Kjell ac Bergström has also said to Auto Motor & Sport (translated from swedish):
“We are right now developing a global “GM-box” that in principle will be used for all engines and contain functions for engine control, ESP, 4WD, hybrid systems; everything you can think of. We are doing the job once and can divide the costs over millions of cars. A subcontractor want to be paid for each car model, independent on the work they do, and we have to pay because we have no other option. But soon we will have.”

The guys at Scania are developing their own fuel injection systems together with Cummins for the exact same reason. They have said that Bosch want to be paid too much for their systems and more or less deliver the parts when they see fit. It’s these common rail fuel injection systems that are manufactured in Saabs old engine plant in Södertälje.

I totally agree with you. Why should any car manufacturer have any of their own activities other than R&D and an assembly plant? Subcontracting is the keyword.

I’m just afraid that Trionic won’t be used in future Saab models. Now they’ve already used Bosch Motronic for 2.8V6t engine. I wrote about it to GM when 2.8V6t was launched and asked why they used Motronic. The official answer was that it’s a “corporation engine” and it’s used for 2-3 GM car brands. So I guess there was a demand for a larger engine which can be used in Opels, Cadillacs etc.

GM Powertrain Sweden work mainly on charged engines, controls and dual clutch transmissions.

GM Powertrain Sweden is a part of GM Powertrain Europe, in other words, they are not a part of Saab, rather Saab is a paying customer just like Opel, Cadillac, Chevrolet and others. By paying GM Powertrain they all get the right to use the engines they develope.

The products they develope are not manufactured locally, but they can come from USA, Germany, Australia or whereever GM has a manufacturing plant and sold to any brand within GM.

“Is it just me or someone else who noticed the following: “It will continue to deliver services such as Trionic Engine Management System development and calibration to the GM Group.” Why is this being outsourced?”

Well, in the automotive industry it’s rare that something is developed and manufactured completely in house, Trionic wasn’t so why should it be different today?

What happened to BioPower in the U.S.?

Of course, GM is a publicly traded business entity, so there are no excuses. But we should also remember that they did bring the EV1 and ended up crushing it. Of course, this reprsents a classic case of market failure, but to sit and say they were not trying is incorrect.

Btw., there was a great article on the Volt in the Atlantic a couple of monts ago, you can read it here when you have time (it is not a short one). It nicely illustrates the difficulties at play from a purely engineering standpoint.

P.S. Regarding ethanol availability in the U.S., you need to speak to your government. GM cannot cover the country with ethanol pumps in, like, 5 months.

On the other hand GM put all their eggs in the SUV/truck basket. They didn’t diversify and invest in smaller cars and advanced/alternative technologies like hybrid or diesel heavily enough. Sure, they invest in hydrogen fuel cells (and have for over 40 years now) and things like HCCI, but not nearly aggressively enough.

As a result GM is playing “catch-up”. They’re now trying to invest in hybrids (with what money, I have no idea) after laughing them off for years (actually trying to leap-frog the Japanese technologically with the series hybrid Chevy Volt) and had to go out and buy VM Motori to have a diesel engine manufacturer so they don’t have to keep buying engines from FIAT.

Where’s the hydrogen future? Where’s the promise of ethanol in North America? Every day it looks more and more like greenwashing. GM is reaping what it has sewn.

But of course, if GM (or any of the major manufacturers) goes into bankruptcy, there will be huge problems.

Is this bad for design as well? I remember from a Documentary I was watching recently that in the 50′s 60′s most companies didn’t have the money to design really beautiful or cool looking cars, then the Japanese came in and the design became more important, because the rest of the car industry, GM, BL etc could not compete. Is this worse than we thought? The FTSE, the UK market fell below 4,000 today which has been unheard of since roughly the beginning of this century, at the beginning of this year it was pushing 7,000, so thats about 57% of what it was worth at the beginning of the year.

Sorry if any of the figures are wrong, I’m using my very basic knowledge of GSCE Business Studies yo work it all out

Everyone had jumped on the money train before it hit that overpass, and I don’t care what corporate bullshit Toyota’s PR dept. came up with to make people feel sorry for poor Toyota, selling cars that will save the earth at a loss (read: financing them from the sales of SUVs). Let us mot mistake corporate hypocrisy and the truth.