The Detroit News’ Daniel Howes recently published an editorial on Opel’s turnaround, saying “General Motors’ long, dark night in Europe may be nearing an end.” The automaker has increased market share in both of the last two years, outperforming Europe’s overall car market as it grew in key countries such as France, Italy, Spain and the United Kingdom.
“We are over the barrier,” Opel CEO Karl-Thomas Neumann told The Detroit News on the floor of the North American International Auto Show. “In the meantime, Opel is seen as the good guy. Opel is seen as a turnaround.”
Much of this growth has been enabled by parent company GM’s continued commitment towards Opel. Dropping the Chevrolet brand from Europe is evidence of GM’s commitment towards the company Europe, and backed up the decision by giving its European arm more executive attention and money.
“Opel has changed dramatically for the better with the new skilled leadership and a new company culture of fostering a habit of ‘winning’ instead of ‘losing,” said Wolfgang Schäfer-Klug, Opel’s general works council chairman and deputy chair of its governing supervisory board, told Detroit News in an emailed statement.
Historically GM didn’t provide Opel with much support, however current CEO Mary Barra says Opel is a capable technical resource and an “a very important operation for the company.” She realizes how important the brand is for GM, unlike executives of the automaker’s past, and chose it as her first trip abroad as CEO to demonstrate this sentiment.
Detroit has given Opel $5 billion in order to produce 27 new vehicles and 17 new engines by 2018, and is already calling on the company to produce engines for its North American operations. GM is finally committed to making its European operations successful, and its hard work appears to be paying off.
Comments
The work that Opel does for the rest of GM is important. The brand itself, quite debatable.
Opel products cars that masquerade around the globe as Chevy and Buick. Chevy and Buick rely on Opel derived platforms like Super Epsilon and Delta. Cadillac benefits from Opel technologies.
The Opel brand no longer fits Buick if Aveair goes into production. Already, posters and press are mocking Cascada in contrast the the future of Buick.
To survive, Opel must be paid for its vehicles and other products.AS a value brand, Opel’s small city cars should be united with Chevrolet. This would provide scale and help the bowtie access better product. We see Opel and Chevy working together with Holden.,
The only other option would be Opel as a global brand.
Absolutely no! Opel has to develop cars for the European market. Chevrolet doesn’t work in Europe! Badge engineering doesn’t really work globally!
Chevrolet is big enough to offer ist own cars globally while Buick, Opel and Holden have to work together.
nice. and a good read.
surely you can still get better, and hopefully it will be still better all GM and Opel.
I like the VAG strategy. GM is obviously due to the difference in their globality and GM can do some things differently and perhaps more useful.
VAG is not a pretty one and the same pattern was shared only by changing characters, however, GM has this capability. But this can not be the only change of character to go crazy. For some products could be more thing to deal with. However, the overall level of cooperation can be similar, although such VAG gonsernis. And GM has already begun to act, however, so again it has come to take a little more time, and this is only the beginning. GM has also made a good cooperation in the years of the 2000s, however, was a difficult time.
Hopefully, the new GM will be more successful than ever
Dropping GM products there was a gutsy move , but it is also a very smart decision that I hadn’t anticipated from GM management . This brought the whole responsibility of marketing key , competition besting , vehicles to each of its market segments , to Opel management and employees . From what I see , so far , cars like the Corsa are a sign of great things to come …congratulations to GM for its astute insight and timely decision making !!