The man responsible for reversing the fortunes of Vauxhall/Opel in Europe has written a frank letter to employees, admitting the company’s shortcomings and laying out a plan of action.
Nick Reilly was appointed president of General Motors Europe in December and must move fast to restructure and reposition the company.
His first decision is to drop the GME name for the business. Instead it will be called just Vauxhall in the UK and Opel in the rest of the world. The name-change underlines the need for the company to make a fresh start with greater independence from GM.
In a letter to all employees, Reilly said he wants Vauxhall/Opel to be known as “a leading European manufacturer of high quality, desirable automotive products, based on German engineering, …respected around the world.”
Reilly added: “To be winners again we need to take bold decisions, but it’s also important to recognise where we don’t lead. We’re missing an entry in the ‘mini’ segment, we don’t have an identified successor for the Combo light van, we’re not leading in hybrids or pure electric vehicles and our traditional powertrains have mixed performance in fuel economy, CO2 and driveability.”
Reilly said Vauxhall/Opel will maximise the strength of its new products and promised to be innovative in car show concepts. He added that the company will look much more closely at the numbers in future.
“We can’t afford to have any country or any product losing money in the long-term,” he said.
The relationship with GM North America and the question of what the right level of autonomy is still a big concern, he added.
Reilly believes that the focus on global platforms and parts sharing had gone too far – and that there needs to be greater respect for local customers’ needs.
“Our design and engineering people need to ensure there is Opel/Vauxhall DNA in every car we sell,” he said. “But we should still take maximum advantage of being a member of a leading global automotive family. We’re better for being part of GM and GM is better for having Vauxhall and Opel.”
Twitter - follow autocar.co.ukSee all the latest Vauxhall reviews, news and video
Join the debate
Add your comment
Re: Vauxhall boss outlines recovery
Thing is SAAB employees still see themselves as SAAB people and not GM people. Maybe some of that is to do with the way they have been accepted or lack of acceptance from GM. I have been involved with SAAB since 2001 so I can talk from experience. As an example when SAAB Deutschland was moved to Rüsselsheim there was a fair bit of animosity from the OPEL staff thinking that the SAAB people were a bit bigoted. However that really wasn't the case. SAAB was looking forward to the move but once they got there the initial negativity damaged what could have been a very good relationship. Although SAAB are a premium brand I don't consider it to be as ostentatious as say Mercedes. In fact the reason why I choose SAAB is because I consider it better than mainstream but carries quite a lot of exclusivity.
I think some of the major issues GM/OPEL has over other brands is that references made about the the Porsche Cayenne being a Toureg seem to go unnoticed. Or the XF being based on the Mondeo isn't hugely publicised. With GM though all products end up being the new "such en such" is based on the OPEL "whatever". Chevy Cruze for example. Why can't it just be the Chevy Cruze why does it have to be "The Astra based Chevy Cruze" Will the media write the "Seat Ibiza based AUDI A1" when it arrives as that was the first model to use the platform. Somehow I don't think the media will write that.
As for over production SAAB is not the culprit. 100,000 vehicles is nothing to the 20 Million vehicles in over supply. Companies like Toyota, GM, FORD and Hyundai (shh don't wake HyundaiSmoke up) Need to cut their production by about 20% as they are the companies that will have the largest impact on global production not SAAB. SAAB can produce vehicles 40% cheaper than OPEL. Due to Labour and Transport costs, Germany is the most expensive place to produce a vehicle hence I guess why VAG pushes a lot of their production abroad.
Now we're way off topic, so back to OPEL. The similarities between SAAB and OPEL end with the Architectures that's the truth of the matter. AUDI and SEAT have more technical similarities. I don't really want to post another war and peace but there are enough differences between the brands that OPEL couldn't even produce the Vectra in Sweden. It was also why Cadillac couldn't move production of the BLS to Rüsselsheim because it would mean reprogramming of the production line due to the amendments SAAB made to the Epsilon platform.
What I really find a shame the companies with part just as is it seemed as if SAAB and GM had actually made peace and were pushing in the same direction.
Re: Vauxhall boss outlines recovery
I knew you would figure it out eventually, they are all GM engineers. GM is a global company and has capable people from every country on earth working for them. Car companies will never be the separate autonomous entities they once were, that’s just a fact of modern day manufacturing if you want to stay competitive. Consider that Opel still manufactures 40% of their product in Germany, but VAG has effectively moved a lot of their manufacturing to other countries by buying up other car companies and manufacturing the same car under different marques. Everyone knows there is overproduction right now and that is the stumbling block for SAAB, a perennial under seller and costly to build in its native country. The fact that there are Opel and Vauxhall equivalents doesn’t help either.
Re: Vauxhall boss outlines recovery
I actually thought my 1st post was quite positive about OPEL considering the circumstances. I'm not trying to ram SAAB down people's throats just trying to give credit where credit is due. It is a fallacy that OPEL have engineered everything for GM in the past 20 years. This hasn't been the case and I'm just trying to let you guys know that.
I'm also not trying to tell people that SAAB make the best cars in the world. They don't; and I wouldn't want to try to convince anybody that they do. However is does frustrate me when I read how great OPEL's engineering is when they haven't engineered it.
Other than that, I'm actually glad to see OPEL is restructuring its business. I hope Reilly is the man to do it. Carl-Peter Forster's shoe's are pretty big to fill so I'm sure there is a lot of pressure on OPEL's new boss to get the job done.