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General Motors says it will slash the number of vehicle and engine architectures over the next decade, while drastically cutting the amount of effort it takes to produce a new vehicle over the near term, as it looks to improve its bottom line and boost its global-market standing.
Mary Barra, senior vice president-global product development, says key to the cost-improvement goals will be to smooth out product-development investment plans, eliminating the hills and valleys caused when GM started and stopped vehicle programs due to swings in the market and its financial troubles.
