General Motors product chief and vice president, Mark Reuss, reaffirmed the automaker’s commitment to deliver on its promises at a time when words seem to mean more to investors, The Detroit News reports.
Of course, this is in reaction to Tesla, which surpassed General Motors to become the most valuable car company in America.
“What we look at here is delivering,” he said. “I’m a big, big proponent of that. And doing or saying or explaining things that may or may not come true, we don’t have the luxury of doing that in General Motors. I think other people may have that luxury. We do not.”
Market capitalization shows investors’ confidence in a company, and it’s an area where Tesla Inc. CEO, Elon Musk, excels at: building excitement. Tesla is poised to launch its affordable Model 3 sedan this summer, and Musk revealed the automaker will debut a semi-truck later this year. Then, a pickup truck will come in under two years.
Reuss never mentioned Musk or Tesla at all, but it’s clear his choice of words were directed at the company.
“When we come out and talk about what we’re going to do, we’re going to do it,” said Reuss. “And that is the single-mindedly focused belief and culture in the company. And so anything that doesn’t fit into that category, we just don’t have the luxury of doing.”
He went on to exemplify Super Cruise, GM’s semi-autonomous driving system, the 2017 Chevrolet Bolt EV and other areas as proof of GM’s commitment to innovate and execute accordingly.
Super Cruise will launch this fall with the 2018 Cadillac CT6 sedan and GM will continue honing its driverless car technology with Cruise Automation, eying up a roll out of the technology sooner rather than later.
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“When we come out and talk about what we’re going to do, we’re going to do it,” said Reuss
Cadillac CT8
Camaro weight-drop
Presidential Limo 2016
Rear-drive V8 for Australia
Sept 2015 Mary Barra: “Opel is vital to GM … this new Astra will play a significant role in the long term success of GM”
And the ultimate hypocritical canard:
Barra: “My goal is for GM to lead in safe autonomous driving” by going to political lobbyists to ban other research groups from working on autonomous cars – leading by rug-pulling IS NOT ‘doing what we said we’d do’!
~ GMAuthority 2-22-2017 “GM Aims To Halt Autonomous Vehicle Testing By Google, Uber With New Legislation”
Caddy Escala?
Caddy 16?
A politician if ever i heard one. smh.
Camaro did lose weight. A lot of it.
It was a 2017 goal for the limo, not 2016
We still don’t know what’s in the works for Australia, he never said RWD v8 Commodore.
They invested heavily into Opel and it is still a failure. Get over it.
I’m over it…
The Reussy doth protest too much!
Speaking of delivering, care to commit to a Cadillac time-frame, Mr. Ruess?
China bought some time (though they keep 50% of the action, yes?)
Just curious about this delivering thing, you being a ‘big, big proponent’ and all…
Just look at the product cycles and development.
Starting this fall we will see the first model with more to follow each year. It takes no less than five years to do a model.
Also they can not do them all at once so the programs are staggered in development.
Also temper you expectations as it will take time and more product to earn their image and the public to embrace them.
With Cadillac not only do the have China but they have high ATP to make the needed in come to still make money.
Cadillac was never a fast easy fix.
“Super Cruise” is just another name for the much-hyped “Self Crashing Vehicles”. We can look forward to every crash reported right here on GMA, and the medical and legal industry will be fully employed. This reminds me of the hype every manufacturer puts out there before there is any evidence of success, like the old “Quad 4” engine that, along with many other hypes of the time (Iron Duke, 8-6-4 engines, Diesel engines, etc….), were totally hollow. My 2017 XT5 has already developed a panic stop in reverse when there was nothing there to hit, and on a YouTube review the commentator said that the CT6 he was testing likewise went into emergency braking on two separate occasions (within a couple of hours) believing there was a pedestrian spotted, which of course there were none in sight! GM could have put a hundred cars out there for a year of tests in consumers’ hands to validate the systems, but the glory for attention and promotions forces them to put it out in the thousands and let the public find the flaws. That approach is fine with a new ipad or iphone (forgetting for a moment the Samsung battery fires), but mistakes with vehicles will be injuries and deaths to their customers, who they purport to be the most important part of the equation!
If you think the liabilities for an autonomous car is so high, why are other automakers rising to the challenge irrespective of what you think the legal response will be?
It’s because if the system is crafted to such an extent that opportunities for crashes to occur are slim to none, then the automaker with the most complete and captivating autonomous car will reap rewards and accolades the world over.
Fear didn’t stop the aircraft or the spacecraft. It didn’t stop the phone or the computer. It didn’t stop science. The only thing your kind of fear stops is growth.
Per aspera ad astra.
Well, Grawdaddy, you are such a trusting person. The auto industry is a herd mentality – just look at the similarity of the styling and features offered – they are all pretty much the same, and that’s the history for a long time. That’s why everyone thinks it’s best to be first, ready or not. And I don’t think, based on my own experience with my XT5 and this year’s technology, that the “Super Crash” is ready for prime time. Having worked for a large corporation, I have experienced how project timelines are developed, and the pressure to meet a deadline is great – careers, reputations and promotions are all on the line. This isn’t like designing a poor CUE infotainment system, which you can adapt to without risk of injury. I’m guessing if you had bought one of the first Hoverboards, the first Samsung Galaxies, etc.., and then realized you were the beta tester for the manufacturer, that you would have a more suspicious view of the “Self Crashing Cars”. There are already examples – the Google test cars are always in accidents (“Never the fault of the Google car”), Tesla’s famous accident in Akron, OH where the system couldn’t see a trailer truck crossing in front of the car, etc. All I know is that when my new XT5 slammed on the brakes when I was in reverse and there was nothing there, I sure as hell don’t want the same issues with the “Super Crash” car from the same manufacturer. And what’s going to happen on slippery/icy roads when the car brakes automatically? I don’t fear growth, but I’m concerned that this GM-hype and rush to the market will result in the growth of injuries and deaths. Time will tell, and the trusting souls among us may learn something about risk.
We’ll see you on the sidelines then, silently wishing Cadillac was further behind the curve and at a competitive disadvantage. I don’t know why you’d want to take that positon.
Perhaps there was something behind your XT5 that you simply didn’t see. You can’t always trust your own senses after all, that’s why cars come standard with back up cameras nowadays.
“Tesla’s famous accident in Akron, OH where the system couldn’t see a trailer truck crossing in front of the car”
And for every one self-driving car accident you can find, I can find another where a human made a boneheaded mistake behind the wheel that caused injury or death of others.
Well, Grawdaddy, If you peeled the onion back to understand the issue fully, you would see that I own a CTS, XT5 and a Corvette, so I am clearly a Cadillac & GM fan and hope that Cadillac is successful at reestablishing their brand as a true Luxury Brand. My concern is that in rushing the technology that is not completely developed (they did move up the intro of the “Super Crash” from 2019 to 2018 with no explanation about how this was possible) they will end up with mud on their face as failures of the “Super Crash” hit the media, and do longer term damage to their Brand image. As the saying goes, pioneers are the ones with arrows in their chests!
My own experience goes much farther than just not seeing something in the backup camera or the redundant HD Screen in the rear view mirror, which is a great option, BTW. I have real world experience with what they have done with my 2017 Platinum XT5 with the full safety gear. Details: In reverse, backing out of my garage, which it had done without incident for two months, car got up to 2 mph and emergency braked; after releasing the brakes, I continued backing and car got up to 5 mph in reverse and emergency braked again! I pulled back into the garage and repeated backing out with exactly the same results. I then pulled out into my 300′ long straight drive, stopped in the middle, put it into reverse again (as a test) and got the same emergency braking at 2 MPH. Continuing in reverse, emergency stopped again at 5 mph. Drove out into the empty front street, repeated the test, and got the same sequence of 2 mph and 5 mph emergency braking in reverse. Totally Bizarre! Dealer had never heard of this, of course, reflashed some of the relevant software, and the problem has not recurred. Do I have complete confidence in my car? Of course not, and false braking in reverse is not a life-threatening event, but what if this started happening in forward gears like the Pedestrian Avoidance system in which the reviewer I referenced experienced two separate false braking events. This is why I am concerned that the system they are launching in less than 6 months is not ready for prime time, and could seriously damage their reputation.
I agree that bonehead drivers will continue to make boneheaded moves that result in a crash, far more than the automated systems, but rest assured they will falsely blame the system for the problem anyhow. While the GM systems will likely have an event recorder in the computer ready to document whether the system was operating or not during a crash, it will still get muddy in the insurance/legal world, and will bring doubt to the average person about just how safe these new “Self Crashing Cars” really are.
I hope I am wrong, and that the new systems work, but given the rush and ego of being the “first”, I wouldn’t bet a nickel on. it. Let’s plan to talk more on this when the systems are out there in the hands of the public – time will tell the truth.