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GM plant assigned to build third new vehicle

4K views 37 replies 13 participants last post by  jimbo 
#1 · (Edited)
News article on the 3rd Kappa which will be going to Europe... :patriot
Article Link
 
#2 ·
bu-what??? How does this value compare to other cars, this sounds kinda low to me in the grand scheme of car R&D.
GM has invested $50 million in the Kappa platform, which is designed to build niche, rear-wheel-drive vehicles.
If that's true, they only needs to sell 2500 Solsti to make $50,000,000 (that of course doesn't count whatever costs will be associated with actually producing them; materials, average wage of $26/hour, advertising, etc). Selling 20,000 Kappas at $20,000 each is $400 million dollars. If they wanted to recoupe just the money put into the project with no profit GM would have to make $2,500 on top of whatever it actually cost (materials, wages, advertising, etc) to make a Kappa car that sells for $20,000 to make the $50 million back.


Also interesting.
Production for the Solstice and Sky is estimated at about 20,000 a year each. The plant, however, is capable of producing nearly 250,000 vehicles a year.
Those are values based off of L-Series production previously. As people have said though since the Kappa differs greatly frame wise from the L-Series it takes longer to make one. 20,000 is only 8% of the previous 250,000 a year production level. Who knows how many Opel Kappas they plan to make though.
 
#3 ·
This might explain the change from fall to summer release of the Solstice.
The assembly plant's line has been shut down since early summer after GM stopped production of the Saturn L-series ahead of schedule because of lackluster sales.
Is this saying that there may be five or six Kappas in the coming years? Do they make another platform there as well?
Analysts expect production of the Opel to be similar to or slightly lower than the Solstice and Sky, which had its debut earlier this month at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit. Production for the Solstice and Sky is estimated at about 20,000 a year each. The plant, however, is capable of producing nearly 250,000 vehicles a year.
Analysts and state officials said the Opel is one of an estimated five or six vehicles that are expected to be built in Newport in the coming years as the plant beefs up production.
Sen. Tom Carper, D-Del., who recently spoke with Rick Wagoner, GM's chairman and chief executive, said the automaker's decision to bring the Opel to Newport shows the company's confidence in the Delaware work force. That means there is a strong possibility more vehicles will be added in the next couple of years, Carper said.
 
#4 ·
Oh wow, I skimmed over that part of the story and didn't catch the part about 5-6 other vehicles coming from this plant.

That might be other exports too. GM might be trying to branch the Kappa into other countries too. But if it's not exports I wonder what the other vehicles would be.
 
#6 ·
brentil said:
That might be other exports too. GM might be trying to branch the Kappa into other countries too. But if it's not exports I wonder what the other vehicles would be.
I'd expect Vauxhall (UK) to be one of the imports. If they also get a Sky-clone then we'll have 3 Sky siblings (2 in Europe). That would be cool.
 
#8 ·
The plant, however, is capable of producing nearly 250,000 vehicles a year
Analysts and state officials said the Opel is one of an estimated five or six vehicles that are expected to be built in Newport in the coming years as the plant beefs up production.
Now where is the person who was telling us the plant could not build more than 20,000 cars a year? :rolleyes

I wonder how many of those other vehicles to be added within a couple years will be stretched Kappa vehicles, allowing a back seat!

GM has invested $50 million in the Kappa platform, which is designed to build niche, rear-wheel-drive vehicles.
Don't get too carried away over this figure. I have a feeling they are reffering to GM's investment in the Deleware plant to produce the Kappa, and not the car's actual development cost. The average cost to develop a new car platform these days is about a billion dollars! 25 years ago the Fiero was designed and engineered on a shoestring budget of $250 million. The kappa overall cost many times the figure they quoted. Its got to be plant investment.
 
#10 ·
Fformula88 said:
Don't get too carried away over this figure. I have a feeling they are reffering to GM's investment in the Deleware plant to produce the Kappa, and not the car's actual development cost. The average cost to develop a new car platform these days is about a billion dollars! 25 years ago the Fiero was designed and engineered on a shoestring budget of $250 million. The kappa overall cost many times the figure they quoted. Its got to be plant investment.
Ahhh, ok yeah that's probably true.

I think the only reason the plant would be really limited to 20,000 would be because that's the limit of the equipment currently in the plant right now. Between now and Sky/Opel arrival there will more then likely be more equipment installed to handle more production.
 
#12 · (Edited)
I'll join you, but have to say:

"NO - Nomad !!!, NO - Nomad !!!, NO - Nomad !!!"

the thing really didn't float my boat...

I still think the Deleware plant, with niche cars, will still be able to only support about a max of 80K-100K volume. Unless the setup is re-done to rely on suppliers to supply pre-assembled parts (like a whole drivetrain and they get it and "plug-n-play"), essentially no sub-assembly lines...

...but what do I know?
 
#14 ·
Fformula88 said:
Now where is the person who was telling us the plant could not build more than 20,000 cars a year?

I have a feeling they are reffering to GM's investment in the Deleware plant to produce the Kappa, and not the car's actual development cost.
Trust me, there is NO WAY the plant could make 250,000 Soltice/Skys per year without substantial additional investment.

And, yes, the $50 million is plant investment.
 
#16 ·
bigd said:
Unless you have an Opel dealer in your area, I don't think you'd be able to get the parts.
Opel is primarily German, and some other surrounding Euro areas right now. They haven't sold into the USA in a while now I believe. Someone else mentioned or it was in an article that the Opel Kappa will be a Euro only car as well.

It's kinda retarded since the car will be made in the USA, but you can probably get in touch with someone in Germany or Euro area and get panels imported to the USA from there. I know a lot fo people who do it all the time for Porsche parts. Australia is a great place for parts too a lot of times for those cars amasingly.
 
#17 ·
bigd said:
Trust me, there is NO WAY the plant could make 250,000 Soltice/Skys per year without substantial additional investment.

And, yes, the $50 million is plant investment.
I agree that the figure sounds a little high, but I have seen figures over 100K in different sources. So they do believe they have capacity for vehicles beyond these three. If they did 20K each and had 5-6 vehicles, that would put them at about the 100K unit mark.
 
#18 ·
brentil said:
Ahhh, ok yeah that's probably true.

I think the only reason the plant would be really limited to 20,000 would be because that's the limit of the equipment currently in the plant right now. Between now and Sky/Opel arrival there will more then likely be more equipment installed to handle more production.
The 20K unit figure is a limitation in the body panel manufacturing process. As I saw it explained, it takes a lot longer to hydroform a body panel than to stamp one. Therefore, they would not be able to manufacture over 20K sets (plus collision parts) in any one year for any one body design. It is conceivable they could do 40K units by doubling the number of dies, but they would have to double sales to that figure to make it feasable. That is where the Sky comes in. Another set of dies. Another 20K body panels.
 
#21 ·
Fformula88 said:
The 20K unit figure is a limitation in the body panel manufacturing process. As I saw it explained, it takes a lot longer to hydroform a body panel than to stamp one. Therefore, they would not be able to manufacture over 20K sets (plus collision parts) in any one year for any one body design. It is conceivable they could do 40K units by doubling the number of dies, but they would have to double sales to that figure to make it feasable. That is where the Sky comes in. Another set of dies. Another 20K body panels.
Where do you get your information on the speed of hydroforming panels? I'm not doubting you, just I have no experience in hydroforming of body panels, however I have more experience than I should in stamping, dies, and the like.

I can't imagine the process is so slow as to limit them to 20,000 per year. On a 48 week year (most suppliers still work 50, and some all 52) that's only 83 panels that need to be made per die each day. Now, I know there are a few body panels (hood, 2 doors, 4 quarter panels), say 7 in total. If there is only one die, thats 581 (7 parts * 83 parts per 8 hours) parts in a day. Granted there is tooling change over that I'm not accounting for... but still 581 parts in 8 hours is a cycle time of 50 sec per part. If you are running 2 shifts then that's one real LONG cycle time to get a part. I also know that on critical components (exteriors being one of those) that one die will not be allowed, there will be a second die for all the parts in case of a problem with the die. I also couldn't believe that capacity would be so constrained at the supplier as to limit them to the use of only one press.

When I looked into hydroforming from some companies that do this, the die sets don't look anymore complicated than a progressive die really. Setup time should be in the minutes range, not hours range. I'm also assuming that all non-exterior panels are stamped and not hydroformed with my total of 7 body panels. Maybe it has to do with die wear, but then where does the cost advantage come into play?

Anyone with hydroforming experience here?
 
#22 ·
if you search on "sheet hydroforming" you'll find some highlights from an SAE publication on this very subject regarding this very car.

You have to buy the article, though, or get Automotive Engineering.

or, you can go here:
http://www.solsticeforum.com/forum/showthread.php?t=461
 
#23 ·
Thanks Solsticeman! :thumbs

I've seen it mentioned in a couple places. Popular Mechanics ran an article a while back on it too (after production was announced).

Golden! I dug one one such article that discusses it in some length. Now, it doesn't specifically say 20K is a maximum limit, but it does say you couldn't do it on higher volume vehicles but a 20K unit roadster is do-able. Here is the exact quote, and a link to the article. It is from March 2004, but a very good read on the whole Solstice development and build process.

http://www.ai-online.com/issues/article_detail.asp?id=413

While hydroformed tubes are commonplace in body-on-frame applications such as full-size trucks and the Corvette, Kappa brings a new twist to body making called sheet hydroforming. While this technology is rare in the car business, it’s been in wide industrial use for decades.

Chances are your notebook computer’s case or the stainless steel sink in your kitchen was made by this method. According to Al Houchens, GM’s director of advanced manufacturing technology productionizing, sheet hydroforming delivers several benefits:

A 10-50-percent tooling-cost savings.

The ability to draw deeper-section panels with more complex shapes than is practical with conventional processes.

Superior finish quality since there is no skidding friction or metal-to-metal contact on the visible surface.

Added stiffness achieved by hydroforming’s more equitable spread of strain over the panel’s entire surface, improving dent and oil canning resistance.

Solstice production begins in the summer of 2005.
The one notable negative is a cycle time three to 10 times longer than conventional matched-die stamping. That’s a show stopper with high volume models such as the Chevrolet Cobalt but not a concern when the sales target is 20,000 or so sports cars per year.

The entire skin of the Solstice and mating inner panels — about ten parts in all — will be made by sheet hydroforming. Elated with this breakthrough approach, Queen exclaims, “We considered SMC and other composites but plastics drove investment and piece costs too high for a low-volume, low-cost car. And the beauty of sheet hydroforming is its ability to produce a hood with shapes, forms, and radii that couldn’t be achieved with conventional stamping methods.

“What’s more, the Kappa architecture doesn’t preclude other technologies. There’s no reason we couldn’t use aluminum, SMC, or conventional pressed steel for another car sharing this architecture.”

Parks adds, “Substituting longer hydroformed structural rails gives us a longer wheelbase. The chassis is a suspension engineer’s dream with forged-aluminum control arms and coil-over dampers so there’s ample capacity for other family members
Off topic, but another interesting bit of info on engines:

“The beauty of the Ecotec engine is that, with turbocharging or supercharging, it’s capable of delivering 250 hp which would take us from seven seconds for the base car’s zero-to-sixty performance down to the five-second range. In other words, the 4-cylinder offers so much flexibility we see no need for a V-6.”
 
#24 ·
Thanks for the articles. I can see why tool cost investment is down... no need for long life dies at all... with a 5 year program your looking at 120,000 parts for production (pre-production, saleable / non-saleable builds, production, service).

I just can't imagine the cycle time up that high... I guess I'm going to have to do some learning on hydroforming and get myself into a shop that does it to check it out for myself.
 
#25 ·
Incidentally, do we know for a fact that the SKY and Opel GT will even have hydroformed body panels, or will they just be conventionally pressed?

I don't recall reading anywhere that they will be hydroformed... but then again, I don't pay as much attention to the SKY/GT.
 
#26 ·
2KWK4U said:
Incidentally, do we know for a fact that the SKY and Opel GT will even have hydroformed body panels, or will they just be conventionally pressed?

I don't recall reading anywhere that they will be hydroformed... but then again, I don't pay as much attention to the SKY/GT.
Yeah, since the Sky ins't as curvatios, and seems to use more panels then the Solstice there's a good chance they might be pressed instead of hydroformed. But if they're all made in the same plant one might think they're all hydroformed though. Anyone else know?
 
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