There is a moral element to Detroit's woes, and it's not working in Motown's favor. As Ford, Chrysler and GM's decades-long mismanagement lead the giants to a disastrous denouement, the "buy American" voices— which could help the automakers secure government loans/guarantees– are growing fainter by the day. The fact that none of these American automakers have given a moment's thought to off-shoring parts and vehicle manufacturing does them no favors in this department. But an even more dangerous narrative is trickling through the media gestalt: Detroit dragged their feet on fuel economy and refused to heed the warnings provided by the first oil price shock. In other words, Detroit made their own damn bed and they should get ready to lie in it. Joseph Szczesny's piece in The Oakland Press represents the thinking, and no one gets out alive. "The industry's executives basically ignored fundamental warning signs and hung on to outdated prejudices and assumptions while the world was changing around them. The executives around Detroit have been eager to pass the blame for their current plight on expensive labor contracts, hostile regulators and an indifferent press. The fact is on the critical issues relating to energy policy and fuel economy now bedeviling the automakers the UAW had basically given up and followed the lead of the industry's top management." The thing of it is, Szczesny used to be a GM booster. Not anymore.
[TTAC has heard of new GM ads touting the company's contribution to the U.S. economy. Has anyone seen one?]
Hey! Get that Cup ring outta my sight!
So maybe they’ll win the series, but they haven’t beaten my boys yet…
The D2.8 need to be turned on their head and shake out the corruption from management and their buddies on the board of directors all the way down to overpaid union employees and their corrupt management.
Bailing them out of this mess will do nothing except be a monumental waste of taxpayer dollars. New management – new infrastructure is needed to keep them competitive. In fact the telling sign is that D2.8 keeps outsourcing their manufacturing as proof that any pork barrel thrown their way will go to feed people south of the border.
Brendino – from a Philly Flyers fan (duh…), congrats on getting to the Finals. I grew up in Penguins territory and worshiped (and still do) at the alter of #66 and I love that they brought back the skating penguin. Detroit doesn’t need another ring!!! As bad as that city might be, the sports teams (except Lions and Tigers when they aren’t setting record-loss seasons) are the total opposite.
On this end, since I’ve been making autos and the industry one of my hobbies for well over 20 years now, all of the crazy looks that I’ve gotten from friends and family about my warnings that something like this was going to happen have changed to lines like, “we should have listened.” Most friends and family have downsized even their midsized SUVs to smaller crossovers and wagons.
Detroit can blame NO ONE but themselves for this mess. I really thought during the D/C “partnership of equals” and Ford’s experience with Euro sales/branding that something more worldly would have taken place, like smaller and less-guzzling vehicles, but when the rubes are making $15K per Navigator, who cares? They’ll still get their golden parachutes while tens of thousands will be unemployed. The past 6-8 years has been the near total collapse of our reputation in the eyes of the world and now the rest of the world is sitting there smirking at us at our constant foolish purchases and excessive oil use.
At least on this end, and with other family members, we’ve moved into vehicles that average over 30mpg in all kinds of driving. Others are set to do the same…and NONE of them are American-company-built cars. The Focus? Sure…
I notieced that the author of the article even excoriated Toyota and other non-US brands to some extent.
Fair play.
Notice how quickly Hyundai/Kia have reacted – they’ve cancelled their scheduled pickup truck which would have been built in the new Kia plant, and are going to instead move Kia Spectra and probably also related Hyundai Elantra production there, instead.
Smart move.
Hyundai also were going to try to introduce diesels in the US, but it looks like that’s also gone by the wayside in leiu of obtaining more fuel efficiency elsewhere.
I believe that Hyundai must have determined that a 65 cent per gallon premium on diesel compared to gasoline, in addition to the several thousand dollar premium on the car did not add up to a value proposition for their intended market.
They are, apparently, going to proceed with gasoline electric hybrids, however.
As someone who has lived overseas in NITH-Land:
The American companies are very admired by workers, because they are well paid, and treated fairly. The big three have more than their fair share of problems, and have lost the plot, but we need to stand with them and guide them in what we want as consumers. In America, the automakers, and (well-paid), autoworkers had a big hand in building this country thru taxes and spendable income. In the land of NITH, it is the other way around. The Japanese government openly supports industry in R&D grants, no taxes…and over-looking details like safety violations in products.
I remember something from biology about the costs vs. the demand for adaptability. It costs more to be able to readily adapt to radical change in the environment. In a stable environment, those that specialize win. But in an unstable environment, the specialists go extinct.
In this case, you’ve got to be willing and able to spend billions on the development of vehicles that aren’t needed in the near-term, because they might be necessary for survival down the road.
Detroit clearly wasn’t willing to do this. Despite heavy use of the term internally, GM never had a “product portfolio” analogous to a well-diversified stock portfolio.
But they might not have been able to even if the will had been there. Even taking the low-cost approach of specilizing in products currently demanded by the market, they weren’t able to return decent profits.
They essentially bet the rent money, hoping for a payoff that would cover all the bills, indefinitely. The rolls came up good for quite a few years. But now conditions have change–their luck has run out.
I wish them all the best. They’re not the same car companies they were in the mid-1970s.
But it does make it harder for me to be a “Buy an American Car” cheerleader when they keep sending more cars and parts manufacturing out of the country.
The biggest insults have been the Ford midsize cars and the Saturn VUE going to Mexico. That’s unforgivable. If the Cobalt, Focus, and Caliber follow suit, I think that’s the end of the affair.
@theflyersfan – thanks for the class. you’ve no idea how much it’s been lacking over at the ESPN conversations. i’ll always remember the two standing Os that Lemieux got in Philly.
As for the article…
I know people go back and forth on this and throw out different numbers, but is Japan really head and shoulders over the US in terms of economy? It seems like a decent percent of American cars are at least competitive.
The biggest complaint I think anyone can have is the dependence on the gas-guzzlers. I mean, the Subtahyucalade is a better car than the Sequoia/LX, but GM’s in trouble cause they lived off of the profit margins of these vehicles while Toyota went ahead and decided to kick tail with the Camry, Corolla, and Prius.
I guess my point is that GM doesn’t have a boatload of catching up to do when it comes to economy (once they finish the Volt, anyways). It’s more in other factors like reliability (improving) and quality (win some and lose some). Make three generations of a quality Malibu and eventually things will work themselves out.
My next car is going to be an Indiana built Honda. Enough said.
Buick61: I agree, they need to sharpen back up, and become “American” again. Part of the off-shore manufacturing is a result of depression of costs due to lower wages. Mexican, Korean, Chinese, Indian…and Japanese wages and benefits are lower than America, when these units are imported, our home industries are under-cut. The US government has some import duties, but not enough to make up the difference. Before anyone complains about our duties, check out others. 100% import duties in many of the countries.
Rooting for the Pens even though I used to live on the other side of the I-81 divide…
Something I’ve noticed about these comments in general – on any given Friday, USA Today’s car review day – if there is a positive Japanese or negative American car review, you can cound the seconds until the first “Healey hates American cars” posting. Of course there are no facts to base those commments on but week after week, they appear.
It seems that some who comment over there don’t quite grasp the concept of global automobile companies. They screech that if you buy Honda, you might as well mail the check directly to Japan without realizing that if it wasn’t for Honda, some of the counties in north-central Ohio wouldn’t have the jobs and financial security that working for a stable company like Honda provides. Same for Georgetown and Erlanger, KY. When you flip sides, how about the GM plants all over Europe and (I believe) China. Do they comment over there that any buyer not buying the local Volkswagon but instead purchased a GM-built car should mail the check to RenCen?
If we were to suddenly trade in our imported cars right now and buy an American firm-based car, would it make a difference? In the short term, probably. However, and time and time again has shown this, that short-term gains seems to be all they care about. They would use the windfall from us the consumer to pad their bonuses and add another layer of chrome to another Lincoln or Buick. That’s it. Five years from now, the hand will be out again asking for help.
They won’t survive without severe and painful change towards a leaner and more focused company. Until then, my money doesn’t touch a GM/Ford/Chrysler dealership’s desk.
So it’s okay to buy other American products from American companies that are assembled in other countries like iPods from China, computers, etc. but not cars?
Somehow I doubt many foreign auto boosters will boycott anything not made in America.
Every automaker outsources from their home countries to low wage countries to save money (which is something American automakers absolutely have to do) but it’s only bad if American automakers do it?
Does that Honda plant in Ohio matter more than the GM plant in Kansas or Michigan or the countless other Big Three plants all over the United States? The American automakers have plants all over this country that employ thousands of Americans. I guess if you’re American and employeed by an American company that’s bad but if you work for a foreign company your job and well-being somehow matters more. Hmmm, interesting.
This lack of sympathy for Detroit has been a staple of left coast politics since the 1960s. Detroit(back then)made overblown tanks instead of cars like the ‘socially responsible’ VWs, Volvos, creating apparently permanent animosity out there.
The endless struggles with CARB over things like electric cars reflect that.
That the current Democratic congress moves on that axis (Pelosi, Feinstein) and not so much on a rust-belt mentality could indeed doom a rescue from that side of the aisle.
[TTAC has heard of new GM ads touting the company’s contribution to the U.S. economy. Has anyone seen one?]
Saw one in the Weekly Standard, a couple weeks back. The basic theme or pitch, as I recall, is that GM is thoroughly woven into the fabric of American life.
Perhaps a preliminary to an appeal based on the reasoning of the Bear Stearns bailout, that that firm was not too large, but rather, too interconnected to be allowed to fail.
D2.8 still have plants all over the country – they are just inefficient and pay too much for the work to be done (leading to cheaper cars in order to be competitive on price as that is their core selling point).
I’d really rather give Honda or Toyota my hard earned money b/c the car they make is usually one of the best for the money. They management the reinvests those profits back into the company rather than give huge dividends back to their shareholders (these are the D2.8’s real customers…the investors/shareholders and not the consumers who buy their products). So instead of Waggoneer and Lutz getting some of my money for doing squat – that money gets reinvested back to make better products and bring to consumers real fuel cell vehicles, and operational well designed hybrids (not belt driven oversized alternators).
LaLoser:The big three have more than their fair share of problems, and have lost the plot, but we need to stand with them and guide them in what we want as consumers.
I’m doing my part. I just bought a brand new Honda Civic — that’s what I wanted. I hope Detroit appreciates my guidance!
Powerglide: Perhaps a preliminary to an appeal based on the reasoning of the Bear Stearns bailout, that that firm was not too large, but rather, too interconnected to be allowed to fail.
Hmm, the Bear Stearns “bailout” entails Bear Stearns ceasing to exist and being sold to JP Morgan at a huge loss to shareholders.
So, do we bail out GM by forcing it to be sold to Toyota for a dollar or two a share and giving Toyota the Ren Center?
TriShield :
The problem for the big 2.8 is why would I buy a “so-called” “American” car made in Mexico or Australia when I can buy a “so-called” Japanese car built right here at home by some good ole rank and file Americans.
The simple fact that Honda, Nissan, Toyota, Mazda, Subaru, Hyundai, BMW, and MB can all built cars in the USA and make a profit tells us that those boys from Detroit do not know their elbow from their a$$hole.
The big 2.8 have been trying to feed us their corrupted business model for far too long and we aint buying it anymore! GM, Ford, and the UAW actaully believe it is OK and acceptable to sell US AMERICANS half-baked, crappy cars so they can pay the shareholders and the inflated UAW wages.
In other words they wish to continue satisfying themselves before the customer.
NEWS FLASH: The competition has arrived and are kicking a$$!
Sorry but that aint the way business works in the real world!
Every automaker outsources from their home countries to low wage countries to save money (which is something American automakers absolutely have to do) but it’s only bad if American automakers do it?
No. That’s not what we’re saying. What we are saying is don’t offshore your work and continue to bang on about how much you do for America’s economy. They’re doing harm now by taking away jobs and investment. They have a history of doing that. Just look at my hometown of Flint, MI. Ask someone how they feel about General Motors and see how loud they yell at you. It’s a glorified ghost town, now. A testament to the downfall of being overdependent on one industry. I’m sure some Pennsylvanians can provide their own examples.
Does that Honda plant in Ohio matter more than the GM plant in Kansas or Michigan or the countless other Big Three plants all over the United States? The American automakers have plants all over this country that employ thousands of Americans. I guess if you’re American and employeed by an American company that’s bad but if you work for a foreign company your job and well-being somehow matters more. Hmmm, interesting.
Again, reading comprehension must not be a strength of yours. Honda isn’t closing plants left and right, causing economic damage all throughout the Rust Belt. Their slow, measured approach leads to a security in the manufacturing sector that the Big Three isn’t going to provide now or anytime in the future. Really, the arguments from the pro-doms are getting steadily lazier and steadily more reactionary and steadily more stereotype-laden. “Anti-American!”. “Unfair!” “Bias, bias and more bias!!!” It’s amazing that the American automakers’ culture of self-pity and passing the blame elsewhere has infected their fans to this degree.
Meanwhile, American Axle announced this morning it was laying off 2,000 employees……
[Kevin wrote:]
“So, do we bail out GM by forcing it to be sold to Toyota for a dollar or two a share and giving Toyota the Ren Center?”
Whatever is done, if anything, here’s hoping it doesn’t destroy what is left of the risk/reward ratio in what passes for American business.
Certainly a giant industrial combine, say, GM-Ford-Chrysler, under government auspices, in the mold of British Leyland, would be a disaster.
Not saying it won’t happen. Here’s U.S. Rep. Maxine Waters, another Californian, on the oil companies:
“And guess what this liberal will be all about. This liberal will be about socializing, uh, um…will be about basically taking over, and the government running all of your companies”
Iacocca used to mock those critical of Chrysler’s bailout as still living in 1890.
By the way, as I’d written earlier of an ad seemingly hinting that GM is too interwoven into American life to be allowed to go under, companies who advertise in the Weekly Standard are often seemingly aiming to reach opinion makers in the Bush White House as well as on Capitol Hill…
The D 2.8 are ironically victim of their own lobbying efforts. As they have successfully fought to resist every fuel economy measure over the past three decades they now find themselves lagging in the required technology to compete with the world. Instead of making incremental improvements they focused on the low-R&D road of selling truck based vehicles to the ADM.
While Toyota are about to unveil their 3rd generation hybrid system, GM, Ford and Chrysler are still mostly stuck at square one. Chrysler has nothing to offer, Ford had to pay Toyota for the technology and GM’s offerings are not price competitive.
I don’t think the country is in any financial mood to bail them out.
We are picking up our new V6 EX-L Accord tomorrow.
After a decade of fighting poor product and even crappier customer service I never even gave the domestics a glance.
People have no sympathy for the big 2.8 because frankly they have actually owned cars made by them.
It not like GM is an unknown player. They can profess all the innocence they want. The former owners know better
Americans hate losers…
and now our automobile manufactures are one.
Not much U.S.industry to hate anymore…
and so it goes…
I hope McDonalds survives…..
Imagine the U.S.with only that as our main product offering..oops,I forgot Disneyworld.
If american consumers dont give the Big 2.8 a chance, and i dont mean buying inferior products,just trying one of the many good cars made by these manufactures,the all hope in the american industrial sector is lost..and that scares me!
People are so self serving in this country.like a $250.00 difference in annual maintence is going to break thier backs???
We piss away that much money at starbucks or on cell phones….
What gives??
Would you be satisfied if they all failed??
I think so!
and THAT is SAD!!!!!
They have failed their customers.
They have failed to anticipate ANYTHING.
They have failed to adjust (much) to conditions, even after they have changed.
They have failed to comprehend that they build cars for other markets that are MILES ahead of the crap they build for their home market.
How much more failure do the utter, dripping morons who have driven these companies into the ground get before it’s time to just shut the doors and walk away?
OK, get Mr. T in here to say a good “I pity the failure!”, and let the people who want to sign up for years of payments on unreliable, unrefined piles of junk keep these failures afloat for a few more years. I sure won’t be joining them.
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again:
JUST EARN MY FREAKING BUSINESS.
I won’t buy a third-rate product just to support ANY business. If these companies go down the toilet, it is only, singularly because THAT’S WHAT THEY DESERVED with their pitiful performance.
Hey, spent the weekend driving a new Saturn Outlook and it really is a nice, nice vehicle! Much nicer than my 9 year old Honda CR-V (which of course is a smaller, less refined vehicle with 153K miles on it.)
Would I own that vehicle? Sure! (if somebody else would pay the difference between its low-20s mpg and the 30-mpg benchmark we have set for our family). The Honda doesn’t match it either so I won’t buy one of those either next time – even though we love it and it has been perfect).
Question is: what will that Saturn be like at 150K miles? ALL of the domestics our extended family has owned has been a “dream” to drive when they were new. It was later like at 100K miles that the misery began. I either buy used cars or keep a new car forever so it’s senior years quality is very important to us.
The problem is that even if the Outlook stays nice it is an SUV in a time of $4 gas. Even if it stays nice people might never even notice it while they are shopping for Corollas and Suzukis. What I’m saying is that it might be a little too late for anything to make GM’s future a brighter one.
I have no other good comments to offer. Lots of good reading from you folks…
Carguy nailed it. Detroit’s wounds are all self-inflicted. By fighting the fuel economy issue with lobbyists rather than engineers they surrendered all chances for sympathy, much less success.
F**k ’em.
–chuck
Wow…so much hostility.
Let’s not forget the effect of the E85 loophole and what that lead to. One day Ford was promising 250,000 hybrids a year (by 2010, like everything else). The next, it figured WTF, we’ll just waffle something about E85, like GM, and do nothing much. “Go yellow, that’s close enough to green for us…”
Well, maybe the American public is not as gullible as these guys figured. Maybe the American public knows a half-@$$ed effort when it sees one.
Worked out well, didn’t it?
Bottom line for Wagoner; he’s a very rich man. And can no doubt continue deceiving himself about why the company he controlled failed miserably and continually for years, if he even cares enough to rationalize.
Toyota/Honda acquired their fuel efficiency halo in small cars. How much effort would it have taken, or take now, to make the Cobalt as efficient as the Civic? Not much I think, but it wasn’t worth the effort to Wagoner.
And how much longer can GM continue to blame the UAW for their troubles after all the give-backs in benefits and wages? Seems, at some point, the BS would have to stop and responsibility take over. Of course it’s too late now so why bother.
LALoser :
May 28th, 2008 at 9:49 am
The Japanese government openly supports industry in R&D grants
What, and the American government doesn’t?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Partnership_for_a_New_Generation_of_Vehicles
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FreedomCAR
Too bad the Detroit Three didn’t attempt to use any of this money on production models.
Geotpf :
Too bad the Detroit Three didn’t attempt to use any of this money on production models.
Yep, that’s the difference between the imports and the domestics. The domestics won’t even use the help that somebody else pays for. They’re the car equivalent of the Barbie doll that says, “Math is hard. Let’s go shopping!”
jschaef481 :
Wow…so much hostility.
Yep — they earned it.
Maybe some people have been lucky.
Others have been broken down on the side of the road. Left stranded on out-of-town trips. Paid good money for cars that were utterly clapped-out, falling-apart pieces of junk before they were even done making payments on them. Experienced an insane amount of problems with utterly brand-new vehicles.
Others were smart enough to read about these experiences, or to listen to friends, family, and co-workers who were screaming bloody murder about them — and easily comprehended, “I wouldn’t touch a piece of junk like that with a ten-foot pole, let alone sign up for years of payments for one.”
And that doesn’t even include all the times when these companies have done everything they possibly could to make the most money with the least amount of effort, and the times they’ve subsequently found themselves with their pants down, when they utterly didn’t have any vehicles whatsoever to meet the demands of the market when that market changed.
It’s all just sheer, utter INCOMPETENCE. Shall we have a “raise of hands” for all of the people who want to pay tens of thousands of dollars for a piece of that?
oldyak wrote:
I hope McDonalds survives…..
Imagine the U.S.with only that as our main product offering..oops,I forgot Disneyworld.
Ever heard of Silicon Valley? Information age? Networking? Internet?
I look at the ‘Automakers formerly known as the Big Three’ in the same way that I do smokers who get lung cancer or promiscuous people who get an STD- Repeated, self-destructive behavior led to your undoing. You had knowledge of the problems/risks and had repeated opportunities to take action, but you didn’t.
It doesn’t mean I don’t have compassion for their current suffering (be it sick folks or Americans losing jobs), but it could have been avoided using common sense instead of greed and/or laziness!