They're moving in the right direction however all is not well with GM just yet. In the current Automobile Magazine, there's a design review of the new Saturn Aura. I think it pretty well sums up what's wrong with GM overall. I've snipped some pieces out to make for quicker reading.
A single car that illustrates both what's wrong and what's right with General Motors? You'd be hard-pressed to come up with a better example than Saturn's new Aura, an OK--but not outstanding--car based on the equally OK Opel Vectra.
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I saw an Aura prototype at Pebble Beach in 2004. Overall, it was much like the cars that went on sale in August, but it had a sumptuous and beautifully detailed interior that looked (and probably was) expensive. But GM cannot seem to help itself; no matter how hard designers try, the financial guys will not let buyers have really nice cabin furnishings. Bean counters love to cut costs from the part of the car that buyers see most: the interior. It doesn't seem to have penetrated GM's corporate consciousness that people will willingly and cheerfully pay for nice appointments. The cars I saw at the dealership had barely-soft-touch panels that looked hard and cheap, despite fitting reasonably well. And instead of the reach browns of the prototype, they were desolately, miserably gray.
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The most GM-typical aspect of the whole process of denaturing and decontenting the Aura lies in the fact that the production car's press materials emphasize the cabin with effusive statements about design and quality, which was perfectly true for the prototypes. But in reality, the Aura is just another cheap-materials, imprecise-fit approximation of a great interior design.
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GM's car development system is broken, Bob Lutz's overhyped but genuine car-guy presence notwithstanding. Two years ago, the Aura was highly promising, but the cars on sale today are disappointing. Keith Crain from Automotive News summed it up nicely last spring: "The reality is that engineers and designers create great cars. Everyone else in the process simply waters down the product." Amen.