 |
| Bob Lutz |
We left General Motors vice-president Robert A Lutz talking about how GM was taking on its international competitors.
After accepting that the Japanese were still very good at what they do, he sums up the Germans.
'I'll make one generic statement without singling out a competitor and I'll sort of ascribe it to all the German brands collectively: they have an obsession with advanced technology as if was the Cold War arms race. And, in the process, everybody forgot the customer. It was all about wowing the automotive journalists.
 |
| German manufacturers try to out do each other with technology |
'And of course you had the big German electronics companies going around saying: "We shouldn't tell you this but we already have orders from BMW for this new advanced system. We're not supposed to sell you exactly the same thing but we could modify it a little and give you the second generation." Then the response might be, Oh Christ, we'd better have it. And that's how that was done.
'So it was always: "OK, if you have nine-channel vehicle stability enhancement, I'll see your nine and I'll go 12".'
|
