History of General Motors

History of worldwide ramsThe Renaissance C write down in Detroit, Michigan, is General pushs world headquarters. General Motors Corporation, also known as GM or GMC, is the worlds second largest car manufacturer based on annual sales. Founded in 1908, in Flint, Michigan, GM employs approximately 284,000 people around the world. With spherical headquarters at the Renaissance Center in Detroit, Michigan, USA, GM manufactures its cars and trucks in 33 countries. Their atomic number 63an headquarters is based in Zurich, Switzerland.In 2005, 9. 17 unrivaled million million GM cars and trucks were sold globally under the following brands Buick, Cadillac, Chevrolet, GMC, Daewoo, Holden, Hummer, Opel, Pontiac, Saab, Saturn and Vauxhall. Early history General Motors was founded on Wednesday, September 16, 1908, in Flint, Michigan, as a holding come with for Buick (then controlled by William C. Durant), and acquired Oldsmobile later that year. The near year, Durant brought in Cadillac, Cartercar, Elmore, Ewing, and Oakland (later known as Pontiac).In 1909, General Motors also acquired the Reliance Motor Truck Company of Owosso, Michigan, and the Rapid Motor Vehicle Company of Pontiac, Michigan, the predecessors of GMC Truck. A Rapid became the first truck to conquer Pikes Peak in 1909. In 1910, Welch and Rainier were added to the ever-growing list of companies controlled by GM. Durant lost control of GM in 1910 to a bankers trust, due to the large amount of debt (around $1 million) taken on in its acquisitions. Durant left the firm and helped establish the Chevrolet Motor Company in 1911, with brothers Gaston and Louis Chevrolet.After a brilliant gestate pervert back campaign, he returned to head GM in 1916, with the backing of Pierre S. du Pont. Chevrolet entered the General Motors fold in 1917 its first GM car was 1918s Chevrolet 490. Du Pont removed Durant from management in 1920, and various Du Pont interests held large or controlling sh ar holdings until a bout 1950. In 1918 GM purchased the McLaughlin Motor Car Company of Oshawa, Ontario, Canada, manufacturer of the McLaughlin-Buick automobile, and renamed it General Motors of Canada Ltd. , with R. S. Colonel Sam McLaughlin as its first president.In 1925, GM bought Vauxhall Motors of England, and then in 1929 went on to acquire an 80% stake in German automobile manufacturer Adam Opel AG. Two years later this was increased to 100% and the company remains the core of GM Europe to this day. In 1931, GM acquired Holden of Australia. GM surpassed get over Motor Company in sales in the late 1920s thanks to the leadership of Alfred Sloan. While Ford continued to refine the manufacturing process to reduce cost, Sloan was inventing new ways of managing a complex worldwide organization, while paying special attention to consumer demands.Car buyers no longer wanted the cheapest and most basic sit they wanted style, power, and prestige, which GM offered them. Thanks to consumer financing via GMAC (founded 1919), easy monthly payments allowed far more people to buy GM cars, while Ford was moralistically opposed to credit. (Nevertheless, Ford did offer similar credit arrangements with the introduction of the Model A in the late 1920s merely Ford Credit did not exist until 1959. ) 1933 1958 During the 1920s and 1930s, General Motors assumed control of the Yellow Coach bus company, and helped create Greyhound bus lines.They replaced intercity train persuade with buses, and established subsidiary companies to buy out streetcar companies and replace the rail-based services as well with buses. GM formed join Cities Motor Transit in 1932 (see General Motors streetcar conspiracy for additional details). In 1930, GM also began its foray into aircraft design and manufacturing by buying Fokker Aircraft Corp of America (U. S. subsidiary of Fokker) and Berliner-Joyce Aircraft, merging them into General Aviation Manufacturing Corporation.Through a stock exchange GM took controlli ng interest in North American Aviation and merged it with its General Aviation division in 1933, but retaining the name North American Aviation. In 1948, GM divested NAA as a public company, never to have a major interest in the aircraft manufacturing industry again. General Motors bought the internal combustion engined railcar builder Electro-Motive Corporation and its engine supplier Winton Engine in 1930, renaming twain as the General Motors Electro-Motive Division. Over the next twenty years, diesel-powered locomotives the majority built by GM argely replaced other forms of traction on American railroads. (During World warfare II, these engines were also authorized in American submarines and destroyer escorts. ) Electro-Motive was sold in early 2005. In 1935, the United Auto Workers labor union was formed, and in 1936 the UAW form the Flint Sit-Down Strike, which initially idled two mark plants in Flint, but later spread to half-a-dozen other plants including Janesville, W isconsin and Fort Wayne, Indiana. In Flint, police attempted to enter the plant to arrest strikers, leading to violence in other cities the plants were shuttered peacefully.The strike was resolved February 11, 1937 when GM recognized the UAW as the exclusive bargaining good example for its workers. World War II General Motors produced vast quantities of armaments, vehicles, and aircraft during World War II for some(prenominal) Allied and Axis customers. By the spring of 1939, the German presidency had assumed day-to-day control of American owned factories in Germany, but decided against nationalizing them. During the war, the U. S. auto companies continued to be concerned Nazi Germany would nationalize American-owned factories. citation needed GMs William P.Knudson served as head of U. S. wartime production for President Franklin Roosevelt, who called Detroit as the Arsenal of Democracy. The General Motors UK division, Vauxhall Motors, manufactured the Churchill tank series for t he Allies. The Vauxhall Churchill tanks were instrumental in the UK campaigns in North Africa (ironically often universe used to attack German logistics units using Opel trucks). Bedford Vehicles manufactured logistics vehicles for the UK military, all important in the UKs land campaigns. In addition, GM was the top manufacturer of U. S. Army 1? ton 44 vehicles. 1 Nevertheless, while General Motors has claimed its German (Opel) operations were outside its control during World War II, this assertion appears to be contradicted by acquirable evidence. General Motors was not just a car company that happened to have factories in Germany GM management from the top down had extensive connections with the Nazi Party, both on a business and personal level. 2 American GM Vice President (later Colonel) Graeme K. Howard was a committed Nazi, and expressed such views in his book, America and a New World Order. Adolf Hitler awarded GM boss James D.Mooney the Order of Merit of the Golden Eagle f or his services to Nazi Germany. General Motors internal documents show a clear strategy to profit from their German military contracts even after Germany declared war against America. Defending the German investment strategy as super profitable, Alfred P. Sloan told shareholders in 1939 GMs continued industrial production for the Nazi government was merely sound business practice. In a earn to a concerned shareholder, Sloan said that the manner in which the Nazi government ran Germany should not be considered the business of the management of General MotorsWe must conduct ourselves as a German organization. . . We have no right to shut down the plant. 3 After 20 years of researching General Motors, Bradford Snell stated, General Motors was far more important to the Nazi war machine than Switzerland Switzerland was just a repository of looted funds. GM-Opel was an integral part of the German war effort. The Nazis could have invaded Poland and Russia without Switzerland. They coul d not have through with(p) so without GM. 3 Post-war growth At one point GM had become the largest corporation registered in the United States, in terms of its revenues as a percent of GDP.In 1953, Charles Erwin Wilson, then GM president, was named by Eisenhower as Secretary of Defense. When he was asked during the hearings before the Senate Armed Services Committee if as secretary of defense he could make a decision adverse to the interests of General Motors, Wilson answered affirmatively but added that he could not conceive of such a situation because for years I belief what was good for the country was good for General Motors and vice versa. newr this statement was often misquoted, suggesting that Wilson had said simply, Whats good for General Motors is good for the country. At the time, GM was one of the largest employers in the world only Soviet state industries employed more people. In 1955, General Motors became the first American corporation to pay taxes of over $1 bill ion. 4 1958 1983 While GM maintained its world leadership in revenue and market share throughout the 1960s to 1980s, it was product controversy that plagued the company in this period. It seemed that, in all(prenominal) decade, a major mass-production product line was launched with defects of one type or another showing up early in their liveness cycle.And, in each case, improvements were eventually made to mitigate the problems, but the resulting improved product end up failing in the marketplace as its prohibit reputation overshadowed its ultimate excellence. The first of these fiascos was the Chevrolet Corvair in the 1960s. Introduced in 1959 as a 1960 pretending, it was initially very popular. But before long its quirky handling pull in it a reputation for being unsafe, inspiring consumer advocate Ralph Nader to lambaste it in his book, Unsafe at any Speed, published in 1965.Ironically, by the same (1965) model year, sus aid revisions and other improvements had already tra nsformed the car into a perfectly acceptable vehicle, but its reputation had been sufficiently sullied in the publics perception that its sales sagged for the next few years, and it was discontinued after the 1969 model year. During this period, it was also somewhat overwhelmed by the success of the Ford Mustang. The 1970s was the decade of the Vega. Launched as a 1971 model, it also began sustenance as a very popular car in the marketplace.But within a few years, quality problems, exacerbated by labor unrest at its main production source in Lordstown, Ohio, gave the car a bad name. By 1977 its decline resulted in termination of the model name, while its siblings along with a Monza version and a move of production to Ste-Therese, Quebec, resulted in a thoroughly desirable vehicle and extended its life to the 1980 model year. In the 1980 model year, a full line of automobiles on the X-body platform, anchored by the Chevrolet Citation, was launched.Again, these cars were all quite po pular in their respective segments for the first couple of years, but brake problems, and other defects, ended up giving them, known to the public as X-Cars, such a bad reputation that the 1985 model year was their last. The J-body cars, namely the Chevrolet Cavalier and Pontiac Sunfire, took their place, starting with the 1982 model year. Quality was better, but still not exemplary, although good enough to survive through three generations to the 2005 model year. They were produced in a much-improved Lordstown Assembly plant, as are their replacements, the Chevrolet Cobalt nd Pontiac Pursuit/G5. 1983 2008 Under the controversial leadership of Roger B. Smith throughout the 1980s, a multitude of well-intentioned initiatives seemed to go awry at every turn. GM was losing money for the first time since the early 1920s as the legacy of poor management of the previous decade was taking its inevitable toll. vile product quality, labour unrest and lawsuits over unsafe vehicle designs wer e affecting sales volumes, which meant that GM was losing market share at an alarming rate, mostly to orthogonal automakers.Recognizing the superiority of the Nipponese quality and production procedures and practices, Smith set out to infuse their methods into the GM culture. He formed joint ventures with two Japanese companies (NUMMI in California with Toyota, and CAMI with Suzuki in Canada). Each of these agreements provided opportunities for GM managers to work alongside Japanese managers, thus learning their approaches, and taking this knowledge back to GM. Unfortunately the GM bureaucracy that opposed change influenced from outside was too strong and inbred, so the efforts of these managers as they returned to GM were essentially ineffective.Apparently anticipating this reaction, Smith also launched the Saturn Corporation, in which these managers could institute the Japanese system in a fresh non-GM environment. While all three of these facilities were, and still are, modera tely successful, the net result for GM was failure to accomplish Smiths enterprising goals. GMs profits remained inconsistent and its share of the U. S. market continued to fall. Ironically it was another Smith, not related to Roger, who took the reins of GM in the early 1990s, and succeeded where Roger had failed.Like Roger, his tenure began when GM was in dire straits, having just endured a very close brush with bankruptcy. Its losses were much deeper than they had been a decade earlier and Jack Smith was burthen with the task of overseeing a radical restructuring of General Motors. Sharing Rogers understanding of the need for serious change, Jack undertook many major revisions, of which the most visible to the public in general was the demise of the Oldsmobile division, an effort that took in total a full decade.Reorganizing the management structure to dismantle the legacy of Alfred P. Sloan, instituting deep cost-cutting and introducing significantly improved vehicles were the key approaches. These moves were met with much less resistance within GM than had Rogers similar initiatives as GM management ranks were stinging from their recent near-bankruptcy experience and were much more willing to accept the prospect of radical change.By the late 1990s, many archaic remnants of GMs history were falling away, such as the Oldsmobile complex in Lansing, Michigan and Buick urban center in Flint. This also meant a large reduction in the work force. After GMs massive lay-offs hit Flint, Michigan, a strike began at the General Motors separate factory in Flint on June 5, 1998, which quickly spread to five other assembly plants and lasted seven weeks.Because of the significant role GM plays in the United States, the strikes and temporary idling of many plants noticeably showed in national economic observations. In the late 1990s, GM had regained market share its stock had soared to over $80 a share by 2000. However, in 2001, the stock market drop following the Sept ember 11, 2001 attacks, combined with historic pension underfunding, caused a severe pension and benefit fund crisis at GM and many other American companies and the value of their pension funds plummeted.A weak U. S. dollar and private wellness care (as opposed to nationalized health care in other countries) costs also put GM at a disadvantage to its Japanese, Korean, and European counterparts In successive moves, GM responded to the crisis by fully funding its pension fund however, its Other Post Employment Benefits Fund (OPEB) became a serious issue resulting in downgrades to its bond rating in 2005. The company expressed its disagreement with these bond rating downgrades.In 2006, GM responded by offering buyouts to hourly workers to reduce next liability over 35,000 workers responded to the offer, well exceeding the companys goal. GM has gained higher rates of return on its benefit funds as a part of the solution. convey value has begun to rebound as of October 30, 2006 GMs ma rket capitalization was about $19. 19 billion. GM stock began the year 2006 at $19 a share, near its lowest level since 1982, as many on Wall Street figured the ailing automaker was bound for bankruptcy court.But GM remained afloat and the companys stock in the Dow Jones industrial average posted the biggest percentage gain in 2006. 5 In early 2007, GM fell to be the worlds second largest auto company, back end Japans Toyota, but regained the lead during the summer. Also, in June 2007, GM sold its military and commercial subsidiary, Allison Transmission, for $5. 6 billion. Having sold off the majority, it will, however, keep its heavy-duty transmissions for its trucks marketed as the Allison 1000 series.During negotiations for the permutation of its industry labor contracts in 2007, the United Auto Workers (UAW) union selected General Motors as the lead company or strike target for pattern bargaining. Late in September, sensing an impending impasse in the talks, the union called a strike, the first nation-wide walkout since 1970 (individual plants had experienced local labor disruptions in the interim). Within two days, however, a tentative agreement was achieved and the strike ended.