As part of a 10-year turnaround plant for Opel/Vauxhall, called “Drive Opel 2022,” some hefty downsizing will happen to its white-collar workforce, as it has been reported that as many as 1,000 administrative jobs will be eliminated. That translates to roughly 30 percent of the administrative positions at Opel, some of which pay as much as 100,000 euros ($129,000) annually.
With a division that has been bleeding money, and has been criticized of keeping GM’s shares priced lower than the ideal amount, this seems to be a necessary move. But a 10-year plan for sustainability? Can anybody wait that long?
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Sell that beautiful wagon in the US. We get that car, Opel sales go up! Win, win.
Opel doesnt get any of the rewards for cars they design that are sold in North America.
Like I’ve said here and elsewhere countless times, if they got a percentage of the $$$ back from the Buicks/models sold here that were designed by Opel they wouldn’t be doing nearly as bad. They design entire cars for Buick to be sold in North America but get nothing back from the sales of those vehicles.
“Get nothing back?”. Opel has been kept afloat despite dismal sales volumes for decades. This is the beginning of the end that should have started a very long time ago. The cream of the Opel crop will be salvaged. The rest can go work for Renault.
All of Europe is in the shit house, just like the US was in 2008. They are given money to stay a float, but they don’t earn money for their work that gets sold outside the Opel brand as Buicks and Saturn. They wouldn’t need nearly the assistance if they got a portion of the sales or recouped design fees from Buick.
GM let/forced Opel to make dog shit cars, their products now look great and are great, they need a solid restructure just like GM NA got to modernize and streamline.
GM is a global company, they send the money where it is needed. Sure the US and Canada were the primary bailout/loan assist countries, but the US Government sticks it’s finger in other countries where it doesn’t belong, so why get mad at GM sending money to Europe. What Buick is today wouldn’t exist if it wasn’t for Opel. Even the Original CTS may have not happened, so Cadillac would still be a lame duck.
Holden and Opel are two key brands for development at GM and just because they aren’t directly sold here doesn’t mean they are worth a damn to us.
Andrew, you would have a point if Opel could have shown a profit during non-recessionary periods. But even when the economy was solid, Opel’s dreadfully expensive overhead and Euro-productivity barely mustered a whimper of a business case.
Oh that’s true, yes. But like I said, Opel was making shit cars 5-10+ years ago. Their fault or GM? GM.
The home ‘kingdom’ failed so of course the outlying brands will fail too.
It’s GMs fault that they didn’t stay on top of the Euro production costs. Running full shift plants at 60% capacity is f***ing nuts. Opel was GM’s responsibility and they let it slide, now it’s their responsibility to bring it back. GM has the cash to do it, and Opel has the ingenuity GM needs and people that make Buick look and drive great.
So regions outside of Europe are to forever subsidize under-utilized manufacturing plants because there isn’t enough money to pay off IG Metall and avoid a complete shutdown?
If Opel was really worth saving, the German government would have pitched in. Opel is not too big to fail in the eyes of Europe, apparently.
Interesting observation. I’d venture to say that’s because Opel is part of American GM… My presumption is that things would be very, very different if this were VW we were talking about.
Opel is part of GM Europe AG. General Motors may be an American founded company but the GM Euro and GM America are separate units under General Motors Company.
As for Germany providing aid to Opel, they can’t really due to strict competition laws and other state aid and internal market rules.
Germany was only going to assist IF the General had sold Opel/Vauxhal to Canada’s Magna International back in 2009ish.
Incorrect. GM Europe AG went away with Old GM in 2010.
After Saab was sold to Spyker, Opel decided to take over in operating itself and Vauxhall as Adam Opel AG.
Currently, GM has 2 European entities:
1) Adam Opel AG (includes Vauxhall), from Rüsselsheim, and
2) Chevrolet Europe GmbH out of Zurich, Switzerland
That’s why the accounting aspect is a bit peculiar nowadays: does Opel get paid for Delta and Epsilon development work when a Regal/Malibu/LaCrosse/XTS are sold? And why is Opel operating by itself for crying out loud?
Ah good to know.
Everything I have read and heard regarding the platforms they develop, which are in turn sold in NA, is that they get no cash-money for their efforts. They need to solely rely on the cars they sell in Europe to recover those costs.
Since they are operation by themselves, they need to be brought under the umbrella, but to do so now might look bad on GM; to merge a stuttering brand and potentially hurt GM as a whole, stock prices would surely drop (even more).
This sort of thing should not have happened and curious as to what the reasoning was, only thing I can thing of is to make it easy to cut them loose, and likely at the time it was for the sale to Magna Canada/ International. GM probably didn’t see a point in incorporating them in to the mothership to to sell them