The decision to disband the unit was made due to financial limitations and GM’s newly-crafted viability plan. In the plan, GM said its future-product focus is on fuel efficient cars and crossovers. GM also pledged to increase its current hybrid offerings from six to fourteen by 2012 and to twenty-six by 2014.
Disbanding the unit and redeploying the engineers to work on core brands is another way for the company to show the U.S. government GM is serious about restructuring to survive. Spokesman Vince Muniga told Automotive News that for now, all high performance projects are on indefinite hold, but the unit may be reinstated after GM regains financial health.
The High Performance Vehicle Operations unit created low-volume vehicles such as the Cadillac CTS-V (along with the rest of the Cadillac V-series), the Chevrolet Cobalt SS, and the HHR SS.
Source: Automotive News