Customer service is a GM priority even as we reduce our number of dealers.
Just as GM has had to aggressively restructure its brands, nameplates and production to reflect business realities forced by the global recession, we are also working with dealers to reduce the number of U.S. dealerships from 6,248 in 2008 to 3,605 by the end of 2010, a reduction of 42 percent. This is a loss of 500 more dealers than we projected in our Feb. 17 Viability Plan, and four years sooner.
We believe this can be accomplished in a way that ensures our strongest dealers will be even more competitive, delivering the outstanding levels of sales and service our customers and deserve. We will keep customers informed of ongoing developments, including those who own vehicles by brands that will not be part of GM going forward.
GM continues to invest in future products and new technologies.
We recognize that our future competitiveness depends on fresh vehicles and technology leadership. Strengthening our balance sheet allows us to invest in the vehicles and technologies that will allow GM not only to survive, but thrive in an intensely competitive marketplace.
GM will continue to make significant investments in future products and new technologies, about $5.4 billion in 2009 and from $5.3 billion to $6.7 billion annually from 2010 to 2014. Development and testing of the highly anticipated Chevrolet Volt extended-range electric car remains on schedule for start of production by the end of 2010 and arrival in Chevrolet showrooms shortly thereafter. The heart of the Volt’s propulsion system is a lithium-ion battery pack that will be manufactured at a plant to be built in the U.S.
In addition to financial research and development investments, GM is creatively partnering with universities around the world - including the University of Michigan School of Engineering - to hasten the development of technologies that will help reinvent the automobile.
GM Europe and the Opel Supervisory Board are submitting a long-term plan for viability to European government representatives.
Please refer to GM Europe Facts and Fiction for the most up-to-date information on GM’s European operations.
GM's Saab brand is in the process of becoming an independent business entity.
One of the strategies that GM outlined in the Feb. 17 Restructuring Plan that we submitted to the U.S. Dept. of the Treasury was our intention to focus on four core brands - Chevrolet, Cadillac, Buick, and GMC, with Pontiac as a niche brand. To that end, we completed a strategic review of the global Saab business. On Feb. 20, the Saab Board announced that Saab would file for reorganization under a self-managed Swedish court process to create a fully independent business entity that would be sustainable and suitable for investment.
Saab is exploring all available options for funding and/or sale to a new owner. In the meantime, Saab will continue to operate as usual. Over the next year and a half, three all-new Saab vehicles will launch (9-5, 9-3X and 9-4X). Saab customers in the U.S. will continue to be covered under the 4 year/50,000 mile bumper-to-bumper limited warranty, and this coverage is absolutely safe and sound, now and well into the future. Saab dealerships remain open for sales and service.
GM is not using any funds from the bridge loan we received from the U.S. government to invest in our Brazilian operations.
This is a piece of bad information that apparently just won’t die. Something must have gotten lost in translation by a reporter who wrote a story that appeared in the “Latin American Herald Tribune” (Venezuela). That article claimed that GM is planning to invest $1 billion of U.S. federal aid money in our Brazilian operations; it subsequently spread all over the internet. This story is unequivocally wrong and has no basis in fact. None of the funding that we received from the U.S. government will be allocated to investments in Brazil, or any of our operations outside the U.S. Our Brazilian operations are fully self-funded. You can take that one to the bank.