Shantanu

"gritty powertrain" I love the crap these guys make up to smear the car when they can't come up with anything else. What the hell is a gritty powertrain? I would be suprised if the author of the article knew what the word gritty meant. What next, a "salty transmission"?

But they're not offerring any cash. Shareholders don't go around giving money to the company, unless every other shareholder agrees to it as well (which typically doesn't happen). And GM itself has nothing to do with the deal. Nissan/Renault are trying to buy 20% of GM from shareholders out there who collectively own that much of it. That money will not go to GM.

Yup I agree.

Well said. Toyota, Honda, and BMW have so much money they could buy up most of the world's carmakers amongst themselves, but they don't. Because it's better to use that money for internal investment. Ford blew billions on Land Rover, Volvo, Jaguar, and Aston Martin in the 1990's and has very little to show for it on the business side. One wonders if they had instead spent that money building world-class Ford cars how much better off they would now be.

That said I don't think Nissan's VQ engine is much better than GM's 3.6 used in the CTS. GM makes about as much power in their CTS with the 3.6 as Nissan does in the G35 sedan with the 3.5, except GM does it with 87 fuel and Nissan needs 93.

I'm not against joint ventures. If Nissan wants to help GM and vice-versa, then let them come together and manufacture VQ engines and 6-speed automatic transmission for mutual benefit, in an independent entity jointly owned by both companies (like Shanghai-GM). I don't like the idea of Nissan controlling a chunk of GM and having a say in how the company is run.

It's struggling in Japan because every single Lexus car there is also sold as a cheaper Toyota.

LMFAO, you think they're going to import mass numbers of GM cars to Japan? Yeah right. The Japanese don't want GM cars. And Nissan/Renault don't want to create more competition for themselves in their own market. GM is 15% of the global market for cars, and 25% in North America alone. This gives them a huge control of the marketplace, and they strategically gut GM in certain places to sneak in their own products for more market share and profits.

If Nissan/Renault bought GM outright (which they could easily do) they would have to deal with the hassles of the UAW, and taking on GM's $100 billion+ debt, etc. With this deal, all they do is buy a piece of GM, enough to give them a say in the company. Keep in mind, they'll only be owning 10-15% of GM, but they will own 100% of their own company (Nissan/Renault). That means, they only see a small fraction of any future profit GM makes, but they see 100% of the profits that Nissan/Renault makes. Therefore, maximizing the profits at Nissan/Renault is more important than maximizing profits at GM, because they only own a little bit of the latter. The main benefit in having a chunk of GM to them is that they can get rid of GM products that are strong in the market. Or they can force GM to share their technologies, or rebrand their best products as Nissan/Renault. To people here who think that GM is going to get CVTs and the VQ engine in the Malibu. Are you f@#king kidding me? Why would they do that, if all it's going to do is make GM's cars more competetive vis a vis their own products. They're only seeing a portion of GM profits, but they see all of Nissan/Renault profits. So of course they're not going to share their technologies with GM, or do anything to make GM cars better.

And why the hell would they do that? To kill sales of their own car? The whole point of this deal is to eliminate competition, not to increase it.

Economy of scale is not a problem at GM. They have 15% of the global automarket. GM's problem is high health care costs which eat into profits, making them almost negligible. I personally don't want Nissan taking GM's 6-speed automatic transmissions and the Corvette engine and putting them in their own cars to make them better. And Nissan and Renault have very little that I am interested in. That said, I don't think that those guys will be giving up their crown jewels (like the VQ engine) to make Chevrolets and Pontiacs better. The flow of technology and resources will be one way.

What equity swap? There's no equity swap. It's one thing if GM took some of its treasury stock and traded it with Nissan/Renault, though it would be lopsided because those companies are worth about 4 times as much. Kind of like the GM/Fiat stock swap, except put GM in Fiat's position now. Kerkorian owns 10% of GM and he can do whatever the hell he wants with it. If he wants to sell that to Nissan and Renault, it's not GM's business to "approve it".

And where's GM going to get the money to buy a chunk of Renault and Nissan? GM worth = $15 billion Renault and Nissan = Privately held, but probably worth $60+ billion each Not instantly, but if Renault buys out GM, I personally don't see Chevrolet existing 15 years from now. They're doing it to make their own brands powerful by cherry picking the best bits of GM. And full size trucks sold with $10,000 worth of profit are the crown jewels of the auto industry.

F U buzzkill. Go hump a Nissan tailpipe.

That's exactly the point, fool. They were kept out because GM had power over them. Now that Fiat is no longer under partial GM control, they've announced plans to come back around 2010. That's more competition in an already overcrowded U.S. market. If Renault-Nissan own a sizeable chunk of GM (even 15%), they get a big say in what goes on. They'll hold GM's products back to put their own products ahead. There's not going to be anymore "halo cars" like the Cadillac XLR, Pontiac Solstice, etc. out from GM, because GM brands will just be a collection of factories for the benefit of Renault-Nissan advancement.

First of all, the global leadership in Paris and Tokyo sees little purpose to Buick and Saturn, so these brands will be cancelled immediately. Apologies to anyone who actually cared about them. Renault has plans to come back to the U.S., and it's believed the best way to do this is sell all GMC/Chevy GMT900's as Renaults. The Silverado will be known as the Renault Clouseau, in honor of the legendary French detective: The Tahoe will be sold as the Renault Chirac, after the great French premier who stood up to Yankee imperialism. It's believed that these moves will give Renault a volume of 1.5 million units in North America, instantly making it a major player. It will also help Renault be seen as an authentic American brand. The Nissan Z, the greatest sports car the world has ever known, will gain the Pontiac Solstice as part of its lineup. It will be renamed the "Nissan Mini-Z". The Mini-Z will also come in special Pikachu edition, after Japan's favorite animated rodent. Oh GM, what wonderful possibilites we have to look forward to!

When GM owned 20% of Subaru, Suzuki, Fiat, etc. it gave them a lot of say over how these companies were run. As such Subaru never got to be more than a niche player in the U.S. market, and Suzuki never amounted to much in the U.S. Fiat was kept out of America, probably in no small part due to avoiding overlap with GM. This deal will be all about eliminating overlap. If these guys own 10-20% of GM, that gives them a lot of clout. They can cherry pick certain GM cars to add to their brands to make them look good. And they can eliminate areas of overlap, and my guess is that the GM products will be the ones on the receving end.

See even if they buy 20 or 10% of the company, that gives a big share of control. Ford only owns 30% of Mazda and they effectively run the company. Nissan can say something like, "We don't want anymore Cadillac CTS's being built, because we think it hurts our G35 sales", and if they own something like 20% of the company they can get their way with that.

Yeah right you think anyone in France or Japan gives a f@#k about GM brands. To them they see certain technologies which they don't have, and certain factories, which they can use to churn out cars of their own design. I'm not saying all GM brands will dissappear overnight, but they will be folded into Renaults and Nissans. And heritage products like Camaro, which may not make a whole lot of business sense but are good making fans happy and building the brand, are finished for sure. You think anyone in Paris gives a $h! about Chevy Camaros? yeah right.

I'd hate to see such a pitiful end for one of America's great companies. Nissan/Renault will pick and choose which GM lines they want, shut everything else. They'll raid GM for technology and factories. GM brands will die. GM's heritage will die out. All that will remain are some Silverados badged as Renaults

Take a hint buddy: she's not interested.

The turbocharged 2.8 used in the Saab is retarded. It makes 250 HP which is less than what the 3.6 makes. And it takes up the same amount of space in the engine bay, and probably costs even more to manufacture.

But on the other hand GM has to charge less for the 2.8. So it's up in the air whether they are making more money off the 3.6 or losing profits on sales of the cheaper 2.8. Why not just do what Nissan does, and just offer the 3.6? If it's costing Gm the same to make both engines, they should give consumers the better one. That way, they make more money, they keep their orders simple, and they make consumers happy.

It's described as a "small 7 seat SUV". That doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me, as any 7 seater vehicle can't be that small. How many 7 seaters does Chevy need? They've got the Tahoe, the Suburban, the Trailblazer, the upcoming Lambda... If the next Equinox is also a 7 seater it would seem like GM has given up on small and medium sized SUVs.

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