CORVETTE PLANT MANAGER TALKS ABOUT CORVETTE, THE VIRUS & CURRENT STATUS APRIL 2020

Wow man, we have a big one for you today, welcome back to the channel that I actually intended to share with you. I already filmed a locked inventory walkthrough per your request, but I think what I have for you now will be more interesting. informative about the

current

and future Corvette market, so stay tuned because we have the full unedited interview with Kai spandy, the

manager

of the Bowling Green assembly

plant

. What I want to remind you about the channel. Make sure you subscribe to this channel we have. There is a very fun plan for you on Saturday.

Nothing to do with Corvette. I know they will stay home. Many of you will remain strong. This will be something for the kids. Just something fun to part with. the norm this we will read with Rick on Saturday here is the book we are going to read in case you have it or want to consult it do you want to read it with me this can be a lot of fun and also I will have for you a printable spread of some Corvette coloring pages really great ones that will be Saturday morning and then Sunday morning.

Yes, that's Easter Sunday, so for the kids still watching and the big kids, I'm talking about you. While you're watching that vlog, you'll also go on an Easter egg hunt and have a chance to win this like a six-point by eight-foot Sebring convertible Bureau CP or what if Chuck put on some nail polish on Looks like I'm gonna need some special kind of frame to hang this. I don't have the frame but I have the mural for you so good luck I hope you enjoyed this contest this Easter

2020

and that's great. Not well? So make sure you are subscribed to the channel, then hit the notification bell to be eligible as number one to win the prizes and you will be notified when we make a new upload.

So what I have for you today is the full interview. Thank you Leslie at the National Corvette Museum for putting this together with KY Spady, the

manager

of the Bowling Green Assembly Plant. When you listen to KY again, this is unedited, you will see that he is the right person for the job he is talking about. about him as a GM at all the different

plant

s he's worked at, but it's been good that he's learned a lot through the process. He has great respect for employees. Great pride and passion for this car. KY is definitely the guy, so in this interview some of the highlights you're going to hear, he's going to talk about the

current

situation at the Bowling Green Assembly Plant it's cold right now no cars being produced no employees of the plant right now with the Cova 19

virus

that they even talk about when they go back to work, what safety precautions will they take before those guys and girls get back on the line.

So far 20 20 Corvettes made 20 695, there are still some cars there, not many, but some cars have to be shipped. A big question arose about convertible production, when will it start? He said he is not sure at this time. He is very candid and

talks

about the fan situation with General Motors. I liked his response to that and just amplified it. You see where they are with that and a lot of the production delay right now in terms of getting the whole unit back up and running has to do with some of the plants in Mexico, so I don't think you're going to Mira, and I think you even alluded to it in the conversation that you won't see a production restart that we were hoping for in mid-April, but I think it will be, I think it will be in early May, so that and a lot more. more information, including second shift capacity and its role for overall production of the c8 mid-engined

corvette

again here, unedited, full interview, bowling green assembly plant manager ty spandy.

I went once and you chewed up the manager of the Corvette assembly plant. He lives in Bowling Green, Kentucky and I think it's a day, he's definitely a far away guy, how's the Corvette? He is the president-elect of the board of the Corvette Museum and what that means is that he will be president of the board in two years. He is an amazing person and very impressive. boy as you all know and here is Christ Mandy, I ask how are you? How is your family? There is no graduation, but we are all fine, we are all healthy and I think that is the most important thing.

Thanks for asking. Yes, I'm sorry to hear that you know your son's graduation and prom have been postponed or. canceled, do you think I think unfortunately they're going to be cancelled, so okay? I mean, I think given these times, the resilience of human beings in general is really tested and well, I'll look back in a few years and we'll remember, we'll remember the good points and hopefully we'll get through all the tough situations. we have to deal with, so we'll be fine. Well, you know, I wanted to ask and I don't know you. you know, you know, if you know what I say, okay, but it's all: are your employees okay, yeah, so I'm actually at the factory right now, as you know, it's two in the afternoon and I'm winding up my day, we only have a handful of people.

I have three professionals here that just make sure that we're watching the plant from a security standpoint and monitoring all of our systems, but for all intents and purposes, the plant is cold if you walk into the facility very few lights and very few people alone a few very critical staff members are here and the main focus of what we are doing now is that we are making all of our plans for when we can restart and there are a lot of safety precautions etc. where we are working out the logistics, but in At this point, no one directly on the Bowling Green team has hired the Provost 19, as far as I know, and that's really good news, that's wonderful news. to listen, but I don't know, you know how much we fortunately know, yeah, can you share, you know, I'm open to any questions, Leslie, I appreciate that, given the disclaimer that I won't be talking about any future shows. , etc. what happens in the company, that's kept pretty secret, but you're asking a little bit about me and I worked for GM now because it's hard to believe it's been almost 29 years.

I died. I was born in southern California. My father. I was teaching in Redondo Beach, if you know where that is, and well, yeah, then I moved to Coos Bay Oregon for a few years and then I came back to Iowa. My parents grew up in southern Minnesota, you know, in rural areas and in most of it. I didn't grow up in Iowa, so I'm right in the heart of the United States and when I finished high school and college, I spent some time working at John Deere and then I had the opportunity to come work for General Motors and I did. that in Michigan and then they transferred me to Ohio and then I had the opportunity to study abroad so I went to Japan for a year I worked for a Japanese company I came back and worked in our factory there and I worked and then I moved to New York.

I came back to Ohio and then to Michigan at several different locations and different facilities, engine plants, component plants, foundry plants, and then before coming to Bowling Green, I was assigned to run the powertrain development labs at Germany for our Opel division there and basically I ran all the dyno, chassis and pre-production of the new engine and transmission, both in Germany and Italy, so I had the opportunity to do that. One day I got a call from my mentor saying, Hey, I know it would mean cutting your job. The time in Germany and Europe is one year, but would you like to return to the US and take on the role of Corvette plant manager?

As the story goes, I jumped at the opportunity. It was Friday afternoon and Germany was six. Michigan hours anyway and I said yes and got off the phone with him and my friends and their kids were with us we were having a little barbecue my friend who actually works for Boeing Leslie and who lived in Germany as a supplier representative and then I thought to myself hmm, I better call my wife and make sure she is okay with it, but my passion for the car got in front of me, but she was fine and we had already talked about coming back and so it is like I landed at the Corvette assembly plant, but you know, I tell this story and it's true, I really have a passion for Corvettes, it was the first car I bought after working for GM, it wasn't new, but it was used. 78th Silver Anniversary which later led to a '65 big block convertible that I completely restored.

I love working on cars, a lot of new cars now that I have this role and most recently I bought a '66 big block coupe, which is Bloomington's goal. Really absolutely beautiful car and my son and I are trying to maintain that passion. He loves cars, and he's higher up in the process of restoring a '73 convertible than I am. I discovered that a secret is revealed if I tell it to everyone here except us. We are working on it with the goal of giving it to him as a graduation gift and taking him to prom with his girlfriend, although both plans will change, but we are still creating memories like crazy people working on that car to get a name for it.

Greasy: I like having someone who can do some of that work for me. Very special memories in the future, especially for you and your child. It's wonderful to be here because you've been working on this together and of course for Beth. Sean Clancy grew up in Germany because My father, I remember you moved from Germany to Bowling Great, so that was the Opal deficient, yes it was inside the Opal headquarters, however the powertrain operations for which was working spanning all brands, so at that time we had two powertrains. development facilities, one in Europe and then another in Pontiac Michigan, and the engines or transmissions that were developed in two locations would be used all over the world, but it was a great experience, you know, having lived abroad for a couple of different places, I can say with complete sincerity, no matter where you go, you will find great people.

I have friends you know from over five years ago in Japan and certainly my friends in Germany and Italy are the ones I still keep in touch with. I had a great time, you know, you almost sound like you're in the military because I'm a military brat, yeah, we use a different term, Jim, gypsy, maybe that's an advantage, you know, some people wonder, it's like, well, what? How can you do that? the impact of the ability to perform these roles that we have are very diverse, you can't get the experience that you need by working in one place for a career and whether it's the people you meet, the different products, the aspects of the business.

It's very, very important and just so you know I'm an unusual person, I started working doing castings and then on engines and now vehicles, so there's really not a lot of things in our manufacturing operations within the entire company in those that could not enter. and know that I have some really, really good questions that I have up my sleeve that I can ask and be a very competent observer and a leader in that sense, in fact, when I walked into Bowling Green because this is not just exclusive to some people, the assistant manager at Bowling Green is a fantastic lady, her name is Nora Roper, she was the assistant manager at the same facility I was at in Romulus Michigan, which was an engine plant, so we worked together in the same roles in a different place and our materials manager that I worked with when I was a plant manager in Saginaw Bay City Michigan, he was the materials manager and in a way I was the new member of the team with people that I had spent quite a bit of time with .

So this is one of the byproducts that we get that is healthy over the years. It's been a few years since we met on the board. I don't think I've asked you or heard you speak. about car racing Yes, you have been a fan of car racing. Do you follow the Corvette Racing team and the evidential vibe? I would say I love anything that burns fuel. I have a kind of high performance boat that me and my family love and we. I've had one for a long time, a newer one since I got back from Germany, if you grow up in the upper Midwest or maybe out west, snowmobiling is fun, my family and I enjoy it, I love the thrill to participate in those. things and the parenting aspect is also something I enjoy.

I would say I almost prefer to participate in these types of activities more than being a spectator, but I make it an annual tradition to go to Attica and meet with the Buzz and who is one of the former members of the Museum's board of directors as well and with Taj and we went out and we meet a couple of club members helping organize an event there and interacting with the Corvette racing team. and of course Doug Feehan and I have the opportunity to talk about a number of different activities that are going on and we appreciate having the membership to get a little inside of the most dominant GT team on the planet. right yeah when I'm also a big fan and of course we love it I was going to think it's one of our favorite tracks here in the US and I used to train and store therefor professional racing and SOC, a racing club, is just fantastic. great so he's here Lori I forget what the new name is but in the past I used to go there too but you know the books are very special oh yeah I am again.

I'm driven by MCA, I never realized it was actually running, but I'm so looking forward to doing that, I hope you know that next time I'm there, you know, at the Museum and you know the track is open, One death will want to try one, but in the early 90's they did some auto and drag racing with my C4 Touch and I still remember the sound. I mean, I call it the zone. You know, when your lordship crossed towards her hearing this whistle, this wonderful whistle. I do not know if. I'm going crazy. I was just letting you know that I'm curious to see how that works with PE and rc-aid, although I will never, ever take advantage of the CH for a couple of chances to get one of the new cars out.

At the NCM track there was an event where we had some politicians come to town and we gave them access to take the cars at a somewhat leisurely pace around the track and then when they let me and some members of the staff. we take a little more aggressive approach around the trail and I've been to Spring Mountain and you know, like I said, if you can, if you can ride a snowmobile on a trail that doesn't have yellow lines, that and you know, the penalties for fail is usually a tree or another machine, you find your way and I really enjoy that experience and I had another one where there was a documentary with the Discovery Channel that we filmed there and I mean me.

As a stuntman, no one will know that it was me driving this blue c8, but I had to do it for some legal reasons and then I had the opportunity to do some laps, but having driven a CA for seven months or more, I have done over 14,000 miles in almost every situation imaginable because this is my daily driver. I had a coupe, the fast blue coupe, which is kind of a light blue coupe and now I'm driving an orange convertible and they're bright colors that I intentionally selected those two colors because I wanted the person that would help welcome a new demographic. .

You know, as long as my son is 17, he'll never be able to afford a Corvette anytime soon. New one. I wanted to make sure those people saw. Me in this car and I had the opportunity to interact with the younger people because this is what we were all at one point, we saw that car go by and I was impressed and then we fell in love with the car with the sport or whatever and it gives you the opportunity to have a little bit of a lifestyle, so I hope we get to a couple of those people and a lot of conversations and gas stations.

I tell people they always ask what you don't like about the car. I said well. Sometimes it takes up to 45 minutes to fill it with fuel and they look at me with a puzzled look and say, well, why would it take so long? And then I just smile at them and say because people ask me questions like you. a little bit and we'll laugh a little bit and the best part of the best part of why the car is so great is because so many people just love the car and it gives us as individuals the opportunity to build relationships with other people who normally wouldn't.

You know, that's really cool, I love it, I know, over the years, there's nothing, I leave the gas station to people, you know, you know or making the first comment is that good, I guess I'm on the gas station, it consumes a lot of fuel and I think I actually get great gas mileage. I mean the teacher. I thought it seems like the better I get at it, you know, so I imagine you know something similar. I hope there's a similar kind of still consumption and that's the eight, yeah, you know, the car that I'm driving, there's a point that I hadn't reached.

I intentionally don't reset the, you know, one of the fuel reminders, like the truck's fuel measurements, so I'm capturing every aspect. of my driving and I have a bit of a, let's say, spirited approach to driving, all within the legal limits, however, you know, the average yo-yo is in the high 20s and if you're driving, just I'm on the highway. because you know, over a period of time you can see 26 27 28 miles per gallon pretty consistently, you can convert it to two point eight miles per gallon on a track, I'm sure, but anyway it's fantastic, I mean, where more can you get it? such acceleration or top speed using the table and in something that probably gets better fuel economy than someone who would make a comment like that saying it's a gas guzzler, it's like you know it's a car that has credible bandwidth that can have. incredible performance and can have incredible efficiency, not fuel economy.

I say efficiency because it's not easy to make a car like this so efficient that it can get such great fuel economy. It's a great engineering move by Tajen, the team you're looking for. and you know you talk about the younger generation and getting them interested and competing for that it smells with the c8 and the right side, you are also opening up a bigger market internationally, right, yeah, so the new car we have, We have shown a right-hand drive version, so it will be dedicated to a few markets, the UK, Japan and Australia, and they are there waiting anxiously because we have never done that before and I have heard the stories of people who have come to visit from Australia just as an example, if they want to get a number one Corvette they have to buy a used one, legally they can't buy a new one so maybe they use it lightly and probably spend a hundred and fifty thousand to get it. the car and then you land in Australia unless it's considered an old car, which I'm not sure of the exact rule, but it's like 10 or 15 years old, so they can leave it left-hand drive, if not, they have to convert it and there are companies that do it but they charge them almost the cost of the car again to convert it to right-hand drive and people do it so they can buy a car that leaves the factory with right-hand drive and then have all that, all the advantages that come with it, will create a giant new market for us because we all know that people in Australia love their horsepower.

My first question, well, former branch board member George Dubrow of Connecticut is a gentleman. Corvette family and here is the question what number we are at and when we expect to start production of the convertible. I don't know the VIN number exactly down to the digits, but we are just under two thousand seven hundred, that is, two thousand six hundred. nine ninety five just under two seven hundred have rolled off the line and almost a precious view of them have been shipped so that's the answer to the first and the answer to the second is when does production start on the Corvette Convertible which clearly falls into the I can talk category, jokingly, we've probably proven that the convertible exists.

We showed that we debuted in Florida in November, I believe, and orders are available, however, we have not announced the start of production of the convertible at this time. period and I would go on to say that you know there might be people out there that are asking the question because they have a convertible on order we're very anxious to get back up and running and then we're I'm going to have to figure out how that's all going to work and obviously I I would say the timing is a little up in the air right now, unfortunately we had this last week.

You know, the Mexican government shut down all manufacturing. operations, so even if they had wanted to run, they can't and there are no welds. The Corvette is by far the most expensive production car in North America and the United States. You know, we still get some pieces from Mexico, so in making that decision, I would go. To the point of saying that all automotive production in North America because of that Mexico rule is going to stop right now until the 30th of the month, so that's what they currently have and that's a situation that we're dealing with, that's fine thanks.

These are the only questions anyone has sent me yet, so sit here and wait for more questions to come. Yes, that is a very good question. There are a huge number of cars that have been delivered to the museum and that is the order option. car can be delivered to the museum. I don't know the

status

at this point, but I do know that they had, I don't know, 50 or 60 cars there that they needed to deliver and they had made the determination that because the delivery of those cars can actually be very, very private. You meet a person who is the new owner and then the person who goes over all the options and how the car works, explains some things and makes that experience that they have chosen completely within the limits of safety and legalities, etc., they chose to continue with the program, so I don't know how many cars they have there right now, but they are continuing with the RAC delivery and I heard, although you know, not directly online.

With that I heard from Sean that there were a couple of people who just had it delivered to my house and I will forgo that delivery, maybe this person who couldn't travel due to state regulations on him or a required air travel for them. getting there and then driving back the logistics that they've arranged just for the car to come into your possession in a different way, but that's a great thing about our companies having the ability to interact with what is and just in a way incredible. museum, which is a mile away, less than a mile from our factory, well, we're fortunate to have such a great relationship between you and then your gehrman and General Motors and we appreciate all of that and it's a wonderful option to have your Your fur vest was delivered to the Christmas Museum.

You know there were better times. You know we're still doing it, but hopefully we'll do it again in the near future. You know they've been talking in the news about engine manufacturing in general. fans, anything you can share about them, I'm sure I would say, well, maybe I'd have to bury the hatchet or talk about the elephant in the room, you know, a couple of weeks ago our company came under fire and I think everyone knows. What are we talking about here. I'll just say that it was a very unfortunate situation and it's not at all representative of what our company is doing to make ventilators and it's not like we have a factory ready to go.

To make ventilators, we had to start from scratch and it started long before anyone told us we should do it. We went voluntarily and you know, I partnered with the Seattle company Ben Tech that makes fans and they have several different fans that they produce and we worked with them to basically be like a manufacturing facility for them so that they own all the intellectual property. and the designs, etc., etc., and we are going to get into the business of making many more of them in this company. I may not understand the numbers correctly, but scale is what's important.

They make a couple hundred ventilators a month. Our plan is to make ten thousand a month and that's what we know how to do and where we've taken what we call their production plans. control or the process in which To manufacture the generator or the fans, we have replicated that in Kokomo Indiana we had an office building there, which is much more conducive than any other factory, a three-story building where we have two modules in the two upper floors, each module capable of about 5000 per month and the first one has already done some testing and is looking to get more parts even over the weekend and you know, with the idea that we will start as soon as possible, it is definitely a matter complicated. process and this is and is also regulated by the FDA, each one of these fans, believe it or not, I mean you put it in the frame of reference, we built a car and a bowling green runs TVP or a dining room, our vehicle dynamic task. for about four minutes and this is where the cars on a chassis roll or accelerate up to about 80 miles per hour checking the brakes and many other things hundreds of different tests these fans, each one of them before it can be shipped has to withstand two complete days of testing and those tests basically consist of connecting it.

I'm going to call it iron grass, just to simulate it doing its job in various conditions and that's a giant bottleneck that we're working on, however, it's all going to be. made non-profit, the engineering resources that we have are being donated to the project and while it is a large amount, half a billion dollars because the government just came out and said we will buy some from those who have committed. thirty thousand of them for just under half a billion dollars, which is what I'm going to make off the top of my head, maybe twelve thousand dollars each, these things retail, you know, between thirty and fifty thousand, so we're basically giving them away. for the betterment of humanity and that is what we are doing with its 16 different locations, we have engineers or people helping, even outside of our Boeing green plant, I have my industrial engineering manager and a few others who are like that.

They are helping to solve problems and we have hundreds, literally hundreds of volunteers whothey just raised their hand at our company and said I'm going to go to Kokomo and help, and not without some risk because it's not like they live in Kokomo, Indiana, they could be in the Detroit area from other places, so it's great and we're also manufacturing surgical masks so you know where we will have a plan to manufacture millions of these disposable surgical masks and we will do it in our guarantee. facility near our headquarters in Warren Michigan so we're really doing our part it's really out of our lane but anyway you know we can't operate our factories a situation has arisen so we take It's time to do something that can be productive, well, you certainly are and I bless you and your employees and General Motors for doing this for everyone.

I wasn't aware of the medical mass, are these the ones that have the effect of plastic shields or something? They are what's known as an ASTM surgical mass, so they're kind of like little elastic bands that go around your ears and what you might see people wear in public places to protect themselves or what a doctor would wear in a ward. surgical The type of lightweight cloth is more complex than that, but the type of cloth shield that is designed for you to know, does not perfectly protect your illness, it is designed to help contain whatever you have inside yourself, for which helps protect, let's just say, the environment from that when people are on someone's costs and they have one of these, they're not going to put out the germs that they might have, okay.

Rick from Ohio apologizes if I missed it, but when will

2020

production start? Back up, I don't think you sent that to yourself, although you have some idea, but that's the question. I have a couple more that come in handy, so let's take that one for Rick, yeah, we don't really know at this point when the time will pass. It will be the right time to restart not only the Corvette plant but the entire automotive industry. I mentioned that you know Mexico has this ban on anything if you're not a firefighter, a paramedic working in healthcare, or a police officer, basically.

EMS then you have to be at home that closed all other businesses, which means that all manufacturing will stop at least until the end of this month, so if we were very, very aggressive, we would say early next month and just say that our motivations We must return as soon as we can and that is why I am now in the factory with the pressure of seeing people making sure that as soon as we are ready we can bring people back safely and continue doing what we we are doing. The thing to do is build these amazing cars, so if you get the green light, how long would it take you to get to the point where you know to get the factory running like before?

Is it just instant or well, not instant, but yes? You already know what we would probably be going for and there are a huge number of variables. You know, all the suppliers are ready. We have 400 different suppliers that ship parts to Bowling Green and as an example, an engine is a part number for us, so it is one supplier. It has a lot of complexities for the engine to get parts, it could be dozens more suppliers, really all you need is one of those suppliers to have a problem with your situation and then everything stops, so there is certainly a lot of complexity, so I can't.

I'll give you an absolutely definitive number, although if we had everything we needed parts-wise I'd say we'd probably have a few cars out on day one, but we're going to take a very, very structured approach to retraining our employees. It doesn't mean we're teaching them new jobs, we're going to take the time to update their training, we're going to take the time to make sure that from a health standpoint they're doing well and we have questions. I responded and I really guess you would say let's prepare so that when we turn on the line and start running we know that people's minds are in the right place and that is necessary, we must give them the confidence that we have prepared correctly and that is the only way you can have an opportunity for productivity and also quality and, above all, safety for our employees.

Well, you know, let's be okay, you know, I'm not suggesting this, but it would be nice if you had a little badge. of honor there somewhere, you know, that's it, you know, survivor of a

virus

or something, so you knew it was during the period, you know what we're going through, but anyway, okay, next question It's Boyd Kurt, I'm not sure again. This is one that has the new yellow and the mid throttle yellow, yes I guess so, they have been made and there are many that are available. In fact, I mentioned Nora Roper, the assistant principal here, she also drives a convertible, which is. accelerate the yellow, yes, so now not all the colors have been produced and released, however, we have the ability to make them all and I think the last color, the maroon color, although that was one that was coming out just the week that we're closed but all the colors will be rolling out in very short order okay next question is from George again these are all the employees at the Corvette plant that get paid so the answer is maybe it's not a Yes No question.

We will start with the people who work hourly, we have put the people who work hourly on layoff

status

and with that they receive money from the company and some from the state, which in total is approximately seventy-three seventy-four percent of your normal income, so it is absolutely a challenge to do this. it's just the people in the Corvette assembly, this is across the corporation and then from a salary standpoint, everyone, I would say, I would say we were asked or expected or mandated, whoever you choose, to have deferred compensation or a reduction and payment. From a time standpoint, which people sometimes don't understand or maybe don't understand easily, but haven't really thought about, we stopped this giant machine that we have to make cars and our income stops immediately and we're doing everything can. we can reduce spending, you know, on the projects within the plant there is no activity, we are really doing everything we can to make sure that we can conserve cash and be ready to restart.

Well, Tom and I have a question because I participated in it, I know, two weeks ago. John mentioned that he might open factory tours again after the holiday season, I'm guessing late May, and my question would be how long after that they would allow buyers. tours where people can come and see their car being put together to start over yeah I think they would all be about the same time frame you know probably the biggest question we would have is about a shelter in place or Whatever terminology is used in the state you might reside in, what will specifically be allowed in Kentucky and many other states have these customer facing business terms that cannot exist and therefore this may qualify for one.

Of them, the only thing I would say that is absolutely fundamental is that we are here to make cars, we are also here to support the enthusiasts and that includes the people who buy the vehicles that I am predisposed to find ways to attract people . our plant so they can experience building their car, simply by seeing how cars are built. I have often referred to this as a symbiotic relationship, our employees get a lot from having people visit them, so this is not just people seeing their car being built when our employees see the enthusiasm of people receiving our product, that makes them better, that's why our customers are better, our employees are better, we have a sense of pride that you can't normally feel when you're making a widget in Keokuk Iowa, my motivation is very clear: we will bring the people here as soon as we can and when we can do it safely once they are gone, I hope we had to close the plant, but now we all know why it was because we are working on the new car, they are on the line, no I could let people see them, what people here are motivated to do that, well, we talked a little. a little bit about what's going on and you know, I would jump at the opportunity if someone said, well, you know what you think when you apply to be manager of the Corvette assembly planets?

You know, I'm really looking for feedback on the car and how we're doing and there's always opportunities for us to improve, without a doubt, that's part of life, that's part of what we do. Our factory and our product have a good reputation of offering great products and I think if you have taken It's time to click general to open YouTube and see some of the people who buy our cars to help them make a living using it as a platform for revenue, not for GM. I should add that I am very proud of the fact that you know that I give Tajen, the team, incredible credit for designing and engineering an absolutely phenomenal car and I would also say that I am very proud of the people at Bowling Green.

The hourly wage does not matter, we all contribute to what is now referred to. As you know, the car is making a lot of our competitors very nervous and that gives me a lot of pride personally and the people who are here, so the cars are being very well received and it's fantastic. feeling like really you know the ugliest thing for someone who works in manufacturing, it's kind of ugly, the factories are down and we've had our challenges and I'm ready to get back up and keep making cars, I definitely feel it. thank you yes I have many more questions ok do you have any providers who are experiencing financial difficulties that may require Jim to stay alive?

It's from Murano. Oh, Paul, hello, how are you? I know, Paul, yes, that's a very good question. It's probably American English because it's too early to tell, but I would just say those dressers will be out there, which will be difficult for our suppliers, it will be difficult for us, it will be difficult for your local restaurants. That is going to be difficult for all businesses, it is a recession descriptor for our global economy, it is now depression and I fully expect that our supply base will need some level of assistance or worst case scenario we will have to look for another option .

That's a difficult situation for us because you know we don't share a lot of parts with anyone other cars or and we have a different type of supply base they are very small compared to a lot of others you know we have a carbon. fiber manufacturer or the parts we purchase are very, very specialized and not universally used in the automotive industry due to their high tech nature, so while I can't say you know, yeah, that's one of those because it depends on how much As long as we have to be away, it will be a challenge for us, it's certainly a good question, Paul, okay, the next question is from Andre Johnson, thanks everyone, this is a lot of fun.

Can you give us an idea of ​​the popular colors that are being ordered? The most popular colors are being sorted. Well, we don't have all the colors available, but I would say I'm going to go a little out of the ordinary, so you may not get it right. It's always red, white and black. These are always maybe not in that order, but black and white and then going back, these are the Corvette zr1 brand's own perennials and it was a little bit special, there was a high proportion of the orange, the Sebring orange, but I I'm going to say you know there's no real surprise that someone really likes, say, the Sebring Orange and orders a lot of them, all of these cars look great no matter the color, so people like Harlan Charlotte say that You know everyone has a favorite color and I think we're in the bandwidth of what we've seen with previous cars.

Well, the next question is from Curt Brighter Southington Connecticut. Is there a difference and are Corvettes shipped overseas other than right hand drive? Yes There are some legal requirements we have built many of them into the car for example on the C7 at the front of the car and the rules have changed there used to be a squirter requirement for the headlights there are requirements I put into the c7 a different outside rearview mirror that had a turn signal, we didn't have that in domestic content the Middle East has very common requirements like the United States, just where some of their specifications came from, Europe as in You know, Germany has some quirks , so there are some special things that are required in those areas.

You know, we haven't started exporting at the moment. We are working to supply national markets, but yes, there are some differences. and there are some silly things that are different, for example if we send a card to Mexico or Central America, the fill limit must be written in a different language, not only if you are from that part of the world, but also if you know from our point of view of view we have tothen change the cover because if everything is the same and then in the plant we do that we have a little different documentation that is different so what we throw in the car when I say that like the manuals, etc. in multiple languages ​​or certain content in the car, there are some areas that, for example, don't have OnStar capability, so we have to customize the documentation that comes with the car.

Fine, thanks. The next question is from Sam's North County Corvette Branch. Club, test in San Diego, can you talk about the change from c7 to c8? You have the level of increased automation, so this is an interesting topic and having been at the Corvette plant for almost two years, sorry, two. years, five years which seems like it's a lot more than that, honestly, we made more than a billion dollars of investment in the last four years in this factory and many of the things that we implemented were transparent to the c7 and we Now that we are ready , it's very clear with the intention of making us able to produce the c8, so I'm going to use an example of the paint job we built, a 500 million dollar paint job that started in the fall of 2017 and When we took a break of production, we came back and were producing all the cars from that new paint job, the automation that was implemented in that shop eclipsed what we had previously and then it was transparent from C7 to C8, in preparation for c8 yes but in the transition no more c7 and c8 that already existed we had already launched and this was by design so that we would not have a factory where everything was new the day you need to start.

We had a paint job that was capable of processing and we also did all the development work for the C8 in production and ten teams. Now let's move forward in the process, let's talk about the body shop. The body shop is absolutely new, it is 100% new, so the new architecture did not have the ability to have a transfer or modification of our existing body shop, so this is a body shop. That's only five years old, we started it. It's amazing how quickly you can boot something up. It took about a week and a half and it literally disappeared and we sold it.

For Reese, the same goes for our General Assembly in 2017. When we closed for almost two months, we invested what was over 120 million dollars in our General Assembly, we replaced everything that 120 million think about in two months, so that's like two million dollars a day, every day, seven days a week, go and try. and we spent that amount of money, we did that and we put all the necessary facilities to co-produce the c7 and the c8 on the same line at the same time, that's why we didn't have people in the plan because we were making cars with common systems and you know, while we were doing everything in our assembly processes, we had a lot of extra tools that were hanging out for people to use because our operators needed to be able to make a c7, another c7. c7 to c7 and oh a c8 is coming so they had to have all the specialized tooling so we had done a lot of engineering work earlier during the 2017 period to have all the infrastructure together to support the build of both cars in Al same time, which is crazy because these cars don't share anything similar, you know, so it was quite a feat, but you know, the definition goes back to 2017, when we restarted the plant and restarted the paint job. and then the new body shop that we had, which is not independent and which came into operation about a year ago and reduced the volumes and now it's what we live with every day when we are operating.

Thank you. Our next question is from Jean kindly from Inslee. of Corvettes from the Pacific Coast here in Orange County, where the first and second boats were in full operation before the shutdown because the second boat was operating at the same capacity as the first. Yes, so the two shifts have exactly the same capacity. Both shifts have the same expectations for four. from all aspects of manufacturing, we can't, for example, we can't say okay, so on the second shift, you know you're going to be the smallest team, we're not going to give you convertibles, we're just going to have you. do it because the way our operations are run, everyone has to do everything all the time, so months have the same capabilities on all shifts and before we left, we had the capacity on both just to do exactly what that we were in our accelerated days. so we didn't necessarily have a plan for utilizing both shifts, as we were in a process of bringing shifts back and forth and bringing them to the first shift so that we could give the first shift team a break and bring in the T men. of the second turn. to give them the opportunity to increase their reps in the car and increase skill levels and that was basically due to the fact that we knew that we were doing very well in our acceleration and our capabilities where we were surpassing some of our supply base , okay thanks, so the next question is from Charlie Great from Knoxville Tennessee, there are two questions that could vary the answer, the second one, the first is all the cars that come off the line sold, in the second question, what color it's the most requested, but I think I just answered yes, it's probably black in color, possibly black or white, and yes, so are they all sold?

Absolutely, yes, and you know, we went online or publicly and said the 2020 model year is sold out for all intents and purposes. It won't be the case, you know, it could be a year, it could be two years before you can go to a courthouse or a Chevrolet dealership and look at a car and say, "Hey, you know, I'd like to buy it." I have ordered cars right now and I would also say that the Corvette is the most ordered car in North America, by far, and right now it is a 100 percent special order, I think a customer chooses, okay, this is nothing what came with this one again, this one has to do with the tire towards the tread, they have been the number one tires that they seem to be against everywhere from seeing them, but the other one also heard that this now could not have been If there is something that could go wrong, I'm not sure, maybe I think I understand the nature of the question and I will characterize it like this: there is a quality team and the program team are looking at any problems that we see in the field and we are not we are waiting to work on a potential improvement, so we are not, we are not resting, as the case may be, so if that is the case, we see it well, we need to make a small adjustment.

You are already there. I guess you could. come to the conclusion that we can do that and then impact more cars, so yeah, anything else I would say is that we also have a history of being behind cars, so if there is a problem, we are working to fix it. Take care of it, I have my materials director here and we need some replacement parts that people have probably seen on the Internet, where you know the guy who bought his new car put nitrous on it and took it to the track and put slicks on it.

Half the axle broke, you know we send them parts and since we have problems due to the new nature of the car and the availability of parts, you know we are sending parts out of the factory so that we do not have any interruption in the operation of our cars customers, which is not normal, we don't normally ship parts out of the factory, our warehousing division takes care of that, but we're caught up a little early in the process, so we're helping out. where we can understand well, the next question is from Eve Spears from Texas.

Well, our experience with the twisted 19 affects some of their manufacturing methods to achieve a job separation rate after production response. Well, maybe I talked a little bit about what we're going to do. Our plans, we as a company have looked at the World Health Organization at the Center for Disease Control. We have implemented plans that meet all expectations or exceed expectations of what we are going to have in our factory, for example, when we return, all employees will have to answer just a couple of simple questions, you know, have you been in direct contact with someone?

Things that everyone can understand. They will be given one of these surgical masks, these lightweight ones. surgical masks and then they will take your temperature and everything is fine, then you will go to work now in the workspace we will have all the common areas very clean, let me take a step back, we will be staggering the entire start time, so Normally, the factory would start with math at 6:00 a.m. and we're going to move our departments and it's not the best for efficiency, but it's the best for spacing people out, so we'll have a wave that hits six o'clock. 'Watch another wave coming in at 6:30 so we can decrease content and increase distancing between people and then all areas from a cleaning standpoint and all employees will be given cleaning supplies and we will have our cleaning teams. cleaning in each common area five six seven times a day or after, as you can imagine, maybe people go to a break and make a break room.

Social distancing policies will be in place and then it will be clean before they come in once they are. there they will use it basically upon entering a sanitary situation and then it will be cleaned after they leave in preparation to continue on to the next use, so there are a ton of details that they weren't fully capable of doing, but it's a bit of a learning curve, but I'll be happy to say it. They will know that we will do everything we can to protect our people. I say it and I'm very, very proud of it.

This team in many ways in this factory that we have in Bowling Green is based on metrics, recordable rates or injuries that cause people that you know have some level of severity that causes them to meet the need for medical care. This factory is by far the safest in North America and I'm not talking about general motors, I'm talking about all cars, which is a great thing, you don't get there by just wishing it would happen, you get there by having a culture , a culture of safety, a culture of inclusion and a culture of protecting each other with planet II exactly the same when it comes to defending ourselves against this virus Larry from Michigan I heard the answer about the convertible in your opinion so we look at convertibles built in Hollyweird 2020 because I have a Mormon order Too early to say honestly, it's too early to say.

I'm not trying to avoid the question, but when we are back up and running and we will be one of the main drivers in our production of the convertible, okay, a little cryptic here. For me again in Texas, what is it like driving the HTC waiting patiently for mine, the HTC? I'm going to come to the conclusion that that's the 8-speed dual-clutch DCT, maybe that's what I mean, DCT dual-clutch transmission, okay, so it's an interesting conversation. all my company cars that I have ordered you know everything from Grand Sport zo6 is the art they have all been manual cars as I mentioned I just bought a 66 it is a manual car.

I love manual transmissions. Know? Emphatically, this dual-clutch transmission is fantastic. I really love it. I don't miss a manual transmission. I will tell you a story about a year ago, after the car was released to the public, everything was still in camouflage. I took my company car, which at the time was a great sports car, it had the o7 package and we took it out with three other guys that were part of the development team and we took out a c8 and my car, so we compared the two with power similar, etc. My Grand Sport was a manual and you know that if you're looking for performance or just refinement, it works absolutely phenomenal and the great thing about it is that when you start you know you either turn it up or turn it up. down as far as what mode you're in touring mode sport mode track mode performance modes you know the transmission calibration is absolutely fantastic and I have a friend who has a Ferrari four or five eight and let's just say he's incredibly jealous of the Performance of this transmission is fantastic, okay, next questions from the gentleman of the state, despite your interest in racing, what is your opinion on the tuning of the c8?

They are very competitive races, it is probably more of a question for the rave team, you know, there are points in common between our car and the racing car, but make no mistake, that racing car you know does not share an engine, does not share a streaming, it's kind of a creation, that's what started it, you know a lot of the bones of the production. car, you could say that the bones of the tram come from the race team and, you know, while the tram is what it is, it was made in mind with the race team, you know, and also in mind, and vice versa From other cars that have that similar pedigree, this car is incredibly good on the road from a race track standpoint.

You know, we've probably all noticed it and maybeWe hope for some improvement, but my personal opinion is that you know, so they were very hesitant to leave this car. come out and unleash it and destroy all the competition, so they loaded it with mass, they loaded it with power restrictions, they loaded it with, you know, fuel capacity, etc., this balance of performance and, honestly, it's like this, this Corvette team. just got the race team pratt & miller it's just a matter of time before they get there and they will get everyone out of the way and get back on the podium where they deserve to be ok thanks next one is by Dave Ellison it's not Washington basically , I really wanted to thank you, says, please link sky for all the efforts to get the new Corvette to its owners, the UAW strike in the Kobe 19 pandemic that brought the plant to its knees, this must have been still It is an extremely difficult tax.

Many thanks to the Corvette community. Well, thanks for that. I and I know when I would say that when Leslie asked me, "Oh, could I take the time to do something like this? I'm going to say I appreciate it." when I get invited and you know I really love the car I love to talk about you can tell I love talking about it when I get the chance to talk to groups like this it's almost like you know recess because the work is very, very interesting and It's very, very demanding when I have the opportunity to talk to people and when people express their gratitude as if they had just done it, it really makes me feel that the struggle is worth it because it is a kind of struggle every day, it is what it is.

We are prepared for it, so I'm not complaining at all, however, it's nice to be told, thank you, so I appreciate it. Okay, I'm not sure about the next question. I can print the total production of the 2020 Corvette Rider. Do you have any idea what? Those ladies know this and honestly, if I did, I couldn't comment on future capabilities or production. Any questions, still, maybe that's the best way to describe it. Yes, the next question is from Jim in California. He has a Stannis 3000, in which year he little wanted it. a little bit still, I'm sure it's not something you can hurt either, yes, if I could I would, just given a situation, I just can't, okay do you have any idea on the anticipated total production for the 2021 model year, you know that I can't talk about the future.

Things I'm sorry, I'm fine, we had a chance to figure out those last few questions and maybe one or two more and then not much. I appreciate it.