Is the new strategy: If you can beat em, buy em?
Basically, we came to the conclusion that trying to export vehicles from the U.S. market, which is so different from other markets around the world, is probably not a long-term winning strategy. Our thinking was that we really needed to produce vehicles in the region and for the region. And if we look at the Asia-Pacific region, most of the design trends really come out of the Japanese companies. This didn’t happen overnight, but we came to the conclusion that we should rely on our alliance partners to develop the products for the region, including Japan. Our focus is working with our partners to have a full array of product that is defined clearly as meeting Asia-Pacific needs. Q: But do GM’s minority stakes in its Japanese partners give it enough control? A: The 20% is working for us. We can drive synergies with it and yet not have to tie up a lot of investment capital. Also, 20% gets us in a position that we can work together to lower costs by buying materials together and so forth,
