GM product chief Tom Stephens celebrates Chevy Volt's win as North American Car of the Year, on Monday. Photo by Len Katz.
Where’s the sheet metal?
It’s been a good week for General Motors, which opened the annual Detroit Auto Show by winning the coveted North American Car of the Year trophy, something you’ll readily find reference to as you wander through the maker’s sprawling stand at Detroit’s Cobo Hall.
But things looked a bit different during an early morning visit to the Detroit Auto Show — now that the media hordes have largely left town and before the public files in. There’s surprisingly little new sheet metal to see. And that suggests that while GM may have come through the NAIAS with flying colors it could face a little more trouble during the rest of auto show season.
No question, things looked a lot better than they did in 2009 and 2010, when the maker was dealing with financial collapse and then struggling to rebuild itself as a new company. Volt’s victory only enhanced the perceived momentum of GM’s record IPO, in November. But the Detroit maker traditionally buried the Detroit Auto Show under an avalanche of new products and concept vehicles – including past-year offerings like the Volt and Camaro show cars.
The new Buick Verano was one of a handful of GM products debuting at this year's Detroit Auto Show.
For 2010, the pickings were decidedly slim: the big news from Chevrolet was the Sonic subcompact, the replacement for the unloved Aveo. Buick brought the Verano sedan, and GMC had the Sierra HD concept. All decent enough vehicles, but not the sort of showing one might expect of a company that once set the industry benchmark and hopes to regain its once-formidable stature.
Even some products one might have expected, like the Z28 Camaro, apparently weren’t ready in time to put on display.
General Motors CEO Dan Akerson acknowledged the reality of the situation in a conversation following his speech to the Automotive News World Congress, yesterday afternoon. Not surprisingly, the 2009 bankruptcy was a serious distraction at all levels and “delayed product development,” he acknowledged. As a result, “2012 and 2013 (model-years) will be more problematic for us in the U.S.”
The situation was made all the worse because, during the financial dark days of 2009, the maker chose to “concentrate (product development resources) on some of our growth markets.” That shouldn’t be surprising, either, considering foreign sales now account for about two-thirds of GM’s unit volume and an increasing share of its revenues. Arguably, its success in booming China helped carry it forward while the American automotive market collapsed.
But whatever the reason, and whatever the justification, the reality is that things will be short in the showroom and the showroom floor over the next couple years. And that could be a problem for a maker that is struggling to get its four surviving North American brands to pick up the market share it gave away with the abandonment of Saab, Saturn, Hummer and Pontiac.
Ackerson stressed that GM is “looking at accelerating some product” development efforts, so the coming gap might be as severe as it might otherwise have been.
For the first time in some years, GM has been hiring significant numbers of engineers. It announced plans to add 1,000 new staff late last year – but most, if not all, are earmarked for the maker’s electrification efforts.
During yesterday’s speech, the CEO said GM is committed to building a portfolio of not only extended-range electric vehicles, like Volt, but more conventional hybrids, plug-ins and even some pure battery-electric vehicles – the latter something it had until now seemed to be shying away from.
“We essentially want electric cars in all four brands,” Akerson said during the later “scrum” with reporters, “at least one model in every brand.”
That’s good news for those who believe in battery power – and Akerson , GM product chief Tom Stephens and other senior executives are clearly in that group – but the CEO also acknowledged that battery vehicles will likely account for no more than 10% of GM’s volume by 2020. So, more conventional products will continue to dominate the portfolio and sales charts.
And that means GM will have to have a lot more than battery cars on the show floor at the 2012 Detroit Auto Show or risk losing the momentum it seemed to have going for it at this year’s Motor City event.