Word: gm
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...when the first shiny white Buick rolled out of GM's new Shanghai plant, no one talked seriously about selling the car to China's millions of consumers. The factory would produce Buicks for corporate and government fleets, with a targeted annual run of 100,000 units...
Nearly four years later, the strategy is paying off: GM says its Shanghai plant is profitable, and China's entry to the WTO should now help open up its vaunted consumer market. By 2006, according to the agreement, tariffs on imported autos and auto parts will fall to as low as 10%, from as high as 80% today. Foreign automakers will have permission to distribute, sell and service their vehicles and to offer loans to customers. And the government has pledged to address the issue of regional protectionism, which renders a VW produced in Shanghai, say, twice as expensive...
...those years. Investors are taking hard second looks at earnings statements - or at least promising to - and manipulation-prone numbers like EBIDTA are being stacked up against more implacable measures of corporate health like cash flow. The result is harder questions and more skepticism - can, say, Ford and GM really make money selling cars, or are they relying too heavily on their financing operations? - and it's all coming at a time when the recovery, on the business side, will be built on earning statements...
...touches, like the jog dial stereo volume knob on the steering wheel. The biggest problem I had: it took several days to figure out how to set the clock. At one point I pressed the "OnStar" button that offers a wireless link to a central operator for nearly all GM cars these days, but the CTS is so new that even the technician at the other end of the line couldn't help...
...capability, and it's all better than ever. Finally, after a decade of producing completely reliable - but truly boring - cars, there are some interesting ideas out there. The CTS just happens to be the first one that made it into production. Bring on the revolution, and not just from GM...