gm (governmental motors) is a very liberal top management.
they started do downward spiral on palladium stocks,
in effort to corner the market on this 'little nuisance silver"
they began to buy huge stock piles of the metal.
The metal is used in catalytic convertors when heated it becomes charged with static electricity sucking dust out the exhaust of tail pipes.
The dust then with no where to go and no defined place to open and clean becomes a replacement part in around 180,000 the catalytic plugs and then begins to start power drains on motors.
the part is needed to reduce emission a trap door would all that is needed to convert the part to a maintance part, but any tampering with convertor is now illegal to pass inspections, hence the part must be replaced.
a core is assessed due to this and platinum used to make it. It became such a precious metal that literally thieves were cutting this part from parked cars, to extract this metal.
When new palladium sources were found . the market floundered and gm sitting on such vast stocks at 2,000 an ounce began to tailspin as the metal fell to historic lows when the us cleaned its debt.
Gold hit rock bottom platinum palladium and silver were a quarter what there worth is now. second blow to gm was the exploding gas tank issues with the part outside the frame a direct side collision resulted in fire.
Finally the tailgate on trucks began to fail as the plastic would be damaged the inner iron cable would then deteriate and the tailgates would literally fall off when opened. resulting in more litigation.
these factors piled on the commodities and reduction in car and truck sales began to start to push gm to bankruptcy before the stock crash. when the stock market crashed it drove GM to needing a bailout, The company owns pattens and designs on Pontiac, Buick, Gm Chevy and oldsmobile slowly it has reduced it line to Just chevy , buick caddilac and GMC , letting go of production on the mid luxury pkgs.
GM is trying to restructure, but I believe the move to Mexico is political as it is necessary, for why not move back to Flint or Detroit. With Ford dismissing plans to build in Mexico, Gm seems to be ready to fill this void with the proposed site.