I spent fifteen years as an automotive supplier rep. GM directives were quite simple:
1: diversify your work force to meet their equality requirements.
2: Undercut your profit margins by a minimum of 5% per year
3: Move your operations off shore to approved economic development areas.
Do all of this and they may let you stay on as a supplier.
In the end, it's a losing proposition to bid on any work for GM.
Japanese transplant operations are the best customers a US supplier can work with now.
any thoughts on hyundai and its new plant outside birmingham?
I don't know that this is not reasonable. It does depend on the starting cost and whether the item is already being mass produced. In contracts with the government they typically pay a base price for the first article and expect the price to come down as the company implements mass production and changes in manufacturing to simpler processes such as forging in place of hog out processes. It is not at all unsusal to see prices declining and to expect it. Not that GM does not know what they are doing with their union contracts and health care.