If they play out the way he intends, they could help GM slash manufacturing costs.
Sales-wise, Volt has continued tacking to and fro depending on how many of the car GM is manufacturing and, especially, how well the company is doing in meeting the strong demand for a California-ized, car-pool-lane-eligible version of the plug-in hybrid that was introduced last year.
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Manufacturing in China should help GM bring down the cost of its cars, not least because Beijing imposes a steep duty imports of luxury vehicles.
Senior Vice President GM, Technology and Manufacturing Group William M.
The joint product development project is more extensive than GM has done with other manufacturing partners, such as Toyota.
Before last year, GM's vice president for global manufacturing was a North American-focused executive based in Detroit.
But GM is a design, engineering, manufacturing and marketing powerhouse.
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Toyoda said Hogan was someone he trusted, having known him since they worked together more than a decade ago at NUMMI, or New United Motor Manufacturing, a California auto plant jointly run by Toyota and GM.
Hogan, an independent consultant and former GM group vice president, has been Toyoda's friend since they worked together more than a decade ago at NUMMI, or New United Motor Manufacturing, a California auto plant jointly run by Toyota and GM.
But now, after years of benign neglect, GM is putting the pieces together, tapping the engineering, manufacturing and distribution resources of its global partners.
Prior to the credit crisis GM and Ford were doing very well outside of North America, manufacturing highly competitive models.
Yet if GM represents all that is bad about the American economy, particularly manufacturing, it does not represent the breadth of our industrial landscape.
It became a training ground for a number of Toyota and GM managers, who learned how to work with Americans under a manufacturing system that placed an emphasis on quality and efficiency.
Nick Reilly, who heads GM's international operations, says that part of the answer is to adopt low-cost manufacturing techniques and not to load cheap cars with unnecessary technology.
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