The bankruptcy of Chrysler and General Motors (GM) reflects the historical magnitude of the current crisis in the auto industry. There are more than fifty years, in 1953, the CEO of General Motors, Charles Wilson, said: "What is good for the country is good for General Motor and vice versa." The world's leading manufacturer of automobiles for eighty years without interruption from 1929 to 2008, goes wrong. GM employs 300,000 active workers and 500,000 retirees ago: that's 800,000 people who depend directly today about the future of General Motors.
The company has been founded in 1908 by William Crapo. But his successor Alfred P. Sloan made GM as the biggest automaker in the world. Dan Akerson is the CEO. General Motors is a multinational manufacture, based in the United States in Detroit (Michigan) and the first global automaker. The first competence of General Motors is innovation (diesel fuel)..
It sells vehicles under many brands: Buick, Cadillac, Chevrolet, Opel-Vauxhall et GMC other marks have been removed or sold during the financial crisis ( hummer, saab )
Their incomes has reached 121 billion euro in 2007. General Motors produces its cars and trucks in 35 countries.
Their incomes are constituted :
→ Sales of automobiles (98.4%): 9.4 million vehicles (including private and trucks) sold in 2007 in the United States (41.3%), Europe (23.3%), Asia-Pacific (15.3%)
→ Financial service (1.6%): financing of vehicle purchases and insurance.
General Motors Acceptance Corporation, which specializes in financial services, offering mortgages, insurance, loans for vehicles and lines of credit to finance inventory dealers. . Doing business in about 40 countries around the world, it has provided funding to 75% of 6,450 GM dealers in 2008.
GM produces 15% of all cars and trucks sold worldwide, employing over 327,000 people.
The GM group is also present since 1930 through its subsidiary General Motors Electro-Motive Division in building diesel-electric