Cruze moves to catch up with Honda

GM Lordstown prepares for the Cruze.

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GM Lordstown shows off preparations for the Cruze during a June 24, 2009 media tour.

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Chevrolet unveiled its new Cruze to the press Wednesday, September 24, 2008 at the Paris Auto Show. Expected to get close to 40 miles-per-gallon, the Cruze hits the European market next March. Production for U.S. sales will begin in 2010.

By Don Shilling

Senior General Motors executives pushed back the launch of the Chevrolet Cruze for more time to improve engine performance, reports said.

The Associated Press and The New York Times this week quoted GM officials as saying the shifting and quietness of the car needed to be improved to match industry leaders.

Since the delay that was announced last month, GM has been running the Cruze in 80 mph test runs with the Honda Civic to find ways to match the segment-leading model, The Times reported.

The reports provide more details than GM released when it announced that its Lordstown complex would launch the car in the July to September quarter of 2010, instead of April. Officials last month said the automaker just wanted to be sure the launch would go smoothly.

Klaus-Peter Martin, a Chevrolet spokesman, said Friday that executives are striving for a flawless launch, so they are testing all systems on the car, including those mentioned in the news reports this week.

“There are a million things that need to be checked before the start of production. The engine and transmission calibrations are part of it,” he said.

Erich Merkle, an industry analyst in Grand Rapids, Mich., said all the reasons for the new launch date probably will not be known, but he welcomed the new date.

GM is under intense political pressure for the Cruze launch to go well because federal officials want GM to become a leader in fuel-efficient vehicles, he said.

With such pressure from the federal government, which now has an ownership stake in GM, the automaker is better off taking its time and making sure the launch of the 40-mpg car goes well, he said.

“If something goes wrong with GM’s big small-car launch, it wouldn’t look good. It would solidify in many minds that GM just can’t make a good small car,” said Merkle, who is president of Autoconomy.com.

Jim Graham, president of United Auto Workers Local 1112 in Lordstown, said pushing back the launch isn’t as big of a deal as it might seem.

GM simply is returning to its original time frame, he said. Earlier this year, officials decided they could have the car ready for market in April instead of the July-to-September period.

“I’ve been around a long time. Every time you push a project forward, you make a mistake. We can’t make a mistake on this car. I’m delighted that we pushed back the launch to the original date,” Graham said.

GM executives told The Times that pushing back the Cruze was a sign of how far the automaker has come in reducing its bureaucracy and changing how its operations are managed.

Mark Reuss, vice president of global vehicle engineering, said executives would have been afraid to raise concerns about a product launch in the past.

“No one wanted to do anything wrong, or admit we needed to do a better job,” he said.

The newspaper said the Cruze delay was the first test of a new product review system put in place by Fritz Henderson, GM’s chief executive.

In the past, GM had up to 70 executives review changes to a product plan. Decisions took as long as two months as they wound through several committees.

The new system created an executive committee that meets weekly and has the power to make decisions on the spot. It is headed by Henderson and Thomas Stephens, the company’s vice chairman for product development.

On Oct. 23, Reuss and Terry Woychowski, director of GM’s vehicle engineers, told the committee they thought the Cruze needed extra tests, and the delay was approved and announced within five days.

shilling@vindy.com