President-elect Lee
Visits GM Daewoo

President-elect compliments auto company for its smooth management-labor relations

President-elect Lee Myung-bak visited GM Daewoo Auto & Technology Co.Bucheon car plant Jan.29 in a move to praise the company's harmonious management-labor relations.. He told President Michael Grimaldi of the auto maker that management should maintain a smooth relations with labor unions to revive the economy. GM Daewoo has become the first automaker in the country to produce a 6-speed automatic transmission at its brand new engine plant, dedicated Feb. 13 in Boryung, South Chungcheong Province.
President Grimaldi said at a ceremony marking the completion of the new engine plant that the new transmission will come in two models -- one for gasoline and the other for diesel-powered cars.
The Korean subsidiary of General Motors of the United States invested some $500 million to build the engine plant to produce the new automatic transmission, which was developed jointly with GM's lab in Detroit. The company said it will also produce new transmissions for small cars. GM Daewoo officials said the new transmission is designed to save fuel because it has more gears and can help cars speed up more quickly. The Tosca Premium 6 model, equipped with the new transmission, showed that its fuel savings increased by 15 percent more than the 5-step transmission during highway tests. The car also reduced by 10 seconds the time it took to reach 40 km/h or 80 km/h from a standstill. They also said that the new transmission is designed and produced so that it will not have problems until the mileage reaches at least 320,000 km, which is twice as long as traditional transmissions. Grimaldi said the company plans to export the new transmission to other GM subsidiaries around the world so that it can be installed on other GM car models. He said the company will increase the production capacity of the new transmission plant to 600,000 units annually.
Grimaldi said the new Lacetti to be debuted in the second half of this year will also have the new transmission as it will be the standard for all new 300-series passenger car models to be introduced in 2009. The company currently is in the process of developing follow-up models for the Lacetti with the code name of J300 and a follow-up model of the Tosca under the project name of V300 within the automaker's 300-series vehicle development plan.
GM Daewoo presented five cars to the winners of its fifth anniversary contest, "Project V -- Find the Fifth Element."The event was held at GM Daewoo's KTX Theme Lounge in Seoul's Yongsan KTX station.
The five winners were handed the keys to a Matiz mini-car, Lacetti sedan, Tosca sedan, Winstorm SUV and G2X roadster by GM Daewoo Vice President of Vehicle Sales, Service & Marketing Rick LaBelle. In addition, the contestant with the 'lucky scratch ticket'received a brand new "Gentra X"from GM Daewoo.
"We appreciate the great interest in the contest,"said LaBelle. "It served as a fun way to provide consumers with a greater understanding of GM Daewoo's core values and the importance that we attach to customer satisfaction. As we enter our sixth year, GM Daewoo will continue to build customer enthusiasm by placing customer satisfaction at the top of the agenda."The "Project V - Find the Fifth Element"contest was a five-week online promotion that ran from Oct. 17 through Nov. 23. Those who visited the event website were invited to look for the five most important elements that drive the automaker's success and symbolize its core values. To find each element, visitors were asked to decipher a series of clues that are related to GM Daewoo and carry out commands such as solving quizzes and puzzles through five stages. A total of 126,006 people participated in the contest. Five winners from among the 28,274 individuals who found the fifth element were selected via a lottery. In addition to the five grand prizes, other prizes such as portable car battery chargers, KRW 200,000 worth of fuel certificates, cell phones, MP3 players, computer monitors and navigation devices were given to the winners of each of the five rounds.
GM Daewoo Auto & Technology was established on Oct. 17, 2002, following GM's takeover of Daewoo Motors, an affiliate of the Daewoo Group, which was dissolved when a number of its core affiliates went bankrupt during the 1997-1998 Asian financial crisis. GM renamed the Korean automaker GM-Daewoo. nw

President-elect Lee Myung-bak, center, shakes hands with GM Daewoo President Michael Grimaldi and head of the labor union of the auto maker during a visit to the GM Daewoo Bucheon plant in a move to show amicable ties between the government and labor.