The dust has barely settled on the Tokyo Motor Show, but already attention has turned to the next huge date on the motoring calendar – with General Motors announcing four world premieres at the 2012 North American International Auto Show in January.
Also known as the Detroit Motor Show, the event will be the setting for GM to debut the new 2013 Cadillac ATS Compact luxury rear wheel drive saloon car that GM senior vice president of global product development Mary Barra has described as crucial to the brand’s expansion. The ATS will enter the largest market segment in terms of volume and importance – a sector traditionally dominated by German cars such as the BMW 3-Series and Mercedes C-Class.
In addition, Barra outlined how she has spent much of her time in charge, since being appointed around a year ago, looking at time seeking and executing efficiencies in the way GM develops its products. Core architectures accounted for 30 per cent of volume when she took over – but now cover 48 per cent of volume.
GM hopes to increase that to 60 per cent by 2014 and 90 plus per cent by 2018 with Barra stating that it is a similar situation with engine platforms. As recently as 2009 the company produced 20 different engine platforms around the world – and over the next several years it hopes to reduce that number to 10.
