitable quarter since the GFC.

Do you want them to have a "ballon" day for kids? The road to repair the images of the old Detroit is a long and tough road, and they know that. It's having generation after generation of solid, reliable vehicles that will regain that, while offering something else that their competition isn't.


I don't want to piss in everyone's cornflakes, but internally the 4th gen was regarded as a "failure" on a monumental scale. They openly refer to it as "an engine in a box" as well. The 4th gen design was put together by a bunch of surfer guys in southern California.

Now, they also wanted to capitalize on the retro-look, and clearly the design was a hit as it is the best selling car in its class. Clearly, it's the preferred design over the Mustang and Challenger.

Cadillac ATS-V specs? lol

I know the volt wasn't a model for profitability but GM will most likely scrape this platform early..not build upon/off it....and like the ev1 was an exercise in just throwing $ away w/out truely learning a lot from it.

How could they go retro w/the 5th gen by building off the curved lines of the 4th gen?? This couldn't be possible. What some 4th-gen guys need to realize that 3rd gen guys have figured out awhile ago is that it is quite possible that their model year (4th gens) aren't the greatest camaros ever made. The 4th gens did address faults of the 3rd gen in terms of fitment, hp and trans improvements etc. 5th gens built upon 4th gen faults even more so. ..etc etc etc.

Nope, not this time they aren't. Volt wasn't some exercise in trying to get by California's zero emissions regulation. No, this is an investment into future powertrains. Volt is just the beginning. The power generator mated to electric motor is the way we will be driving in the future. Volt just showed us a way that electric cars can be functional in our current society and infrastructure. Replace the 1.4 gas motor with a diesel engine, a turbine, hydrogen power cell, what have you, and that's what we will see.

5th gen builds off 4th gen by adding design, quality, more power, better standard equipment all around, safer, more fuel efficient....

The only thing the 4th gen is good for is so that they can supply powertrains to older GM and non-GM products.

XTS-V ever possible? like to compete with the big body amg mercs?

Nope, for a few reasons.
1) XTS is a hold over, something to make money till CTS can jump into that price segment and the LTS can slot above that in a few years.
2) Cadillac has said that they will make either a Platinum or a V version of every car. Never both.