QOTD: Do You Care About GM's Move?

by Tim Healey

Published: April 18th, 2024

Normally, when a large, well-known company moves its headquarters, it's pretty big news.

That's because in many cases, the company is moving across the country, or perhaps from the city to the suburbs.

However, General Motors announced a move earlier this week and it seems like it's been met with a shrug.

That's because in this case, GM is moving just a few blocks.

It's not like Boeing bouncing from Seattle to Chicago to Virginia, or even United Airlines decamping Chicago for its suburbs (or McDonald's, which moved from Chicago's suburbs to the city proper). The General is moving just a mile.

But it does mean that GM will be leaving one of the most recognizable buildings on the Detroit skyline. Not only does the Renaissance Center, uh, center the skyline when viewed from certain angles, but it's interesting inside, as well.

And for visitors, infuriating -- it's an easy building to get lost in. Also, the Marriott's heating system seemed to struggle with Michigan winters during some of my auto-show visits. So maybe the new office will be friendlier to outsiders, let alone GM corporate employees.

I guess I will miss the RenCen in some ways, but I can't bring myself to care too much otherwise. If GM left Detroit for NYC, or even for Ann Arbor, I might struggle to get my head around it. But regardless of what I think of the RenCen complex, I can't get too upset about GM moving just a 15-minute walk away.

The question I ask of you, especially those of you who live in the Detroit metro and/or have connections to GM, does this matter to you? Or is it such a small move that it doesn't really matter?

Sound off below.

[Image: GM]

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Tim Healey

Tim Healey grew up around the auto-parts business and has always had a love for cars — his parents joke his first word was “‘Vette”. Despite this, he wanted to pursue a career in sports writing but he ended up falling semi-accidentally into the automotive-journalism industry, first at Consumer Guide Automotive and later at Web2Carz.com. He also worked as an industry analyst at Mintel Group and freelanced for About.com, CarFax, Vehix.com, High Gear Media, Torque News, FutureCar.com, Cars.com, among others, and of course Vertical Scope sites such as AutoGuide.com, Off-Road.com, and HybridCars.com. He’s an urbanite and as such, doesn’t need a daily driver, but if he had one, it would be compact, sporty, and have a manual transmission.

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5 of 80 comments

Groza George on Apr 19, 2024

I don’t care about GM’s anything. They have not had anything of interest or of reasonable quality in a generation and now solely stay on business to provide UAW retirement while they slowly move production to Mexico.

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- Jeff on Apr 19, 2024
  
  Years ago I worked with a career gm employee who use to refer to gm as "Generous Motors".
  
  1
- Namesakeone on Apr 20, 2024
  
  Jeff, I remember the "Generous Motors" reference as well. Those days are, as you know, long gone; I would believe that "the new GM" (or is it gm?) is generous to its senior executives and attorneys only.
  
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- RHD on Apr 21, 2024
  
  In my experience, GM stands for "Generally Mediocre". They have brought about their steadily shrinking market share from decades of below average quality. Not everything that GM built was bad, of course, but enough were to turn a very significant number of potential buyers to other automakers.
  
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Socrates77 on Apr 20, 2024

They're pinching pennies for the investors like always, greed has turned GM into a joke of an old corporate American greed.

1 Reply

Recent Comments

Bouzouki Cadillac (aka GM!!) made so many mistakes over the past 40 years, right up to today, one could make a MBA course of it. Others have alluded to them, there is not enough room for me to recite them in a flowing, cohesive manner.Cadillac today is literally a tarted-up Chevrolet. They are nice cars, and the "aura" of the Cadillac name still works on several (mostly female) consumers who are not car enthusiasts.The CT4 and CT5 offer superlative ride and handling, and even performance--but, it is wrapped in sheet metal that (at least I think) looks awful, with (still) sub-par interiors. They are niche cars. They are the last gasp of the Alpha platform--which I have been told by people close to it, was meant to be a Pontiac "BMW 3-series". The bankruptcy killed Pontiac, but the Alpha had been mostly engineered, so it was "Cadillac-ized" with the new "edgy" CTS styling.Most Cadillacs sold are crossovers. The most profitable "Cadillac" is the Escalade (note that GM never jack up the name on THAT!).The question posed here is rather irrelevant. NO ONE has "a blank check", because GM (any company or corporation) does not have bottomless resources.Better styling, and superlative "performance" (by that, I mean being among the best in noise, harshness, handling, performance, reliablity, quality) would cost a lot of money.Post-bankruptcy GM actually tried. No one here mentioned GM's effort to do just that: the "Omega" platform, aka CT6.The (horribly misnamed) CT6 was actually a credible Mercedes/Lexus competitor. I'm sure it cost GM a fortune to develop (the platform was unique, not shared with any other car. The top-of-the-line ORIGINAL Blackwing V8 was also unique, expensive, and ultimately...very few were sold. All of this is a LOT of money).I used to know the sales numbers, and my sense was the CT6 sold about HALF the units GM projected. More importantly, it sold about half to two thirds the volume of the S-Class (which cost a lot more in 201x)Many of your fixed cost are predicated on volume. One way to improve your business case (if the right people want to get the Green Light) is to inflate your projected volumes. This lowers the unit cost for seats, mufflers, control arms, etc, and makes the vehicle more profitable--on paper.Suppliers tool up to make the number of parts the carmaker projects. However, if the volume is less than expected, the automaker has to make up the difference.So, unfortunately, not only was the CT6 an expensive car to build, but Cadillac's weak "brand equity" limited how much GM could charge (and these were still pricey cars in 2016-18, a "base" car was ).Other than the name, the "Omega" could have marked the starting point for Cadillac to once again be the standard of the world. Other than the awful name (Fleetwood, Elegante, Paramount, even ParAMOUR would be better), and offering the basest car with a FOUR cylinder turbo on the base car (incredibly moronic!), it was very good car and a CREDIBLE Mercedes S-Class/Lexus LS400 alternative. While I cannot know if the novel aluminum body was worth the cost (very expensive and complex to build), the bragging rights were legit--a LARGE car that was lighter, but had good body rigidity. No surprise, the interior was not the best, but the gap with the big boys was as close as GM has done in the luxury sphere.Mary Barra decided that profits today and tomorrow were more important than gambling on profits in 2025 and later. Having sunk a TON of money, and even done a mid-cycle enhancement, complete with the new Blackwing engine (which copied BMW with the twin turbos nestled in the "V"!), in fall 2018 GM announced it was discontinuing the car, and closing the assembly plant it was built in. (And so you know, building different platforms on the same line is very challenging and considerably less efficient in terms of capital and labor costs than the same platform, or better yet, the same model).So now, GM is anticipating that, as the car market "goes electric" (if you can call it that--more like the Federal Government and EU and even China PUSHING electric cars), they can make electric Cadillacs that are "prestige". The Cadillac Celestique is the opening salvo--$340,000. We will see how it works out.
Lynn Joiner Lynn JoinerJust put 2,000 miles on a Chevy Malibu rental from Budget, touring around AZ, UT, CO for a month. Ran fine, no problems at all, little 1.7L 4-cylinder just sipped fuel, and the trunk held our large suitcases easily. Yeah, I hated looking up at all the huge FWD trucks blowing by, but the Malibu easily kept up on the 80 mph Interstate in Utah. I expect a new one would be about a third the cost of the big guys. It won't tow your horse trailer, but it'll get you to the store. Why kill it?
Lynn Joiner Just put 2,000 miles on a Chevy Malibu rental from Budget, touring around AZ, UT, CO for a month. Ran fine, no problems at all, little 1.7L 4-cylinder just sipped fuel, and the trunk held our large suitcases easily. Yeah, I hated looking up at all the huge FWD trucks blowing by, but the Malibu easily kept up on the 80 mph Interstate in Utah. I expect a new one would be about a third the cost of the big guys. It won't tow your horse trailer, but it'll get you to the store. Why kill it?
Ollicat I am only speaking from my own perspective so no need to bash me if you disagree. I already know half or more of you will disagree with me. But I think the traditional upscale Cadillac buyer has traditionally been more conservative in their political position. My suggestion is to make Cadillac separate from GM and make them into a COMPANY, not just cars. And made the company different from all other car companies by promoting conservative causes and messaging. They need to build up a whole aura about the company and appeal to a large group of people that are really kind of sick of the left and sending their money that direction. But yes, I also agree about many of your suggestions above about the cars too. No EVs. But at this point, what has Cadillac got to lose by separating from GM completely and appealing to people with money who want to show everyone that they aren't buying the leftist Kook-Aid.
Jkross22 Cadillac's brand is damaged for the mass market. Why would someone pay top dollar for what they know is a tarted up Chevy? That's how non-car people see this.