General Motors has filed for a Chapter 11 bankruptcy. It’s certainly the start of a new chapter for the once unrivalled American car maker. Crikey crunches the numbers:

  • $US172.8 billion: the size of GM’s debts
  • $US82.3 billion: the value of its assets
  • 9.5 million vehicles: Americans’ current annual demand for new vehicles
  • 17 million: the number of new vehicles Americans bought in 2000, when demand peaked.
  • 50.7%: the market share General Motors had in the US market in 1962
  • 22%: the market share that GM had last year
  • 450 million: the number of trucks and cars that General Motors has built
  • 10 July 2008: the date that Rick Wagoner, then GM’s chief executive, told Texas business leaders that only the Hummer brand might need to be sold to save the struggling car company.
  • 2,600: The number of dealerships in the US that GM plans to close
  • $US50 billion: how much the US government will eventually pay to General Motors in bailouts, both paid out and pledged.
  • $US20.16 billion (2008 est.): the GDP of Equatorial Guinea
  • 60%: the amount of General Motors that the US government will own after bailouts of the company. Just how the government will exercise its influence as the majority stakeholder is the subject of much analysis.
  • 12%: the amount of GM that the Canadian government will own after contributing $US9.5 billion to the bailout
  • 618,000: the number of GM employees in America in 1979.
  • 88,000: the number of GM employees in America in 2009
  • 20,000: the approximate number of jobs Obama’s administration expects to shed in a restructuring of General Motors
  • $US427,000: the amount that saving each GM North American employee’s job will cost taxpayers according to Fox News’ Glenn Beck
  • 67%: the percentage of Americans opposed to the government having a majority stakehold in GM according to one poll
  • 90%: the percentage of bondholders General Motors asked (unsuccessfully) in April this year to swap debt for equity to try and erase $24 billion in debt.
  • 13%: the market share that GM-owned Holden currently has in Australia; it used to be 50%
  • $450 million: the amount GM had approved for an Australian-built small car from Holden; it’s possibly now under threat.

Read more on the General Motors story.