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Trump prods General Motors over its auto plants in China

WASHINGTON — U.S. President Donald Trump, who is engaged in a trade war with Beijing, said on Friday that the largest U.S. automaker, General Motors, should begin moving its operations back to the United States. "General Motors, which was once the Giant of Detroit, is now one of the smallest auto manufacturers there. They moved major plants to China, BEFORE I CAME INTO OFFICE. This was done despite the saving help given them by the USA. Now they should start moving back to America again?" Trump said in a post on Twitter. Trump appeared to be referring to a Bloomberg News story that reported GM's hourly workforce of 46,000 U.S. workers has fallen behind that of Fiat Chrysler as the smallest of the Detroit Three automakers. Over the past four decades, GM has dramatically cut the size of its overall U.S. workforce, which numbered nearly 620,000 in 1979. GM did not directly comment on Trump's tweet. "GMÂ’s China operations are not a threat to U.S. jobs," the company said in a fact sheet, noting that its joint ventures have sent $16 billion in equity income to GM since 2010 and that it has invested $23 billion in U.S. operations since 2009. GM's U.S. hourly workforce has fallen by about 4,000 jobs since the end of 2018 to about where it was a decade ago. Trump's ire with GM comes as contract talks with the United Auto Workers union with the Detroit Three automakers intensify ahead of a Sept. 14 deadline. Trump has previously attacked GM for building vehicles in Mexico and for ending production at plants in Michigan, Ohio and Maryland and threatened to cut GM subsidies in retaliation. GM's decision to close four plants in the United States is a central issue in the contract talks. Trump has made boosting auto jobs a key priority and has often attacked automakers on Twitter for not doing enough to boost U.S. employment. His 2020 re-election bid will hinge on holding key industrial battleground states like Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Michigan that narrowly voted for him in 2016. China is the worldÂ’s largest auto market, and government policy favors automakers assembling vehicles there, and not importing them from overseas. In response to TrumpÂ’s latest tariffs, China said last week it will reinstitute 25% tariffs on U.S.-made vehicles. The U.S. is imposing 15% tariffs on more than $125 billion in Chinese goods starting Sunday. GM sold 3.6 million vehicles in China last year accounting for 43% of its worldwide sales.

No, Cadillac is not killing its flagship CT6 sedan

Mark Twain never actually said that reports of his death had been greatly exaggerated. But if the Cadillac CT6 could talk, those are the exact words it would use. Speaking to Jalopnik, Cadillac chief Johan de Nysschen confirmed, emphatically, "There is absolutely no plan, at all, to cancel the CT6." In fact, says de Nysschen, the CT6 will soon be the beneficiary of significant investment. "The [CT6] forms a very important part of our product strategy going forward for the brand. The car also has a very major contribution to make to the shaping of brand perceptions, and the transformational process that Cadillac is undergoing." For instance, expect the CT6 to spearhead General Motors' most advanced forays into self-driving automobile technology. Interestingly, though, the Cadillac ATS and CTS sedans probably won't live past their current generations as the automaker 're-balances its sedan portfolio.' Replacement models are "in development" right now, says de Nysschen, which will "much more clearly separate the market position, both in terms of target customer demographics, in terms of market segments and in terms of price points between these three sedan lineups." So, that's confirmation that the Cadillac CT6 is going to stick around for a while. But what of other models cited by Reuters to potentially be killed, like the Buick LaCrosse and Chevy Impala and Volt? Read our take on that here, but suffice it to say that we don't think they're in danger, either. Related Video: News Source: JalopnikImage Credit: VCG via Getty Plants/Manufacturing Buick Cadillac Chevrolet Electric Hybrid Luxury Sedan confirmed cadillac ct6

Why Buick's future lies in China

Back in the last half of 2008 and into 2009, when General Motors was looking at too much capacity for too few customers, when it was running out of money and needing to go to the governments of the US and Canada and to the UAW for financial support, its management team was pretty much instructed by the feds to focus resources on what would create the best likelihood for a return on the investments and guarantees that it was getting. Things needed to be cut, and not just the corporate air fleet. This led to the elimination of Saturn, Hummer and Pontiac and the sale of Saab to Spyker. What remained of GM's North American brand portfolio was Chevrolet, Buick, Cadillac, and GMC. (Oldsmobile had been shuttered in 2004.) There were a variety of opinions regarding which brands GM should keep/lose during the midst of the Great Recession. Some thought GMC should be axed, but then it was pointed out that GMC essentially produced high-content Chevys, which resulted in fantastic transaction costs. Lots of money in the back of those pickups. Others thought Buick should be eliminated. The rationale was: Chevy was the mass-market brand, Cadillac was the luxury brand, and GMC helped leverage the company's investment in trucks. (Yes, even back then the F-Series was winning the pickup sales race, so it was always a matter of adding Silverado and Sierra sales to show that GM was solidly in the game.) So what was Buick? Better than Chevy but not as good as a Cadillac? Somehow that doesn't seem to be a particularly aspirational position to hold. But Buick's identity didn't need to be worked out in 2008-09 because there was a single compelling reason to keep it: China. According to official GM history, Pu Yi, the last emperor of China, Dr. Sun Yat-sen, the first provisional president of China, and Zhou Enlai, a Chinese premier, "Either owned, drove or were driven in Buick automobiles." What's more: "According to statistics from the Shanghai government, in 1930 one out of every six cars on the city's roads was a Buick." Which is to say that Buick got to China early and has a major presence in that market. When the Regal Sportback and Regal TourX were being unveiled at the GM Design Dome the first week of April, Duncan Aldred, vice president of Global Buick, gave a briefing of Buick's place on the automotive landscape.