2nd step - restructure upper level management.

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@ 2007,

+ 1 million

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Third step, learn from mistakes and quit making the same ones you did in the 1970s.

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Because we all know, unions were the ones who made GM kill the EV1 and instead put everything into horrible economy SUVs.

How utterly stupid do you have to be to make that kinda comment? Did you know the union LOANED GM around a billion last month just so they could raise that $15billion and not go bankrupt? You should be thanking them because they're the reason GM exists right now.

Personally I would prefer if GM did fold, because they are a horrible corporation, horribly run corporation, and lack even basic sense to build a viable strategy that doesn't involve looking deaf, dumb, and blind. Their only hope now is to scrap Saturn and replace it with the EV1..sounds dramatic? Thats the point. If they're smarter than I'm giving them credit for, they'll do it.

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axiom,

I guess you think it would be great if hundreds of thousands of people lost their jobs due to GM going under. Brilliant, I tell you. Absolutely brilliant.

You need to get over the BS of how great a vehicle the EV-1 was. It was a two passenger vehicle with limited range that leased for over $700+ a month (in constant dollars). If the demand was that great, they would have continued producing them. The demand wasn't great enough to justify the expense. The myth of this vehicle is unbelievable. Just as the RAV4-EV went away, so did the EV-1. The only difference is nobody whines about how awful Toyota is for abanding the electric RAV4, which was alot more viable in the marketplace than the EV-1.

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Holden, people were willing to BUY ev1s. But instead GM crushed them all, instead of getting even more money for them. Why?

And yeah, they had limited range, that was fine for most people's commutes. So what?

They should not have crushed them, they should have offered them more places, and they wouldn't be in the situation they are in now.

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As the above comments say, there are more pressing issues at GM than just dissolving the unions.

It's easy to say the UAW have it easy but their pay is still nowhere near their bosses'.

Dissolving the unions will only hide the real problem at GM--the fact that its management completely sucks and misses almost every opportunity it finds, from the EV-1 and so forth.

And to Holden--the EV-1 sucked, but so did the Honda Insight. Nobody whines that Toyota ditched the RAV-4 EV because they replaced it with the Prius, which was more practical and better in every way. GM could have followed suit and introduced a Prius-fighter but didn't want to spend money on it because it wouldn't see immediate monetary gain. That says volumes about its foresight and knowledge of oil supply and demand.

Bottom line: GM couldn't see that a second oil crisis would occur at some point. It therefore made horrible decisions that left it with too many SUVs and few fuel-efficient models. It's management's fault, not the union's.

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Vintage,
There were people still willing buy to Studebakers, DeSotos, Eagles, Pierce Arrows, Cords, Packards, Oldsmobiles and Edsels among many, many other brands and yet they all went away. There simply were not enough buyers to support these brands nor the EV-1.

GM took a loss on every EV-1 they made, which means they would have had to raise the purchase price, which surely would have limited interest in the vehicle even further. People today act is there were a quarter million buyers standing at GM's door, waving money and saying please take our cash, we want EV-1's. It just wasn't the case.

The reason they crushed them was due to the fact it would have become impossible to maintain the vehicles without completely overhauling the electrical and computer systems in the car, making it extremely expensive for GM to keep these things on the road. This fact has been pointed out on autoblog previously when people have asked why they don't just put the EV-1 back in production today.

I would like you (or any of the other EV-1 disciples) to present the business plan that shows the EV-1 to have been a viable product for GM to continue. Please show the cost of continuing to bring the vehicle to market, what the sales requirements would be to reach profitability and at what pricepoint. Also include the cost for GM to maintain these vehicles during their warranty period and what the expected maintenance costs would be beyond that time-frame. It's real easy to look back over a decade later and say that someone should have done somthing differently without substantiating ones argument. I'm waiting.

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Vintage:
People were not willing to buy EV1s in reasonable numbers at prices that would allow GM to make profit on them.

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Holden: Of course there weren't 250,000 people lined up to buy EV1s, because they only made about 1000 of them. Leases cost $299-575 a month, not $700 a month.

What is retarded is that you claim they were destroyed because they weren't making any money, YET SOME PEOPLE WERE WILLING TO BUY THEM at the end of the lease. Instead of taking this money, GM crushed them all. How much did they profit from crushing them all? They DIDN'T. They should have sold them "as is" and provided no future parts. There are tons of 'abortion' cars, hell, look at my Subaru, look at the entire Isuzu lineup, but that doesn't mean that manufacturers took them all back and crushed them. Your 'motives' for lack of profit don't evne make any freakin sense.

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OMG, this EV1 nonsense AGAIN?

It was an experiment. It was never meant for full-scale production. It ended.

Let it go.

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Yes, it was an experiment. But it still doesn't explain why instead of selling the cars for 20-25,000 dollars each, they crushed them. It doesn't make any god d*** sense!

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They didn't sell them because they would have still had to support them with a parts operation... it is much much cheaper to just crush the cars.

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Vintage:
It's bean counting.

If you sell it at a loss, you have to take the loss. If you never sell it, you have some flexibility to hide the loss as R&D spending or whatever.

By crushing them instead of selling them, they made their books look better.

Was it the right thing to do? In retrospect, heck no. A loss would have been better than the black eye they took.

None of this changes anything. There was not enough demand at a price that would make the vehicle profitable to continue making the vehicle. This is the same thing that killed the RAV4 EV.

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Vintage,

Let me try to explain this to you once more. I'll type slow.

GM crushed the EV-1's due to product liability. What do you think would have happened when the computer system crashed or malfunctioned and there was no product support from GM because it was an 'as is' purchase? Can you get parts to keep your 1998 Acer desktop with 286 Mhz processor going? It's the same situation on a much grander scale.

Throughout 2001, GM had leasees asking OUT of their leases early, as they stated in their letter to leasees on 02/07/02. People loving their EV-1's so much that they wanted out of the lease early, "coupled with the increased costs to maintain these vehicles on the road" was why GM reconsidered the project. The EV-1 was a test that showed some positives, but not enough to warrant continuing the test.

As far as the cost of the vehicle is concerned, it was leased with an MSRP of $33,995.00. In constant dollars, that equals $47,409.92 in 2008. The original down payment required was $2900 or $4,044.38 in 2008 dollars. The monthly lease payment was $399 - 549, depending on whether you leased in the car in AZ or CA. Those monthly lease payments are equivalent to paying $556.45 - 946.94 per month in 2008. I'm sorry I confused you when I previously said the monthly lease payment was about $700 in constant dollars.

That said, let me ask again for you to substantiate your argument for the EV-1 with facts, not rhetorical BS. Once again, I'm waiting.

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Wow. Vintage. This may as well be your first post that I agree with 100%.

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