GM Lordstown Media Coverage Criticized By GM Comms Boss
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Senior Vice President for Global Communications at General Motors, Tony Cervone, has fired back at The New York Times’ coverage of the GM Lordstown plant closure in a new open letter.
The piece, published this week, claims the newspaper’s coverage of the Lordstown closure has been largely negative and failed to ever mention the positive side of the situation.
“It is true that compact car sales have declined across the industry. But a lot of things are going right in this country and at GM,” Cervone wrote.
Back in November of 2018, the GM Lordstown plant, the 6.2.-million-square-foot factory responsible for assembling the Chevrolet Cruze compact sedan, was shut down as part of GM’s restructuring plans. With its closure, 4,500 jobs were lost.
As is the case with any form of mainstream media, NYT covered the story intensively. Cervone accused the outlet of not showing any form of optimism related to the Lordstown situation and said coverage seemed “fixated on seeding doubt and despair with its unrelenting focus on a select few people”.
GM’s communications boss underlined the fact that approximately 850 people have accepted offers to relocate to another GM facility, while others are retiring with their pensions. Furthermore, Cervone mentioned that the plant itself could be sold to electric truck maker Workhorse, in a partnership with the United Auto Workers (UAW).
However, GM Authority recently reported that the UAW does not wish the plant to be sold to Workhorse, but that GM should assign a product to the facility and continue operating it.
That being said, Cervone remains firm that selling the plant to Workhorse would be the best case scenario for the state of Ohio.
“There is a significant opportunity (to sell Lordstown) for the local community and Ohio to be at the forefront of tomorrow,” he said. “This should drive a sense of optimism, not despair.”
Source: The New York Times
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The New York Times, well, being the New York Times.
It’s just a pile of s**** like CNN and others alike.
“That being said, Cervone remains firm that selling the plant to Workhorse would be the best case scenario for the state of Ohio.”
No, the best case scenario for the state of Ohio would be for GM to “ALLOCATE” a new product for Lordstown!
The new Trailblazer and Encore GX can and should be built in LORDSTOWN, not South Korea!
If GM/Workhorse is able to build whatever their new “Entity” is think of building, such as a truck, then this confirms Lordstown could build just about anything.
Please stop with the 850 people have accepted transfers, many were FORCED or lose their job! Lordstown had close to 5000 people working there 2 years ago. The 2nd and 3rd shift aren’t included on the date the plant was UNALLOCATED.
How about Trailblazer, Encore and the GMC model (Granite?) built right here in the USA at Lordstown!
Sounds like a crock. I agree Ltown could had received the CUVs, had gotten temporary product until another model cycle came up or keep making Cruze until a model switch.
How perfect. Don’t like the truth? Simply blame the media.
Cervone sounds like a jack-ass.
Just trying to protect his bosses.
GM should be vilified for its moves.
The comments left by USApride are exact, to the point & most importantly they are 100% TRUE! —-unlike most of the BS garbage we hear about almost every other day on this topic. In my opinion the real problem in the USA stems from Americans themselves. I can remember a time when nobody would purchase an import vehicle…. nobody. It seems that sentiment is long gone for a vast majority of Americans now. A perfect example of that is GM (and they are not alone in this), they wouldn’t dream of closing plants here in the U.S. & building new plants overseas to make vehicles to ship back to the U. S. in order to make huge profits off of Americans that buy them at astronomical prices, if……… enough people in the U. S. had that pride now, that existed many decades ago. Sadly I guess this new way of thinking goes hand in hand with the “New GM” way of business. I have an old jacket with GM’s old slogan stitched on the back ” The Heartbeat of America!” I no longer wear it & GM no longer uses it. They came up with a new one years ago, “Find New Roads”……roads to bigger profit I assume.
Perhaps we can call GM the “Heartbreak of America”
They ARE the Heartbreak of America!
What a sad bunch of cretins. Blame the media now eh? Barra and company need to resign and give GM back to real car people. Return GM to being a seemingly incredible engineering and marketing juggernaut! Get Lutz back in.
GM needs Bob Lutz now more than ever!
why blame GM as it was the buyers who no longer want 4 door cars. GM can not control the market GM can just follow it. my family had cruzes but traded them on SUVs
Gm actually does control the market and manipulates it. Gm sabotaged the cruze cancelled fleet orders made the price for a lease as little as 10$ less a month then the equinox and killed all marketing for the cruze. Id say they definitely controled it our sales were still in the top 5 gm vehicles sold. Comes down to millions in profit isnt enough anymore needs to be billions for these sick top executive people
I blame GM because the idiot who runs it makes more than any other CEO in the industry, but could not see the trends that her competitors saw years ago.
Accepting an offer. Fed ex pulls up drops a letter with the heading involuntary transfer. Translates to go or all your benefits cease. Leaving spouses, kids and elderly parents behind as you hang in limbo. Living in hotels because there isnt affordable housing. For many it ends in divorce, and for a couple too many suicide. Keep sending Mary on her P.R. tours. GM employees buy what they build. This one is not buying and not helping Grow Mexico.
Motorman, you might want to rethink your statement. GM (as any manufacturer) has more control than you think in terms of sales. It’s called marketing. Run next to 0 incentives on a smaller car and incentivize the hell out of their smaller SUV’s, what do you think is going to sell? However, the company hardly advertised the Cruze in 2018…still sold 143k units…5th best seller among GM vehicles beating out the Terrain, Trax, Encore and others. Want further proof there’s still a market for these small cars? Take a look at Civic sales in the US. Corolla sales. Accord sales. Camry. Don’t tell me there isn’t a market for these cars. Are SUV’s more popular? Obviously. But there is still a market for sedans, especially for first time buyers. GM, and these other companies who are axing their small car line-ups are losing those customers to foreign competitors. Why is that such a bad thing? Statistically speaking, majority of first time customers become second time buyers with the same brand.
hope you are correct as these manufactures are putting a lot of their eggs into the EV basket and only a couple of % of the sales now are EVs. it just came out the tesla makes most its money on selling ZEV credits to other car manufactures or they would be in big trouble. there are only so many people who want sedans and the market had too many players
exrx26’s comment very well could have been part 2 of my comment above! Bravo!
Without even trying almost 150K units sold!
THEY ARE WALKING AWAY FROM THE CRUZE AND POTENTIAL FUTURE CUSTOMERS!!!!!!
Don’t tell me future customers that would have bought a Cruze will but a Geo errrrrrrr Sonic or Spark?!
150K didn’t want a SUV/CUV. They wanted a small affordable car!
WHY GM WHY??????????
Totally agree. After many years driving Nissan I finally meet the Chevrolet Cruze, and it’s a shame that I didn’t have it soon. Better mileage and better active and passive safety in the Chevrolet Cruze.
I particularly have my eyes on the Chevrolet Malibu Premier when I decide to change my 2013 Cruze RS with 182300 miles, which still feels like New.
GM should be ashamed to make that decision
if you want a small 4 door sedan you can still buy a malibu
GM has to know what closing a plant would look like in this strong economy and populist leaning political environment.
And compact car sales may be declining, but Honda, Toyota, and Hyundai are doing just fine with their products. Maybe the latest Cruze was just seen as cheap and bland at a time when buyers want something special?
It seems as if this austerity plan was thrown together on a whim just to appease analysts. Now here is the fun part with UAW contract negotiations. The union will not walk away from the table without getting a product commitment for DHAM and something for Lordstown. A strike of any duration will cause GM’s stock to tank pissing off the analiysts. If Barra had any brains she would spare DHAM before the contract talks and going in with Workhorse at Lordstown to manufacture a certain number of GM badged vehicles from that plant annually. If not, close a plant outside the US/Canada and move production to Lordstown. That way the union and the analysts will be happy.
Barra’s obsession with short term profits has really painted her into a corner and she has nobody to blame but her greedy self.