General Motors

• 1. The Horse-Drawn Beginning

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  William C. Durant stood in Flint, Michigan, on the 16th of September 1908 and signed papers to create a holding company for Buick. He had previously built the largest manufacturer of horse-drawn vehicles in the United States with his Durant-Dort Carriage Company. This new entity would eventually swallow dozens of other car makers within just two years. By the 12th of November 1908, GM acquired Olds Motor Works. The following year brought Cadillac, Elmore, Welch, Cartercar, Oakland, Rapid Motor Vehicle Company, and Reliance Motor Car Company into the fold. Durant tried to buy Ford Motor Company in 1909 for $8 million but banks refused to lend him the initial $2 million down payment. His aggressive expansion strategy led to over-leveraging that forced the board to remove him in 1910 at the order of bankers who backed the loans.

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• 2. Sloan's Systematic Empire

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  Alfred P. Sloan Jr. took control after Pierre S. du Pont orchestrated Durant's removal once again in 1920. Sloan established annual model changes that made previous years' models dated and created a market for used cars. He implemented a pricing strategy where Chevrolet, Pontiac, Oldsmobile, Buick, and Cadillac were priced from least expensive to most respectively. In 1925, GM acquired Vauxhall Motors for $2.5 million. Thomas Midgley Jr., an engineer for GM, discovered tetraethyllead as an antiknock agent in 1921. GM patented the compound because ethanol could not be patented. This led to higher compression engines resulting in more power and efficiency. The public later realized that lead contained in the gasoline was harmful to various biological organisms including humans. Evidence shows that corporate executives understood the health implications of tetraethyllead from the beginning.

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• 3. The Electric Car Graveyard

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  GM debuted the General Motors EV1 concept at the LA Auto Show in 1990. It was the first car with zero emissions marketed in the US in over three decades. The Impact was produced as the EV1 for the 1996 model year and was available only via lease from certain dealers in California and Arizona. Between 1999 and 2002, GM ceased production of the vehicles and started to not renew the leases. All of the EV1s were eventually returned to General Motors. Except for around 40 which were donated to museums with their electric powertrains deactivated, all were destroyed. A documentary film titled Who Killed the Electric Car? covered this story. In 1987, GM built the Sunraycer with AeroVironment which won the inaugural World Solar Challenge. Much of the technology from Sunraycer found its way into the Impact prototype electric vehicle.

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• 4. Chapter Eleven and Bailout

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  General Motors filed for a government-backed Chapter 11 reorganization on the 8th of June 2009. On the 10th of July 2009, the original General Motors sold assets and some subsidiaries to an entirely new company including the trademark General Motors. Liabilities were left with the original GM renamed Motors Liquidation Company. Through the Troubled Asset Relief Program, the United States Department of the Treasury invested $49.5 billion in General Motors. The Treasury recovered $39 billion when it sold its shares on the 9th of December 2013 resulting in a loss of $10.3 billion. President Barack Obama forced the resignation of CEO Rick Wagoner in March 2009 after the company had received $17.4 billion in bailouts but was not effective in a turnaround. Edward Whitacre Jr. was appointed as chairman of General Motors at the request of Steven Rattner. He oversaw GM's emergence from bankruptcy and downsizing its sizable number of brand marques.

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• 5. Global Markets and Brand Cuts

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  In 2017, GM sold General Motors Europe which produced the German Opel and British Vauxhall brands to the French PSA Group. The deal was worth US$2.2 billion. Three years later in 2020, PSA merged with Fiat Chrysler Automobiles and the new entity was named Stellantis. In January 2021, GM announced that it will end production and sales of fossil-fuel vehicles by 2035 as part a broader plan to reach carbon neutrality by 2040. These plans were scaled back in 2025 due to lack of customer demand. On the 15th of April 2024, GM announced that it would relocate its global headquarters from the Renaissance Center to the nearby Hudson's Detroit development in 2025. As of the 12th of January 2026 they have begun official occupancy of the site. GM also abandoned its goal of North American electric vehicle deliveries of 400,000 units from 2022 by mid-2024.

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• 6. The Flint Sit-Down Strike

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  The UAW organized the Flint Sit-Down Strike in 1936 which initially idled two key plants in Flint Michigan and later spread to 6 other plants including those in Janesville Wisconsin and Fort Wayne Indiana. Police attempted to enter the plant to arrest strikers leading to violence while in other cities the plants were shuttered peacefully. The strike was resolved on the 11th of February 1937 when GM recognized the UAW as the exclusive bargaining representative for its workers. Workers received a 5% raise and permission to speak in the lunchroom. In November 1945 until the 13th of March 1946 the UAW organized 320,000 hourly workers to form a US-wide strike against General Motors. It was the longest strike against a major manufacturer that the UAW had yet seen. Walter Reuther suggested striking the GM manufacturing plants with a one-at-a-time strategy intended to maximize pressure on the target company.

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