This was what was mentioned in the EuroNCAP review. The steering and leg hitting the left side of bottom of the Aveo was why it was given only 1.5 rating out of 5 on the crash test.
http://www.euroncap.com/images/resul...asheet%203.pdf
However if driven carefully, it's inspires freshness on Indian roads with so much to offer. Besides it is being launched in 120 countries (That's what GM has to say).
By the way, GM needs to manage its business properly else there are issues on GM gong bankrupt as it is losing 1 Billion USD per month as of now.
See
http://www.google.com/search?as_q=GM...s=&safe=images Here is the news in Times of India 12th April 2006 Page 18 top half about General Motors GM riding on road towards bankruptcy
Shrinking Market Share, Rising Costs & $1-B Monthly Loss Signal That It Is Heading For Chapter 11
In this case, it takes three to tango. So said Rick Wagoner, the boss of General Motors (GM), this week, his re-working of an old cliche, capturing the contortions he is having to perform as he struggles to save the ailing giant of the car industry. Given its shrinking market share, GM would be hard enough to revive its any firm in any industry. But GM is not any old firm. And designing more sellable cars is arguably the least of its problems.
These, as Wagoner says, require it to find a way not only to get back on its feet, but also to dance simultaneously with Delphi, its now bankrupt parts supplier, and with one of US’ toughest trade unions, United Auto Workers (UAW). No wonder its share price heads ever lower, and observers talk about it stumbling towards Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.
Looking at the mess that is GM today, it’s easy to forget its 98-year history it embodied all that was great about American capitalism. Under Alfred Sloan, it pioneered new management techniques, enabling it to overtake Ford Motor in 1920s. By the 1950s, GM had the largest workforce of any company in free world and had become the first firm to make $1 billion in a year.
Today, GM is a case study in how the rest of the American capitalism might have turned out, were it not for the burst of creative destruction, starting in the 1980s, that transformed many industries and made America home to many of the world’s best companies. In a free-market economy where the shareholder is king, GM is a depressing counter example: Bureaucratic, union-dominated, better-run competitors and paralysed by laws and contracts that stop management doing the necessary dirty worksacking workers, cutting wages to market levels and trimming portfolio of vehicle brands.
The question now is what, if anything, can be done to get GM heading in the right direction again? The priority is to sort out Delphi, which was spun off from GM in 1999. This separation, it now turns out, was never as complete as it seemed: GM remained liable for some costs if Delphi were to go bust. This it did last October, not least because of high labour costs it inherited from GM. Steve Miller, Delphi’s CEO, has been trying to win concessions from UAW. On March 31 he exercised the nuclear option, asking a bankruptcy judge to cancel the firm’s contract with UAW, so allowing Delphi to pay wages closer to the industry norm. Such cost-cutting is vital if Delphi is to survive, but, if the judge agrees to it after a hearing on May 9, Delphi workers may well go on strike.
That could have nasty consequences for GM which, even if it has been building up stocks of parts, would suffer a costly production slowdown. GM is already losing nearly $1 billion a month. Delphi’s workers know that GM is sitting on a vast though shrinking mountain of cash, estimated at around $20 billion. An even bigger challenge for Wagoner is to wrest big reductions in pay, benefits and employment at GM itself.
GM boss also apparently gets on well with UAW leader, Ron Gettelfinger, who understands the need for GM to lower its costs and respects GM’s recent shared suffering policy of cutting its dividend in half and slashing top executives’ pay. But the union boss is up for re-election in June, and his members are increasingly angry about what they see as his chumminess with GM’s leaders.
Edward Altman of New York University reckons there is a one-in-five chance of GM going bust within one year and a 50% chance of bankruptcy within five years, though the odds will change if the sale announced this week of a 51% stake in GM’s financing arm, General Motors Acceptance, is completed.
The sale seems to be a desperate money-raising move, especially as it does not guarantee the higher bond rating for GMAC that GM sought so as to minimise the financing arm’s cost of capital. In addition, the buying consortium led by Cerberus Capital can walk away if GM’s own bond rating gets even junkier. A successful sale will reduce the odds of GM going bust in the short-term, but make it even likelier in the long-term, says Altman. The Economist
CAN HE TURN IT AROUND: For Rick Wagoner, the only hope to drive GM out of trouble seems to be his negotiation with unions and sale of a 51% stake in General Motors Acceptance.