I recently wrote an article about cyber security and the possibility that car manufacturers will follow consumer electronic companies into being more data centre centric and having more funds generated from data than the physical product. General Motors appears to be at the forefront of this evolutionary change in the industry and under the stewardship of Mary Barra, have been … [Read more...]
Update on the Sale of Opel to the PSA Group
About a year ago General Motors sold its European business of Opel and Vauxhall to the PSA Group who own the Peugeot and Citroen marques. It was an interesting deal because Peugeot and Citroen have had their financial difficulties in the recent past and the GM Europe business has had 16 years of losses and only managed to take 6% of the European market. For General Motors it … [Read more...]
Pontiac
This is the potted history of Pontiac, who sadly were discontinued in 2009 – which was a pity because Pontiac were helping to keep the Australian car industry going and it was the true sports brand in the General Motors group. The history though, starts in two places - not uncommon for the early years of the industry. We need to go back to 1907 when Edward Murphy founded the … [Read more...]
Cranking
This article may not be suitable for reading at work! It is about a very odd fetish and a man who clearly enjoys it. Early last year, a 27 year old man from Michigan was arrested after taking several vehicles from a General Motors dealer and damaging four of them. He was also accused of “cranking” in another vehicle. This piqued my interest as I had never heard of … [Read more...]
Hybrid Power
For this weeks technical article, I thought that it would be good to cover the current and ongoing trend for hybrids. Nearly every time I talk technology I start with a comment that the subject is not new. Well, guess what - hybrid cars aren’t new and are certainly not 21st century vehicles. Back in 1901 the famous engineer, Ferdinand Porsche designed and drove a prototype … [Read more...]
