GM Canada gets mixed news

A Canadian Press report has good news and awful news for GM's Oshawa plants:

A General Motors car factory in Oshawa, Ont., was the most productive assembly plant in North America last year, but the automaker is losing money on every vehicle it sells on the continent while Toyota continues to improve, according to an industry study released Thursday.

GM's No.1 plant in Oshawa, which makes Monte Carlo and Impala sedans, topped the annual Harbour Report rankings for plant productivity. According to Harbour, it took 15.85 hours to produce a vehicle at that plant in 2004 - well below the industry average of 23.42, based on available data.

GM had three of the top five assembly plants in the report, including a fourth-place ranking for a second Oshawa plant, which makes the Buick LaCrosse — sold in Canada as the Allure — as well as the Pontiac Grand Prix. It also made the Buick Century last year.

The accolades comes just two weeks after J.D. Power and Associates named the No.2 and No.1 car plants in Oshawa, in that order, as the best plants in terms of vehicle quality.

I guess I may have to retract some of the verbal barbs I've thrown at the Oshawa GM folks over the years. Unfortunately, the economic news is much less pleasant for GM:

According to Harbour, Nissan had the biggest profit per vehicle sold - $1,603 US. Toyota ranked second and $1,488, and Honda third at $1,250.

Ford only made $620 US for vehicles it makes on the continent, and DaimlerChrysler just $186. GM, which lost $1.1 billion US in the first quarter, lost an average of $2,311 for every vehicle it sold, according to Harbour.

I've often joked that the only way I'd buy a North American car is if they paid me, but it looks like that's exactly what GM has been forced to do to keep sales going. There is no way that this trend can be maintained for much longer: even a company the size of GM has limits to their bank accounts.

I had no idea it was as bad as that. It makes a mockery of the old joke about "losing a dollar on every sale, but making it up in volume" doesn't it?