When General Motors builds a car, they want to meet the specific needs of many customers. But if they custom-make each car, then it will not be economical.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
When I was at BMW and Aston Martin, I realized how difficult and how many resources it takes to create a car - let alone a car company.
I think there could be more experimentation if car companies didn't have to make such huge volumes. If you're making 300,000 vehicles, you have to play it safe. Ultimately, the companies want to make customized cars, and they are all working on ways to do that. Experiments with structural systems are usually about that.
Making a new car is so expensive that the risk factor is what takes the unique ideas and keeps reanalyzing them until they become very similar.
I believe there's still room for the dream a lot of people in the industry have - to design and build your own cars.
Our goal is to make General Motors the most valuable automotive company. Clearly, that is having sustainable profitability and driving great returns for our shareholders.
We need a number of solutions - we need more efficiency and conservation. Efficiency is a big one. I think car companies need to do a lot better in producing more efficient cars. They have the technology, we just need to demand them as consumers.
Some companies out there quote a start of production that is substantially in advance of when customers get their cars.
The hybrid engine costs a lot of money, and customers are hardly willing to spend so much more for a car.
Any car designer always dreams about designing their own car - if they say they don't, they're lying... For me, it was never about starting my own company just to make another car.
Well, as you know, General Motors does not make hybrids. Ford only made 4,000 hybrids last year.