GM Korea Tapped as GMIO’s Primary Vehicle-Engineering Support Hub

GM Korea this month becomes the vehicle-engineering support hub for the Asia/Pacific, Middle East, Eastern Europe, Africa and South Africa markets that are served by General Motors International Operations.

With little fanfare, Steve Clarke, vice president-vehicle engineering for GMIO, two weeks ago moved from international headquarters in Shanghai back to Bupyeong, South Korea, where he had headed vehicle development for more than seven years.

During that time, GM Korea (then known as GM Daewoo) produced many successful new models, including the best-selling Chevrolet Aveo subcompact.

Clarke, who on March 1 was appointed vice president-vehicle engineering for GM Korea in addition to his GMIO responsibilities, confirms the significance of his promotion and relocation.

“This certainly is a signal that, as far as product-development action, GM Korea will become more significant,” he tells WardsAuto during a phone interview. “With me here now as vice president of our GMIO engineering operations, Korea is the hub supporting other GMIO units for General Motors.”

GM Korea already has a far-reaching footprint within GMIO in countries such as Thailand, India, China, South Africa, Russia and Australia, Clarke points out. “We have a lot of excellent engineers here in Korea who can support those operations.”

GM Korea is “very, very significant to GM’s (global) operations as the home of small and minicar development and in supporting products around the world, not only in the GMIO countries but also in the United States, Europe and South America,” he says.

Clarke first joined GM Daewoo Auto & Technology when select assets of the old Daewoo Motor were acquired by GM in 2002. He served as managing director-vehicle and powertrain engineering until 2005, when he was promoted to vice president-engineering. In 2009, he moved up to vice president-vehicle engineering for GMIO.

“Coming to Korea in 2002, the journey we’ve had here has been at a hectic pace,” Clarke says of GM’s operations.

“We’ve doubled the size of our engineering area (now 2,500 engineers); we’ve fully established GM Korea as the home of small-car and minicar development; and made significant amounts of investment in the labs, prototyping (and) proving grounds. And we will make other major investments.”

There is some growth still ahead, he adds, “but we are very strong at this point. As far as our capabilities go, we’re on par with the best we have at GM. We use all the same practices. The engineers in Korea are highly trained in a great educational system, and they do a first-rate job.”

GM Korea launched eight new vehicles in the past year, giving it a new lineup of Chevrolet-badged models, but there is more to come.

“If I look across GMIO, we’ve got a consistent number of launches ahead of us,” Clarke says. “We’re going to keep very busy going forward. There will always be launches going on. We have many, many ahead of us. You will see some later this year.”

GMIO accounts for nearly 40% of GM’s total global sales and is second only to North America.

It is noteworthy that emissions and safety requirements, suspension settings, steering configurations and other features for every vehicle model sold can differ country to country and region to region.

Of all the markets served by GMIO, China is by far the largest, accounting for roughly 70% of total sales. Clarke says GM Korea works well with GM China’s Pan Asia Technical Automotive Center, which designs and develops vehicles. The center is a 50-50 joint venture between Shanghai GM and SAIC Motor.

“PATAC is a very successful operation, and we interact and support them from a product perspective,” Clarke says. “We work on support of products that get localized in China.”

Ingo Scholten, the president of PATAC on the GM side, reports to Clarke on a functional basis. He replaced Maryann Combes last month, when she was named GM’s executive director-global validation.

Many of the highly successful Buick and Chevrolet offerings in China were developed in Korea, and a large percentage of the 1.2 million complete-knocked-down vehicle kits produced there are exported to China.

Regarding other export markets, Clarke says GM Korea is planning an all-electric version of the Spark minicar that will sell in limited quantities in California and in some global markets.

A GM spokesman tells WardsAuto the EV will be produced at its Changwon plant in South Korea

As soon as he arrived in Korea, Clarke says he signed on for an intensive Korean-language program to improve his proficiency, first learned on his previous assignment in the country.

“I feel like I am coming home, quite happy and feeling good and looking forward to the many years ahead of (GM) here,” he says.