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Mark Reuss: GM can't afford product 'misses,' has 'thought about' CT6 V-Series

Mark Reuss is a busy man. He oversees General Motors' global product portfolio, an all-encompassing task for a company that sold more than 9.9 million cars and trucks last year. When GM launches a well-received product, like the road-going rocket ship that is the Chevrolet Corvette Z06 – he gets credit. When the company stumbles with the slow-selling Chevy Malibu or grapples with fallout from the decade-old Saturn Ion and its flawed ignition switch, he gets blamed. GM owners, the press and sometimes the federal government, demand answers. Bob Lutz famously held the job before Reuss. So did Mary Barra, who's now GM's chief executive. There's a New GM, but the lineage is connected to a long history. When he's not thinking product, Reuss, an executive vice president, also runs the purchasing and supply chain for the company, which is still one of the largest industrial empires in the world. We caught up with Reuss on the floor of the New York Auto Show, where GM had just rolled out two crucial new products: the 2016 Cadillac CT6 and the 2016 Chevrolet Malibu. Speaking with a small group of reporters, Reuss delved into a variety of subjects, including the new Malibu, Cadillac's future (he thinks the ATS-V is going to "flame the M3 and M4"), and other topics. On fixing the Malibu: "We can't miss. We can't have those kinds of misses [like the previous generation] on our cars and crossovers and trucks. We can't do that. If we do that, we give a reason for someone to go buy something else. It's that simple. "On a car like the Malibu we have a chance to really fix all of that, which we have, and then lead. Then you've got a real opportunity there. So that's what we've really been focused on here – to fix those things." He later added: "We need that car here to transform Chevrolet desperately because it's the heart of the market. And when you think of Chevrolet, people will come back and think about what we did with the [new] Malibu and the Cruze... It's hugely important to us." On Cadillac: "If we go out and try and out-German the Germans, it's probably not going to work. We've got an opportunity here generationally where there's a lot of people younger than me that have parents that drove BMWs and Mercedes, and I think there's an opportunity there for those people to drive something different than what their parents did, and I think that's always been an opportunity in the auto industry if you look at the history of it.

Dear America, you don't need as much power as you think

I recently won a 0-20-mph drag race against a Chevrolet Volt. A day later I smoked a Tesla Model 3. “Um OK,” youÂ’re thinking, “that canÂ’t be that hard.” Well, except that the vehicle I was piloting featured a hybrid powertrain of a Bosch electric motor and 40-year-old human legs. ThatÂ’s right, I out accelerated automobiles on a bicycle. On another occasion, I found myself driving behind my wife in her 2023 Kia Niro EV. The specs say it accelerates from zero to 60 mph in 7.8 seconds, a time thatÂ’s six-tenths off the pace of KiaÂ’s rear-motor-only EV6, a vehicle IÂ’ve repeatedly read being described as “slow.” The Niro, therefore, must be extra-slow. And yet, as she turned left onto a highway onramp, she rocketed forward leaving me in a Mercedes-AMG C43 and every other car in the left turn lane in the distance. I share these anecdotes not to boast about my cycling ability, nor my wife having a lead foot. No no. IÂ’m crap and she really doesnÂ’t. Instead, I want to point out that most drivers accelerate very slowly. The notion of “bigger is better” will forever be engrained in the American psyche, but when it comes to horsepower largesse, todayÂ’s cars hilariously exceed both the expectations and driving habits of most drivers. Most car buyers just donÂ’t have a frame of reference when it comes to equating 0-60 times, output figures and the actual feeling of acceleration.   Eat my dust, Mr Volt! Now, we in the automotive-reviewing media absolutely share some of this blame. We like accelerating quickly and cars that accelerate quicker are bound to reap more positive reviews. At the very least, weÂ’re obligated to point out when a carÂ’s acceleration is slower than a certain competitor's or the segmentÂ’s average. However, just because Car A is slower than Car B doesnÂ’t make Car A slow. It makes it slower. For example, the dual-motor EV6 may be 2 full seconds quicker from 0-60 than the rear-motor model ­– a relatively massive difference – but barring a back-to-back drive or a wealth of comparative knowledge, itÂ’s laughable to think that the average driver could possibly deem the rear-motor version “slow.” Because it isnÂ’t. The near-universal use of turbocharging, the popularity of all-wheel-drive and increased proliferation of electric motors has resulted in this rapid drop in 0-60 times thatÂ’s outpacing customer expectations and driving habits.

Junkyard Gem: 1993 Buick Roadmaster Sedan

In 1931, GM's Buick Division introduced an eight-cylinder engine in its stolid rear-wheel-drive sedan models, and Americans could buy big, comfortable Buick four-doors with straight-eights and — starting in the 1954 model year — V8s driving the rear wheels for more than a half-century after that. Then, the last rear-wheel-drive LeSabre left the assembly line in 1985, and it seemed that an era had ended forever. But wait! For the 1992 model year, Buick revived the Roadmaster name and applied it to an old-timey giant sedan with a V8 engine sending power to the proper wheels. Production of the Roadmaster sedan continued through 1996, and I've found one of those throwback Buicks in a Denver self-service car graveyard. Yes, in an America full of front-wheel-drive cars contaminated by European or — even worse — Japanese influences, The General brought back the spirit of the 1931 Buick sedan. Sure, it was really a near-identical twin to the "whale-body" Chevy Caprice, complete with Chevrolet small-block V8 engine, but that didn't matter. This was the kind of Buick that our prosperous great-grandparents bought in 1932 and 1948 and 1957. And the appeal of the great big eight-cylinder Buick sedan wasn't just limited to the United States. When the film adaptation of the great Marguerite Duras novel, L'Amant, was made, only a 1932 Buick 90 sedan would have made sense for the wheels of the wealthy Saigon heir. A big reason Buick is such an important brand in China right now is the legacy left by the memorable Buick machinery that owned the roads of 1930s China. These days, most of the 1992-1996 Roadmasters you'll see will be the station wagons, but we mustn't forget the sedans. Looking at the interior of this car is like a flashback to the 1960s, when stately Buick sedans had squishy seats you'd just disappear into when you climbed in. Cool-sounding names for ordinary features had gone out of style decades earlier, but not for the Roadmaster! Dynaride was a rear suspension that used air shocks and a compressor to keep the ride height level regardless of load. The last model year for a genuine Buick V8 engine was 1980, though you could make the case that the Rover V8 (made until 2006) was really a Buick all along. The engine in this car is pure Chevrolet: a 5.7-liter small-block V8 rated at 180 horsepower. Buick was a big Olympics sponsor at this time, while Oldsmobile handled golf. Still, the Buick-buying demographic of 1993 tended to approve of golf.