Failure by design

Embracing technology. I see car companies who focus too much on specs. Ok, for me I would rather take a 2002 Camaro over a nice civic, but for the majority of people it is more about interface.

Make something innovative, I keep stressing to make the inside of the car more high tech. Make an LED / LCD dash, make it open source. The after market would love it, and people would too. Imagine a car, that allowed you to sync your ipod/zune/MP3 player with your car. Not only that but show your song and playlist on the dash. An LCD dash would allow you to scroll through multiple slow changing gages in the same space, opening up new areas for innovative ideas. LCD prices are cheap compared to the price of a car, implementing it would significantly alter the price of a vehicle.

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Well unlike Ford and Chrysler, GM seems to be making progress. Their designs are improving to the point where several of their cars are competing for sector dominance. They are not as reliant on trucks and SUVs as the other 2 domestic makers and are minimizing exposure to the shrinking market. Unlike Ford, GM is actually researching their own hybrid technology instead of buying Toyota’s. Hybrid technology, maybe not in it’s current implementation, is here to stay and not developing that core competency is a mistake. (more…)

With a win for Car of the year with the Saturn Aura and Truck of the Year with the Silverado, this has been an excellent show for GM. It is good to see that a domestic manufacturer who has made big strides over the years get rewarded a bit. (more…)

After investing in nearly 10%, 40+ million shares, in the troubled automaker Kirk has finally left GM alone. Many people first thought that Kirk was going to try and take over the board and boss management around. However, shares of GM slumped to $28 almost immediately, which in my opinion is way too low. Kirk’s sale is not a complete surprise. Kirkorian had been pushing for a partnership with Renault and Nissan for the longest time, but it was rejected by the GM board as being too one sided for the foreign companies. Carlos Ghosn was fairly receptive to the idea given Nissan’s demand for domestic manufacturing capacity and GM’s large surplus. However he was not too keen on Rick Wagoners demand for a large investment in GM and/or cash transfer. At these levels I am an investor in GM, I think GM will bounce in the very near future especially with Q4 earnings coming up in January and time to think about this emotional selling that is occurring.

Thiago Avila