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General Motors added more than $300 million to sales this year by shortening the time it takes to switch to new and redesigned models, said Gary Cowger, president of GM North America.

An internal GM report shows a quarter of U.S. consumers avoid the largest automaker's vehicles because of reliability concerns, even though complaints by new-car owners fell 10 percent in the past year.

With pressure mounting on parent GM to finally get its luxury car business in gear, money-losing Saab is poised to launch an unprecedented product offensive. As GM learned with Saturn, starving a brand only harms it more.

Even with four new products coming in four years, thanks to a $1.5 billion investment from parent GM, Saturn says it has no plan to add assembly plants to its manufacturing operations.

The Saturn dream limps along, repelling another attempt by the pharisees to dismantle the temple of cooperation and impose the good old-fashioned labor-management combat that defines how GM builds its vehicles everywhere else in the U.S.

After months of treating Saturn like any other business center that must meet profit targets to justify new investment, General Motors Corp. has agreed to build a new small sport/utility vehicle in Spring Hill, TN.

Many a General Motors heart was gladdened by the news that the latest J.D. Power survey of initial quality awarded GM's Lansing Grand River operation its highest Gold award for 2004 models produced by North American assembly plants.

GM is finally giving whole-hearted support to its small-car offspring.

Groan. Not again. That was my initial reaction when GM recently revamped the way it develops new vehicles. Upon further reflection, though, the latest move seems justified.

When General Motors announced it was phasing out its Oldsmobile division, you could forgive the folks over at the Saturn division if they were feeling smug.

GM's challenge is to create a number of unique vehicles using many of the same components. In the past, the company has been guilty of slapping different badges on the same basic vehicle, a tactic that saved money but rarely fooled customers.

GM's ultimate small-car strategy - Saturn - has been a success by most accounts, but it came with a huge multi-billion dollar price tag.

Will the ultimate Saturn move-up car be a Saab? Not if you're suggesting a combination of their very different dealership networks, says Joel K. Manby, the recently named president and CEO of Saab Cars USA, who was one of the marketing whiz kids behind Saturn's customer-coddling retail formula.