General Motors (GM) has appointed a leading company executive to front its ventures into the European market, leveraging its global strategy in the areas of mobility, autonomy and electric vehicles.
Mahmoud Samara, currently the vice-president of sales, service and marketing for Cadillac North America, will become the president and managing director of GM Europe from 1 December.
GM hasn't had a significant presence in Europe since Opel-Vauxhall was sold to the PSA Group in February 2017.
“Mahmoud comes to this role with a really impressive track record in delivering a world-class customer experience, as well as growing sales in the North America Cadillac business,” said GM senior vice-president Steve Kiefer.
“His mission is to transform our current operations into a non-traditional mobility start-up in the region, identifying entrepreneurial opportunities to commercialise our global growth strategy investments in Europe. We will make very deliberate decisions about where and how we compete in Europe."
Samara has held a position at GM since 2004 and has headed the sale of some 200,000 Cadillac vehicles in North America.
“We will transform our current operations in Europe into an agile mobility start-up which will focus on leveraging GM’s global investment in the areas of EVs, autonomous vehicles, mobility, software-enabled services and many more,” Samara said. “Our business will span the major markets of Europe."
“We have big aspirations in Europe, as it's the second-largest and fastest-growing EV market. I'm confident that the investments we are making today in GM’s global growth strategy will enable us to compete and win in Europe."
GM will look to invest $35 billion (£26bn) globally into electric and autonomous vehicles by 2025, with plans to contribute to Europe-specific environmental objectives.
“We will be a non-traditional player and will be very deliverabte about where and how we compete, playing to our strengths, offering unique mobility products to and services to customers in Europe,” Samara said.
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Not really convinced about this at all,why?after running Saab into the ground by not investing in new models in the European market,while in the US screwing Saab badges on the GM Trailblazer & Subaru Impreza wasn't the smartest move either. Secondly what about buying Daewoo up out of bankruptcy then waste time and money replacing an established Daewoo brand with Chevrolet which made little sense with the entire product range consisting of Korean sourced vehicles. Chevy didn't last that long no one was fooled and although some of the cars were pretty good e.g. the Ampera/Volt PHEV and the Bolt EV the General pulled the plug and shut the range down. The final blow was the flogging off of Vauxhall/Opel to PSA or Stellantis sealed the final departure of GM from Europe after nearly a century of manufacture and sales of cars and trucks here. I didn't know whether to laugh or cry when in the press release the phrase "We will be a non traditional player" to me players don't come more traditional than GM (established in 1908 by Billy Durant) and as "an agile mobility start up" that's been tried before remember Saturn Corporation? that didn't end well either. Since it went bankrupt over a decade ago and rescue by Uncle Sam the decline of GM has continued and this announcement will do little to stop the slide and how long will it be until the company goes belly up again?
Couldn't agree more - GM's record in Europe has been a litany of destruction and abject failure and it hasn't been any better in the US. All that daft management-speak about transforming current operations in Europe (what operations?) and leveraging this, that, and the other. Such meaningless nonsense!
Seriously, why bother, Europe does not like US cars, well, apart from jeep, and those sales are not that great, no other brand that has been launched here from any US brand, from Chevrolet, to Dodge, Chrysler, Caddy, and so on, has ever done well in Europe, the cars are well, rubbish, plastic, hard, and in most cases ugly, so why did they shift V/O, they could have utilised that as it's Euro EV brand.But it seems like they only wanted to have V/O so they can dump the losses and expenses from other brands on them, it seems so very strange that within months of Stellantis taking control V/O were in profit, and have made significant profits since, unlike the years of GM ownership, If they had done the bookwork properly, they could have had a massive EU presence, selling great cars, but hey, they did the same with SAAB, and look what happened there, US ownership of other brands has never really worked, I fear for the new Stellantis group, as the last time an EU brand owned a US brand, it was not that successful, FIAT and Chrysler, the same with Mercedes and Chrysler, neither were that succesful, and both hurt the main EU Brand.
I thought they had given up and gone home. More than once.