Cars Blog

In an official statement made by American car manufacturer, General Motors Inc., the company states that they will cut in half the total number of automobile units and power plants used globally. This move by GM is said to be their solution to address their up and down ride in cost and product development problems.

According to the official statement, the number of GM automobile architecture will drop from 30 in 2010 to 14 in 2018. Their engine platforms will take a dive from 20 in 2009 to just 12 in 2018. Their long term goal is to make the engine platform figures to just 10. According to executives from General Motors, the number of unproductive development practices is causing them almost $1 billion annually. This is supported by the claim made by Senior Vice President, Mary Barra who confirmed that they lost almost $1 billion annually because of inefficient production practices and that they’ve been in an up-down cycle when it comes to product investment.

Barra added that the launch dates for the Buick Enclave, the GMC Acadia and the Chevrolet Traverse continue to take a drawback due to fluctuating financial conditions. Having common architectures will help the company take the product lines to the show rooms faster.

The press release also mentioned that the American brand will begin producing Cadillacs in China by the bulk late in 2012. Additionally, GM is will set up another assembly plant in Russia and about four more in China. Lastly, GM is said to be planning to debut about 16 new models in China in the span of five years.

German car manufacturer BMW is thinking of reconfiguring their strategy for naming their vehicles across all brand. This was according to the BMW marketing director during a recent interview in London.

BMW is foreseeing an evolution in terms naming the vehicles across the different brands. BMW has not revealed what the new smaller BMW model that will be positioned below the 1 Series will be called and so far the marketing department of BMW would not say a word. Director of marketing Ian Robertson though noted of the upcoming I models, and the Z, X, and M models. He added that a lot of numbers might be used in the future.

The naming of the cars for the Rolls Royce and the Mini can even get more complicated. Names that has already been copyrighted across the globe makes the situation even tougher. Robertson recalls his work with the Land Rover during which the company thought of giving the SUV the name Freestyle which can become Freelander for Europe and LR2 in the United States, but they found out that these names are already in use in different markets.

The marketing director of BMW did not give any hint of how the future Mini’s and Rolls Royces will be called but we think they will also be getting alpha numeric badges.

Different issues like copyright and the century long history of car production makes naming cars for different brands very difficult. We might see car names getting duller and boring as we go along.