GM To Halve Number Of Vehicle Frames To Cut Costs

DETROIT (WWJ) - General Motors plans to be leaner in the future by cutting in half the number of car and truck frames its uses worldwide. GM built cars and trucks on 30 different frames last year and plans to cut that to 14 by 2018, saving on engineering, design, and manufacturing costs.

Despite growth that included a two-point-five billion dollar second quarter profit, GM stock is down 32-percent for the year.

Sparking at the company's annual global business conference, Tuesday, GM Chairman and C-O Dan Akerson he thinks GM is in pretty good shape, although they're watching their break-even point very closely.

"We need to know where it is and how we're progressing it and of course we want to reduce it as much as possible.  So, when the market does recover, we should be able to really leverage it beyond what you've seen so far."

Akerson said he believes they've done well so far this year, considering.

"We've had a lot of uncertainty . You've had the tsunami, the tragic tsunami in Japan as a result of an earthquake . You had a spike in oil prices , well above a hundred dollars in the first quarter," he said.

"There have been a lot of moving parts here, but we've been able to navigate through that and at the same time, both in the first and second quarter to post reasonably good numbers," Akerson said. "All I have to say is I'm glad we had a good second quarter ... coulda really been ugly."

GM says it will increase factory capacity 45 percent in Brazil, Russia, India and China by 2014 to take advantage of growth.