General Motors & Holden
- 1908: General Motors founded.
- 1912: GMC, note the C, "was formed in 1912 when the Rapid Motor Vehicle Company merged with two others - Reliance and Randolph - to become the [GM] brand known today for trucks" — GM 2012.
- 1931: Holden's Motor Body Builders and General Motors Australia formed General Motors-Holden's Limited.
- 1996: GM leased a small number of electric EV1 cars to customers in California and Arizona; production stopped in 1999. The story was documented in ‘Who Killed the Electric Car’ (2006).
- US brands: Buick, Cadillac, Chevrolet, GMC, Hummer, Pontiac, Saturn.
- 1912: GMC, note the C, "was formed in 1912 when the Rapid Motor Vehicle Company merged with two others - Reliance and Randolph - to become the [GM] brand known today for trucks" — GM 2012.
- (Overseas subsidiaries once included: Holden (.au), Opel (.de), Saab (.se), Vauxhall (uk).)
- 2008:
Record oil prices, and the
global financial crisis (GFC), brought General Motors near to bankruptcy,
requiring Government help to stay afloat.
- 2009, April 27: The US Government proposed taking a majority stake in GM. The Pontiac brand was to be phased out. (The last Pontiac was built in May 2010.)
- 2009, June 1: GM filed for "chapter 11" bankruptcy.
- 2009, June 16: GM and Koenigsegg Group AB, the Swedish sports car maker, signed a preliminary agreement for the latter to buy Saab. But K. backed out of the deal on 24 Nov. 09.
- 2009, July 6: The U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the S. District of New York approved the sale of substantially all of GM Corporation's assets to NGMCO, owned 60.8% by the US Treasury, 17.5% by UAW Retiree Medical Benefits Trust, 11.7% by Canada and Ontario governments, and 10% by the old GM.
- 2009, September 11: The GM board recommended the sale of 55% of Opel/Vauxhall to a consortium of Magna International Inc. and Sberbank (USSR) but, 3 November 2009, "decided to retain Opel[/Vauxhall]".
- 2009, October 9: Sichuan Tengzhong Heavy Industrial Machinery Co., Ltd (Tengzhong), signed a "definitive agreement" to buy the Hummer brand from GM. However, the deal fell through — 24 Feb. 2010.
- 2009, December 18: Failing to find a buyer, GM decided to "start an orderly wind-down of Saab", but by Jan. 26 2010 GM had agreed to sell Saab to Spyker N.V. for us$74 million and us$326 million in preference shares. Saab limped on for a while but filed for bankruptcy 19 Dec 2011.
- 2013, December: The US Government sold its last GM shares, bought in 2009. It lost about us$10 billion in the bail out.
- 2017, March 6: PSA announced that it would buy Opel / Vauxhall from GM.
- 2020, February 16: GM announced that it would "cease Holden sales, design and engineering operations by 2021".
- 2009, April 27: The US Government proposed taking a majority stake in GM. The Pontiac brand was to be phased out. (The last Pontiac was built in May 2010.)