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Lutz dishes dirt on GM in latest Autoline Detroit

Bob Lutz sits down for Autoline Detroit - Click above to watch video after the jump
Autoline Detroit recently played host to Bob Lutz, and, as is always the case, the former General Motors vice chairman dished out some great commentary. Lutz was promoting his new book Car Guys vs. Bean Counters: The Battle for the Soul of American Business, and talk quickly turned to his role as it related to product development and high-level decision making at GM. While on the topic of brand management, Lutz revealed a few rather interesting tidbits about his former employer:
All Chevrolet vehicles were required to have five-spoke aluminum wheels and a chrome band up front, as part of the Bowtie brand's overall image.

GM now finishing and shipping pickups it had parked for lack of chips

DETROIT — General Motors is more than halfway through shipping newly-assembled pickups that it had parked due to a shortage of semiconductor chips, a top executive at the No. 1 U.S. automaker said on Friday. "We've made great progress," Steve Carlisle, GM's North American chief executive said at the Reuters Events Automotive Summit. "We're a bit better than halfway through that at the moment and our goal would be to clear out our '21 model years by the end of the year. We'll have a bit of a tail of '22 model years into the new year but not for too long." The global chip shortage has forced automakers like GM to idle production or in some cases mostly build vehicles and then park them until the necessary chips can be installed, allowing those vehicles to be then shipped to dealers. Last month, GM Chief Financial Officer Paul Jacobson cautioned that GM's third-quarter wholesale deliveries could be down by 200,000 vehicles because of chip shortages. He did not break out what share of that was trucks. To expedite transportation of newly-built vehicles to dealers, Carlisle said GM bought a number of car haulers to deliver them from factories or distribution centers. The Detroit automaker has also allowed dealers to pick the vehicles up themselves in some locations. Carlisle said new vehicle inventories have shrunk to below 20 days in the United States due to the supply chain disruptions, but the company wants to get that back up to 30 to 45 days with some getting to 60 days depending on the product line. GM sees sales of gasoline-powered vehicles being steady over the decade and real growth opportunity in electric vehicles and software, with one not undermining the other, he said.  

GM Recalling Another 2.7 Million Vehicles In Five Separate Campaigns

The recalls keep rolling in from General Motors, evidently keen to avoid repeating the mistakes of the ignition-switch debacle and clean house. This time they're all coming at once, with five separate recalls announced together covering approximately 2.7 million vehicles. The largest of the five actions involves over 2.4 million units of the previous-generation Chevrolet Malibu and Malibu Maxx, Pontiac G6 and Saturn Aura in order to fix brake light wiring harness, which have been found to be susceptible to corrosion. The recall is separate from the 56k Aura sedans which GM recently recalled over faulty shift cables, not to mention the previous massive recall of 1.3 million vehicles – some of them the same models – but appears to have resulted from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration investigation that started with the G6 almost a year ago. The second-largest campaign involves the 2014 Chevy Malibu, specifically those fitted with GM's 2.5-liter engine and stop/start system, approximately 140,000 examples of which has been found to have problematic brakes. The issue does not appear to be connected to the recall of 8k Malibu and Buick LaCrosse sedans (also involving brake woes) which we reported upon last week. Four crashes have been reported in such models, but GM admits it's not yet clear if the problem was a contributing factor in the accidents. A further 112k Corvette models from the 2005-2007 model years are being called in for problems with their low-beam headlamps resulting from a flexing relay control circuit wire that's not meant to bend. GM says it is "aware of several hundred complaints" about this issue, but notes that there have been no reports of related accidents. In addition, over 19k examples of Cadillac CTS from the 2013 and 2014 model years are being recalled over windshield wipers that might not work after a jump start. Finally, GM is also bringing in 477 examples of its 2014 Chevy Silverado, Tahoe and GMC Sierra (though not the Yukon) to fix a problem with a tie rod in its steering rack. As ever, all recall repairs will be performed free of charge, and GM is now estimating that recall-related actions this quarter will result in an estimated $200-million charge against its second-quarter earnings. Read the full announcement from GM below for further details.