GM rallies the troops

At first, it looked like a protest by irate workers who’d managed to invade the Cobo Hall. A group of chanting, banner-waving employees protesting on the GM stand as chairman Rick Wagoner prepared to take to the stage.

But on closer inspection, these workers turned out to be rather more on-message. Their suspiciously professional banners bore slogans such as “Here to stay” and “40mpg”. These workers weren’t protesting – they were very much on-message, and had been bussed in to cheerlead Wagoner’s address.

A cavalcade of GM products trundled on to the stand, accompanied by whoops and hollers from the workers. That, Wagoner pointed out, was the point. “Our recovery plan is actually what you see here – great products and great people.”

Significantly, the GM new car parade included the Beat small car concept from 2007, which Wagoner confirmed would be called Spark worldwide, and would replace the Chevrolet Matiz from next year.

At the head of the parade was the Chevrolet Volt, the spearhead of GM’s electric vehicle drive, due to go on sale by the end of 2010. The Volt’s system includes a static gasoline engine operating as a generator to charge batteries that power the car by electric motors. GM now calls this system “Voltec”, and it’s already being lined up for other GM products, including the Chevrolet Equinox compact SUV and the Cadillac Converj coupe.

“Electricity is one of our best options to replace gasoline and reduce our dependence on petroleum,” says Bob Lutz, GM vice-chairman of product development.

Speculation continues that GM might close or sell one or more brands – and it was significant that neither Saab nor Pontiac was represented in the car parade – though Saturn, perhaps the most vulnerable brand, was present in the form of the Aura.

GM Asia Pacific head Nick Reilly said it would be wrong to read too much into this, though he conceded it was likely that some brands – perhaps Pontiac – could be restructured so they have a much smaller range of niche models, perhaps without a stand-alone dealer network.