TRENDING NOW:
Amidst all the uber-important news hitting the wires two weeks ago, we somehow missed this story – sorry about that. Nevertheless, we thought we’d bring it to you anyway, since we are the Ultimate General Motors Fan Site – after all.
Shreveport’s KSLA TV reported that production of the Chevy Colorado and GMC Canyon twins will be halted at the Shreveport plant the week of April 19 due to a batch of contaminated microchips from China. Apparently, a supplier in North Carolina provides brake control modules for trucks. That supplier, in turn gets the chips from its own supplier in China. The North Carolina company informed GM of the contaminated parts, which has resulted in the production stoppage.
The faulty chip may also affect the Colorado sold in Asia as well as Holden’s version of the Colorado, named – as you may have expected/known – Holden Colorado.
Needless to say, this isn’t good news for GM and is even worse news for the struggling Shreveport plant, which has lost enormous amounts of production volume when GM killed Hummer. Add to that the possibility of the Colorado and Canyon not getting a life past their current generation, and things start to look grim very quickly for the plant.
And now for the shoddy reporting part: the same KSLA TV article states the following:
According to KSLA News 12 sources, the automaker giant GM’s Continental plant, located in Morgantown, North Carolina has been briefed of a quality issue with a microchip originally manufactured in China. (emphasis – ours).
Has anyone heard of a GM plant called Continental? Apparently, it’s located in Morgantown, North Carolina… Haven’t heard of it? Neither have we… Suffice to say, the plant isn’t a GM plant. Otherwise, it would be listed on GM’s production page here.
[Source: KSLA]
As General Motors shuts down HUMMER, it is offering rebates of as much as $6,000 on remaining inventory on dealer lots. GM is also in the process of sending letters to dealers ending their franchises.
GM says that it would still consider “viable alternatives” to acquire all or part of the brand after the collapse of the sale of Sichuan Tenzhong Heavy Industrial Machinery Co. in late February.
If a party is interested in buying the go-anywhere brand from GM (rescuing it in the process), they would have to show that they have the financial resources to back it up. The last thing GM wants is to sell Hummer and commit to manufacturing vehicles for the new owner, only to later have the venture flop and idle manufacturing plants. A few firms have expressed interest but none have successfully negotiated a deal with The General.
“Anyone who buys it needs cash to make it work,” Jim Hall, principal of consulting firm 2953 Analytics in Birmingham, Michigan, said of Hummer. “That’s why GM has been turning buyers away left, right and center.”
It’s worth noting that General Motors took the same approach during its divestiture of Saab earlier in the year, declining offers it deemed unsuitable for the long term. (more…)
General Motors has temporarily reinstated production of two vehicles hailing from discontinued brands. The Saturn Outlook and Hummer H3 production lines have recommenced production temporarily despite their respective brands being shuttered. Unlike the recent situation with Saab, this does not signal a future for either Saturn or Hummer.
Production of the two vehicles will resume for individual reasons. The General produced 1,037 Outlooks in February at its Lansing, Michigan plant where the Lambda platform vehicles (Enclave, Acadia, and Traverse, in addition to the discontinued Outlook) are produced. The Outlook will end production in coming weeks once Saturn-specific materials are used up.
The Hummer H3, on the other hand, is being temporarily produced to fulfill demand for a fleet order. Production will be reinstated on April 12 at GM’s Shreveport, Louisiana plant, and the order should be filled by the middle of May. After this, Shreveport will continue production of the GMC Canyon and Chevrolet Colorado although, as GM Authority has previously reported, the future is uncertain for these two vehicles as well, leaving us wondering about the future of the Shreveport facility.
Although Hummer’s tires are sinking into quicksand – and may remain there if a qualified new buyer does not come forward soon – an undisclosed buyer (or maybe even many buyers) have given GM reason to kick-start the Shreveport, LA plant back into action. The plant, having been idled since January 2010 upon ceasing production of H3 and H3T models, will reopen from April 12 to May 13 to fulfill a rather eye-opening 849 unit order.
The recent fall-through of the Hummer sale to China’s Sichuan Tengzhong, in no small part thanks to the Chinese Government, presents quite the mountain to climb (even for a Hummer). And though the future of the uber-SUV brand remains uncertain at best, this writer still has a few ideas on how Hummer could become an off-road juggernaut over Jeep and Land Rover once again.
[Source: Hummer Guy via Autoblog]
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