04-03-2010, 02:57 PM
|
#1 (permalink)
|
EcoModding Apprentice
Join Date: Jun 2009
Location: Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Posts: 201
Thanks: 54
Thanked 30 Times in 18 Posts
|
This American Life episode on the closing of NUMMI
One of the most recent episodes of This American Life (available in MP3 format free from their website,) talks about the opening of the GM-Toyota NUMMI plant in California in 1984 (meant to build small cars,) and how GM singularly failed to use any of the lessons it should have learned from that experience....
NUMMI | This American Life
Every once in a while I'm tempted with the idea of replacing my wife's Pontiac with the Chevy Volt, but stories like this remind me that the company is singularly undeserving of any more of my money....
|
|
|
Today
|
|
|
Other popular topics in this forum...
|
|
|
04-03-2010, 05:05 PM
|
#2 (permalink)
|
...beats walking...
Join Date: Jul 2009
Location: .
Posts: 6,190
Thanks: 179
Thanked 1,525 Times in 1,126 Posts
|
...you have *a* Pontiac?
...we've got TWO of them, both Vibes, a 2004 and a 2009. Very nice cars.
...but, in reality, they're really just Toyota Matrix's wearing GM Pontiac logos!
|
|
|
04-03-2010, 09:35 PM
|
#3 (permalink)
|
Pokémoderator
Join Date: Dec 2007
Location: Southern California
Posts: 5,864
Thanks: 439
Thanked 532 Times in 358 Posts
|
jkp1187 -
I am so sad for NUMMI. The story reinforces my perception that the foreign/domestic quality gap is much closer today than in the past. It makes me wonder if GM could have avoided bankruptcy in 2008 if it's portfolio didn't have so many gas-guzzlers.
CarloSW2
Last edited by cfg83; 04-03-2010 at 09:40 PM..
|
|
|
04-04-2010, 12:20 AM
|
#4 (permalink)
|
Wannabe greenie
Join Date: Aug 2008
Location: Yorba Linda, CA
Posts: 1,098
Thanks: 5
Thanked 53 Times in 40 Posts
|
Quote:
Originally Posted by cfg83
jkp1187 -
I am so sad for NUMMI. The story reinforces my perception that the foreign/domestic quality gap is much closer today than in the past. It makes me wonder if GM could have avoided bankruptcy in 2008 if it's portfolio didn't have so many gas-guzzlers.
|
The gas guzzling SUVs were high margin and probably kept the company alive for longer than it should have lasted. The undoing of GM was its decades of poor quality. (Seriously, listen to the show. Hearing the workers describe the kind of crap work that went into those cars...)
|
|
|
04-04-2010, 02:11 AM
|
#5 (permalink)
|
Pokémoderator
Join Date: Dec 2007
Location: Southern California
Posts: 5,864
Thanks: 439
Thanked 532 Times in 358 Posts
|
Clev -
Quote:
Originally Posted by Clev
The gas guzzling SUVs were high margin and probably kept the company alive for longer than it should have lasted. The undoing of GM was its decades of poor quality. (Seriously, listen to the show. Hearing the workers describe the kind of crap work that went into those cars...)
|
Oh yeah, just like Old Mech has said. The show also said that by the 2000's, the "NUMMI Generation" (managers that had learned from NUMMI) had the critical mass they needed to change at least parts of the company, but it was too late.
CarloSW2
|
|
|
04-04-2010, 10:33 AM
|
#6 (permalink)
|
EcoModding Apprentice
Join Date: Jun 2009
Location: Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Posts: 201
Thanks: 54
Thanked 30 Times in 18 Posts
|
Quote:
Originally Posted by Old Tele man
...you have *a* Pontiac?
...we've got TWO of them, both Vibes, a 2004 and a 2009. Very nice cars.
...but, in reality, they're really just Toyota Matrix's wearing GM Pontiac logos!
|
Yes, well we have a distinctly non-NUMMI Pontiac G6....
|
|
|
04-04-2010, 04:50 PM
|
#7 (permalink)
|
EcoModding Lurker
Join Date: Sep 2009
Location: central VA
Posts: 11
Thanks: 1
Thanked 0 Times in 0 Posts
|
What does NUMMI stand for?
|
|
|
04-04-2010, 05:11 PM
|
#8 (permalink)
|
Pokémoderator
Join Date: Dec 2007
Location: Southern California
Posts: 5,864
Thanks: 439
Thanked 532 Times in 358 Posts
|
ton -
New United Motor Manufacturing, Inc.
Welcome to NUMMI.com
CarloSW2
|
|
|
04-04-2010, 06:33 PM
|
#9 (permalink)
|
Wannabe greenie
Join Date: Aug 2008
Location: Yorba Linda, CA
Posts: 1,098
Thanks: 5
Thanked 53 Times in 40 Posts
|
My '99 Metro was assembled at CAMI, one of GM's other joint manufacturing ventures, in Ingersoll, Ontario.
|
|
|
04-07-2010, 11:18 PM
|
#10 (permalink)
|
Banned
Join Date: Feb 2008
Location: california
Posts: 1,329
Thanks: 24
Thanked 161 Times in 107 Posts
|
Some of the last manufacturing jobs in the bay area gone forever. I swear everybody around here is a god damn paper pusher.
|
|
|
|