Vroom!

So GM don't want to sell Opel. Naturally, the German government and the unions are upset (the latter think they're better off with the Magna deal). The Spanish and English workers must be relieved. It's not surprising that GM wanted to keep hold of it. Opel contains lots of valuable intellectual property that GM has invested in over the years. A sale would have seen that IP go elsewhere, enabling future competitors to GM in growth markets such as Russia and China. There is also another factor, which is partly economic and partly cultural - scale. Car makers are obsessed with it. But it's a self-perpetuating cycle. A car model costs a fortune to develop, then you refresh it every 2-3 years, before launching a new replacement model after 5 or so years. That requires economies of scale. Nobody wants to be first to change that destructive model. But the World makes too many cars. There needs to be unit volume reduction and vendor consolidation, and it ain't likely to happen even in such straight-jacketed times.

Things to say in meetings that can be interpeted in a number of ways:

- 'This is a test tube to revenue process'
- 'We don't want to be raped by silverback gorillas'