The aftershocks haven’t stopped yet from this week’s news of General Motors “unallocating” plants, as General Motors President Dan Ammann has vacated his role and will now become Chief Executive Officer of Cruise Automation, pushing aside founder Kyle Vogt to Chief Technical Officer. Cruise Automation, lead by Vogt, was reportedly floundering with meeting targets.
The announcement is seen as a huge blow to GM’s executive talent.
Ammann, 46, has been vital in every major business decision set forth by General Motors since he joined the company in April of 2010 as Vice President of Finance. His first major project with GM was to managed the company’s initial public offering. Additionally in that year, he steered the company to purchase AmeriCredit, thus allowing GM to re-enter the auto finance business with the formation of GM Financial. He soon became CFO in 2011, and instilled the philosophy of the “fortress balance sheet” in GM’s accounting practices. While running GM’s finances, he also found the time to become a certified industry pool test driver at the Nürburgring Nordschleife racetrack in Germany.
Dan Ammann was named President of General Motors in January 2014, and was soon announced as chairman of the board of China’s SAIC-General Motors joint venture in February 2014. China is currently GM’s greatest opportunity for growth, and the country’s communist government has forced the market towards electrification, setting GM to plan for “an all electric future.”
Dan Ammann also led General Motors to the acquisition of Cruise Automation in 2016. In 2018, the SoftBank Vision Fund invested $2.25 billion into Cruise, while Honda chipped in an additional $2.75 billion for a 5.7 percent stake in the autonomous vehicle venture this year as well. GM has earmarked $1 billion of its own money for Cruise Automation this year. Cruise Automation operations reported directly to Ammann. We’re not sure if he was aware of the subsidiary’s Seattle expansion.
In 2017, Dan Ammann led the sale of unprofitable Opel to PSA Groupe for $2.6 billion, essentially dissolving GM’s presence in the tightly regulated European market. Ammann also led this year’s restructuring of GM Korea. Former Cadillac President Johan de Nysschen also reported to Ammann, while the snap restructuring of the brand leaves GM product chief Mark Reuss in charge of it.
Before joining GM, Ammann was managing director and head of Industrial Investment Banking for Morgan Stanley, where he was instrumental in advising GM during its 2009 bankruptcy restructuring.
Comments
So he left GM corporate for a GM subsidiary made up of a coalition of investors, but primarily owned and operated by GM non-the-less… i don’t think this was outside of GM’s executive’s knowledge?
Layoffs, plant closings, president leaving … should we read something into this?
Or just business as usual stuff?
a financial wizard being moved to a growing subsidiary which will require financial wizardry to grow – sounds like a smart move!
Are they re-arranging the deck chairs on Titanic?
I’d sleep way more easier knowing a car guy was at the helm as in reuss rather then this guy pushing his bias towards autonomy down everybody’s throat. There is no need to go this much all in, in a technology most of the Public isn’t asking for
“There is no need to go this much all in, in a technology most of the Public isn’t asking for”
The public at large doesn’t have to want autonomous cars. Cities with congestion, distant bedroom communities, and limited road infrastructure budgets want autonomous cars.
Musk has nothing but money and ideas. It is his staff that does the work.
Tech people are not mfg people and Tesla 3 is an example of how it can go wrong building a car.
No but MFGs will need it and few have the staff or money to develop it.
The world is being divided into three areas in the buisness world. Service, Development and MFG. in America it is now a Development work place or service.
With our unions and economy we have a hard time competing in mfg but we can do the other two.
Everyone wants to be a milionaire even if the work on an assembly line. But yet they all want Walmart prices when they shop. That makes it hard to mfg much here anymore unless it is more expensive or higher volume.
It is simple economics. Many can’t understand this and will be fooled by those running for office.
This is why we need to do a better job of protecting our technology of all we develop. China is stealing it left and right while we have folks in office pointing fingers at the Russians on something they have been doing to elections for decades.
Musk has nothing to do with this, as Tesla is not the leading force in autonomous cars.
The main thrust is coming from the cites that need autonomous traffic management, as they simply do not have the money to make more highways or to widen existing ones. All the cities have to do is offer tax breaks and lane priority to autonomous cars, because the benefits of predictable and controlled traffic management is already measurable in computer modeling.
The bedroom community argument is just a symptom of what happens when cites practically give away land for low density development, and then need to spend millions running roads out to them just so people can commute on congested roads. It’s not cost effective, it’s wasteful, and it kills millions of hours of productivity.
I agree with everything you said, especially when it comes to the protection of intellectual property.
So under this scenario, all the US and its children have to look forward to is an economy of dead-end low wage service jobs? R&D and engineering will eventually gravitate to where the manufacturing is. I
I live in Toronto north York to be exact and it really is like 3 mini cities all divided up. Downtown looks like they want bike lanes on every street, make every 2 lane street into 1 lane so the sidewalks can be larger and lower the speed to 20km.
Where I am literally 20 min from downtown it’s the complete opposite we have no want for any of the above
Then you get to… 40 min any direction out of the city where roads barely have any markings there is no way a autonomous car picks up the roads there it’s farms out there.
I see your point condo infested downtowns will maybe live with autonomy but anywhere else I don’t see it
I don’t want to ride a bike either, especially in the storm we’ve just had followed by the freeze thaw cycles. But an autonomous car, working in concert with thousands of others, ensures that traffic flow is both efficient and organized, something that no one on a bicycle will ever be able to achieve.
As for the rural areas, there doesn’t need to be any special markings. Cars already have predictive cameras in them today that analyzes outside traffic and pedestrian movement, and those same cameras can not only read road signs and road markings, but they can also see the road too.
And today, given how the roads here are now snow covered, it simply needs to recall from memory where the traffic marking already are under the snow, just like how you know there are lane marking and speed limit signs under the snow too.
No offence Eric, but North York is the armpit of Toronto. Don’t expect anything forward thinking to come out of there.
I can still hear the pitches from the founder and washing machine salesman Mel Lassman… Lol
But if the public does not use this mode of transportation, it will fail.
Maybe first step to close the rest of GM and become a technological company.
GM guy is the only one here that gets it.
Money is not in building cars anymore. The money is in the development of technology to sell to automakers that can not afford to do it themselves.
What has GM invested much in? All forms of technology.
This is not unlike Intel. They make technology and sell it to the companies making computers.
Same as Samsung as they do not make do much money on TVs or Phones but they do make a ton of money on building and selling screens. Using an Apple? It is a Samsung screen.
GM has done this with many things like we have seen in the Transmission programs with Ford, BMW and even tied to Honda now on other programs.
GM will still make profitable vehicles but they will not try to be all things to all people. But they will develop and sell technology to those who are trying.
Tesla is struggling to be a car company when they could be selling EV systems to other makers and not have the headache of assembling cars for little profit.
Money today is in suppliers not the end product.
Dan here is important as this division may be more profitable than several car divisions selling cars.
Cars are no longer the profit center in this ever changing and higher cost markets.
Designing, developing, licensing and supply technology systems is the way forward for high profits as others can not afford to do this themselves.
They will show case these systems in the vehicles they do still produce and still can make money in.
Musk’s expertise does seem to be in (domestically produced, btw) EV power systems.
Guessing he has too much ego to be the ‘Intel inside’ guy, though.
Musk is just ideas and money his staff are the brains of technology. This is why they struggle as volumes were called for. It is two different lines of thinking.
Well, Qualcomm is another licensing example.
CDMA was invented for military use.
(CDMA being the alt opsys vs GSM).
They used to make handsets for cell phones. Crappy ones.
So they dumped that, and built their biz around licensing technology and selling usage rights.
It’s a good model, but they spend a lot of time in court vs Samsung and Apple.
But Qualcomm is all money, ideas licensing and patents.
Musk could do the same, but, like I said, ego. That said, he’s ahead on high speed charging networks.
Elon is not dumb but he is and can be foolish. They say genius is on the verge of insanity, well it may be true here.
Ego is only one of his problems. Drugs and delusions are also a problem.
He like many before have failed often but he promotes what worked to keep the rep. He can afford his mistake and pay to hide them. Till he does them in public that is.
Yes Qualcomm is a good example.
Apple is not a mfg. they design and develop then have a Fox River and others MFG products.
Another plan is to get to core businesses. Goodyear tire did this. For years they were making thousands of items non tire related from uranium centrifuges to inflatable airplanes to owning and building oil pipelines. This was a drain on cash and stock to where they had someone trying to buy them out. It also killed tire development.
They sold off nearly all non tire divisions. Refocused on tire technology and worked to only sell tires in the replacment market and only profitable OE applications. In the face of cheap Asian tires it was a must to do this. Today they are a smaller leaner company but stronger and more profitable.
To survive in this global market companies will really have to look at ways to clean up dead wood and reform their mission.
Ford will be next as they are way behind in cost cutting and their profits are way down as the aluminum trucks profits are off. They will have some major cuts but they lack the money to invest in technology’s development. The partnership with VW is not because they want to.
The key though is America needs to hammer China and protect our technology and intertextual property, China is a MFG they develop nearly nothing. If they can’t steal it they do not make it.
Our politicians have really failed us here. Now is a time to hit them as our economy is strong and theirs is slowing. WW3 is being fought now fiscally.
China is a economic predator and they need to be prevented from total control.
Fiscally and thru manipulation of social media and electronic hacking.
I agree – we’re in a war, fought on terms our Govt, unfortunately, never saw coming.
I’d guess the US is up to sneaky stuff, too, but playing catch-up.
Or, we’re not as good at it as our adversaries.
The battlefield is digital.
Oh, and I’m not a Musk fanboy – he seems to be the 21st c Howard Hughes. Money, ideas, but lack of focus.
Well they saw and knew it was coming but no one wanted to do anything about it.
Same with the border. It has been an issue for decades and now out side forces for open borders are taking us to task because it is our weak spot now.
We have become weak and divided. Just look at the pure hate and agenda driven drive for power we have in our politics. The Republicans can not agree with each other and the Democrats are trying to promise every fringe group something while abandoning their base of Roosevelt Democrates.
As for Hughes he was wacky do to head injuries from several crashes. What is Musks excuse? Lol!
I cant wait to see what female replaces him.
Spoken like a True misogynistic PIG. Maybe a female will get your job, if you have one, and do it better than you.
I live 30 miles from NYC. Couple weeks ago we had a surprise snow storm. Whole metro area came to complete stop for several inches of snow. Would autonomous vehicles have fared better? People were stranded and ran out of gas. Would batteries done better? At least you can fill gas back up. What about dead battery in middle of nowhere? Long extension cord?
The only part of GM worth anything is Cruise. Amann isn’t stupid
This venture and Machete Mary’s vision of GM being a “tech company” will fail and fail hard- and IMHO the sooner the better. If GM cannot even come up with competitive products and be the leader in the automotive market, how are you going to be a leader in the tech market?
Additionally, gas prices are expected to fall hard next year- being closer to $1 a gallon than $2. This will be another detriment to the drone experiment and electric cars in general. GM will be caught with their pants down once again since more and more people will be demanding trucks and SUVs and GM will not be able to provide them since they were too cheap to retool their plants and were wasting money on ventures like these.
It is time GM spun off this division and get to the business of building the best vehicles on the market.
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