Peter Delorenzo has spent the last year or so castigating anyone within earshot for their failure to support, coddle, subsidize and appreciate his beloved American automakers. Given his website’s increasingly strident tone, that description excludes no one. This week, the self-styled Autoextremist gives a shout-out to President-elect Obama– while ratcheting-up the rhetoric for the usual antagonists. “Yes, President-elect Obama will bring a different perspective to Washington – and the challenges facing the auto industry – but that alone won’t save Detroit. Not when there are southern senators and members of Congress who are hell-bent on destroying the Detroit Three in their quest to ultimately replace the nation’s homegrown auto industry with a loose network of imported auto manufacturing facilities based in the Southern Corridor. Not when there are members of the new establishment in Washington who are rabidly pushing for a huge green directional shift for industry and manufacturing in this country, with little concern about what the realities or the ramifications of that kind of massive shift on America’s manufacturing base or immediate economic future. Not when our leaders in Washington continue to give a free ride to countries and manufacturers who want to do business here, at the expense of our own industries and manufacturing base. And especially not when the nation’s consumers are locked in this painful reduced-credit or no-credit holding cell that has paralyzed commerce across the country.” So, Pete, what will save your hometown heroes?
“The majority of American consumers, even when presented with the facts and reams of evidence to the contrary, still don’t believe that Detroit builds desirable or fuel-efficient vehicles, and that must change if Detroit is to survive in some way, shape or form.”
Advertising, marketing and PR. (Three areas from which the AE happens to draw a paycheck.) Check. Anything else?
“…without a coordinated and comprehensive economic stimulus program that not only restores consumer confidence and gets people spending again (while restoring order to the national banking system), but lays the groundwork for a sustainable, supportive and reinvigorated future for the U.S. manufacturing base, then the U.S. automobile industry will be left reeling indefinitely.”
I’ll take that as a no, then.
Lorenzo is Detroit’s version of Baghdad Bob.
“consumers are locked in this painful reduced-credit or no-credit holding cell that has paralyzed commerce across the country”
Only idiots or liars are saying this. Consumer credit is plentyful, people just aren’t buying when their current cars are fine and used cars are dirt cheap.
Living conservatively within ones means used to be something that midwesterners put a high value on. And it is still something midwesterners value outside of the I don’t give a damn about the country as long as I (as in unessary managment, unecessary UAW employees and unecessary dealers) get paid Detroit automaker mindset.
In the bail-out supports minds one hates American unless they support the government lending enough money to low credit, undocumented income individuals to buy a new Escalade. To them that is how credit markets should work.
If you really care about the country don’t buy a (rapidly) appreciating asset, buy Honda and Toyota stock while they are cheap to increase the American stake in those companies.
“The majority of American consumers, even when presented with the facts and reams of evidence to the contrary, still don’t believe that Detroit builds desirable or fuel-efficient vehicles, and that must change if Detroit is to survive in some way, shape or form.”
Robert, what does Delorenzo say here that is wrong? There are people who simply won’t consider a domestic brand. Not even the handful of cars like the Malibu, Fusion or CTS that you acknowledge are worth considering. Detroit has a very challenging task ahead. Product is the most important factor, but once you have good product, how do you get the 30-50% of people who won’t consider a domestic brand know that you have good product? I figure it takes 5 years minimum to establish some kind of word of mouth about reliability and resale value.
no_slushbox,
Now that the loans are a done deal, are you saying that you want GM & Chrysler to go under and not be able to repay the loans? Isn’t it now in the taxpayers’ interest for the domestics to survive and thrive?
Lorenzo is Detroit’s version of Baghdad Bob.
I have an advance copy of next week’s rant:
Just look carefully, I only want you to look carefully. Do not repeat the lies of liars. Do not become like them. Once again, I blame autobloggers who say things before they ascertain what takes place. Please, make sure of what you say and do not play such a role.
The mainstream media are committing suicide by the hundreds because they know that our cause is just. Be assured, the Bailout Movement is safe, protected. These CEOs are heroes. Now even Alabama is under siege. We are hitting it from the north, east, south and west. We chase them here and they chase us there. But at the end we are the people who are laying siege to them. And it is not them who are besieging us.
They are sick in their minds. They say bankruptcies are inevitable. I say to you this talk is not true. This is part of their sick mind. We’re giving them a real lesson today. Heavy doesn’t accurately describe the level of bailout funds we will receive. There are no limits to bailout funds. Never! They’ve not been able to control any attempts to take taxpayer money.
We’re waging war against this snake and we will be victorious!
Can we finally change the name to Autoabsurdist?
Watching a total cheerleader like DeLorenzo meltdown like this is truly the definition of schadenfreud. Someday he’ll be found in the corner of his garage surrounded by Hot Rod magazines, peeling chrome off an SAE socket.
Despite it all, most of us still do want DET to make themselves right.
But they have to change. Completely.
People like DeLorenzo propagating this brand of varnish-sniffing-truthiness are the real problem. Allowing the quasi-domestics from acknowledging what is wrong and doing what needs to be done.
@Ronnie,
I know how far GM and Chrysler are in the hole. I know what it will take just to get them back to broke. Not profitable. Just f’n broke. So please, tell all of us just exactly how we’re going to get one damn nickel back…
You want to apologize for DET? Fine.
But really. Please just run the numbers.
UNLESS GM DECLARES CHAPTER 11 IT WOULD NEED OVER 20 YEARS OF RECORD PROFITS JUST TO PAY BACK THE OBLIGATIONS IT ALREADY HAS.
That’s not including those “loans”.
This kind of rant is why I stopped reading the guy long ago. It is literally a rant without much reason. “Not when there are southern senators and members of Congress who are hell-bent on destroying the Detroit Three”. Come on.
Ronnie,
The key word in that paragraph is “desirable.” You mention some good cars and I believe those do sell and are therefore desirable, but they can’t overcome the stigma of the prior gen Malibus, the Aveos, the Grand Prix and all the other rental fodder I’ve driven. Facts and numbers alone don’t make something inherently desirable. When Peter laments a quality vehicle with no sales, okay. When Peter insists something already is desirable and the public is wrong not to see it, well then he’s got his eyes and ears closed.
Peter DeLorenzo has impeccable credentials, contacts, and experience in this town. That’s not just my opinion, it’s a broad consensus of many participants in the auto industry. “Please feel free to check me on this.”
While none of us are perfect, right, or even appropriate all of the time, a check of the records will show that Peter gets it right far more often than he gets it wrong.
A closer read of his columns shows that Peter is nothing if not a critic of the Big 3 (and other carmakers).
The thing I find strangest about De Lorenzo is that the current crisis has seemed to throw him off the deep end, so to speak. I’ve read his site for a long time, and lately he’s been losing the point. His rants have gone from pointed (and often accurate) commentary to cheerleading for Detroit. Maybe Detroit “teetering on the brink of bankruptcy” hits a little too close to home.
Though it’s basically written as an extended blog, his book “The United States of Toyota” is actually an OK read. It’s coherent and actually makes some valid points.
I missed the part in Peter’s rant about why Chrysler makes crappy cars. Or why the Volt is still vaporware. Also absent is any mention of the UAW’s part in this mess.
Good thing he is not a congressman
@bleach :
January 7th, 2009 at 9:59 pm
This kind of rant is why I stopped reading the guy long ago. It is literally a rant without much reason. “Not when there are southern senators and members of Congress who are hell-bent on destroying the Detroit Three”. Come on.
I saw Shelby and his associates, live, uncut, on CSPAN.
DeLorenzo is painfully accurate on this point.
Shelby has no Big 3 plants in Alabama, only foreign plants. Hell, yes, he wants to destroy the Big 3.
It’s sad, for me, really. The autoextremist was one of the first sites that turned me away from the printed mags. When Sweet Peet exposed the Motor Trend car/truck of the year as nothing more than an award to whoever bought the most advertising in Motor Trend, well it was a revelation to me. The first time I came to this site was on a reference from his. Now, he’s completely lost it and has become a defender of the indefensible. So sad.
@GS650G :
January 7th, 2009 at 10:16 pm
I missed the part in Peter’s rant about why Chrysler makes crappy cars. Or why the Volt is still vaporware. Also absent is any mention of the UAW’s part in this mess.
Good thing he is not a congressman
It’s Fact Check Time. Peter is one of the harshest critics of Daimler left Chrysler with poor products. Check out his past posts.
The GM Volt is on schedule for 2010, just as GM has been saying for many months. Running prototypes can be seen daily in Detroit. Production tooling is well underway, and A123 Systems, the battery supplier to the Volt, just announced — today — that they’re building a plant in Michigan. In other words, not vaporware.
@porschespeed
UNLESS GM DECLARES CHAPTER 11 IT WOULD NEED OVER 20 YEARS OF RECORD PROFITS JUST TO PAY BACK THE OBLIGATIONS IT ALREADY HAS.
That’s not including those “loans”.
A condition of the loans (no quotes required) is that Uncle Sam gets paid back first.
Like Terry Benedict said in Ocean’s 13: “Last money in, first money out.”
RealAutoGuy,
Alabama has citizens who have to pay for the bailouts as well, so Shelby and company have a right to be against the bailouts. But destruction is too much to attribute to the guy. I mean I hear people complain about the left and east coasts hating the flyover states (which I reside in) all the time but the word they are looking for is closer to indifference than hate. Same here, at least in my opinion.
I have actually read his stuff regularly in the past so I know he was critical of all makes and models including Detroit’s. But I’ve said it before that there was a point when he went back as a consultant and his writing changed dramatically ever since. I think I first noticed it when he went on a rant about the Chevy Equinox and how incredible it was and up to par with any of the imports in build and quality. Well it has a lousy interior layout and subpar materials from my 2 rentals. But who gives a shit really? I got no problem with him liking it, but he went on and on about how people aren’t realizing what a great product this is. I really felt that was the start of the whole consumers need to have their heads examined and just start buying these awesome Detroit products theme he’s been on for years now. It gets old.
“Peter DeLorenzo has impeccable credentials, contacts, and experience in this town.”
Which town is no longer the center of the automotive universe. The old guard simply cannot comprehend this new reality.
The fact that Detroit is building some competitve products now does not erase the stain left by decades of sloth, incompetence and customer disdain. Don’t blame the customers for not suddenly doing an about face after they have been slapped around for years.
When has the Detroit based industry given their home team customers the extra mile of appreciation, understanding and loyalty they deserve as fellow countrymen? Smart women don’t go back to abusive husbands.
@porschespeed :
January 7th, 2009 at 9:28 pm
Can we finally change the name to Autoabsurdist?
Watching a total cheerleader like DeLorenzo meltdown like this is truly the definition of schadenfreud.
The German word “Schadenfreude” (spelling and capitalization corrected) means taking joy in the pain of others, while knowing that it’s wrong to do so.
Is this really what you meant?
Detroit’s wounds are entirely self-inflicted. They thought short-term, produced poor cars and abused customers. Survival lies in producing a full line of quality, reliable, durable cars and looking after customers. Fortunately Toyota and Honda are throwing them a lifeline with declining quality and widespread reports of owner mistreatment. Detroit should reach out and grab it!
@TheRealAutoGuy,
With current market conditions there is no, repeat NO possibility GM will be profitable. Not this year. Not Next. Not until C11. Period.
So, it might be 3,4,5 years before GM makes any money. (That’s never going to happen either, but let’s pretend….)
For the next 3 years let’s imagine that somehow, just somehow, GM cuts it’s burn to merely 2B per month. That’s not possible either before C11, but again, let’s pretend.
So… we have a minimum of 3 years of burning an additional 24B per year. Lessee, that’s 72B more from Uncle Sugar just to keep losing money.
So GM now owes all of us 100B.
So let’s just pretend that 3 years from now, GM hasn’t declared C-anything. It is now more profitable than it ever has been. Let’s say it’s making 20B per year. They now owe us the next 5 years of profits. No banking money for the next downturn. No big R&D push. All back to the taxpayers. Yeah.
These are cute fantasies to have. But at the end of the day, DO THE F’N MATH.
There is NO way that GM can pay that money bck without C11, complete restructuring and basically restarting the entire company.
Out in the real world (i.e. not DET) DeLorenzo is seen as an industry shill. His tiny, shallow critiques simply provide DET excuses for 40 years of crap management and lousy product. Even the glossy-whores find his stuff sad.
He’s doesn’t have the stones to allow anyone to argue his “points” in print public, because they have all the factual accuracy of Sean Hannity.
Dropped the ‘e’ off the end of schadenfreude, thanks. It no longer needs to be capped, but apparently you can still do that if you wish.
And I’m not sure where you got your definition. I have never heard or seen one anywhere that defines schadenfreude as anything beyond (net) taking joy in the bad things that befall others. None of them say anything about knowing it’s wrong.
Are you looking in the DET dictionary, or one used by the rest of the world?
First of all, the “Southern Republican’s want to destroy Detroit” theory is inconsistent with even pro-bailout logic. Specifically, it bites the much-touted “cascading bailout” argument. If Shelby were only looking out for his state’s interests, wouldn’t he try to protect common supplier firms?
And as for the “perception gap,” Henry Ford said it best. “You don’t build your reputation on what you’re going to do.” And the crazy old anti-Semite was right. A few models don’t reverse decades of decline. Corporations were invented to persist through different managements, but poor leadership for even a short period can turn this blessing into a curse.
Reversing a legacy of mediocrity and decline that is measured in decades is the epic-heroic task of corporate America. Especially for such a giant firm in such a capital-intensive, trend-driven and brutally competitive industry. It seem to me that if Detroit’s leaders really understood the scope of their problems (or weren’t blinded by hubris), they’d see bankruptcy as a tool of redemption, not a mark of failure. Such a mark would be absurdly redundant. Handily, bankruptcy is both remarkably effective and thoroughly honorable. Compared to the bailout, that is.
@bleach :
January 7th, 2009 at 10:32 pm
RealAutoGuy,
Alabama has citizens who have to pay for the bailouts as well, so Shelby and company have a right to be against the bailouts. But destruction is too much to attribute to the guy. I mean I hear people complain about the left and east coasts hating the flyover states (which I reside in) all the time but the word they are looking for is closer to indifference than hate. Same here, at least in my opinion.
True enough. His citizens have sponsored the US bailout, but they’ve sponsored his 4 or so foreign plants to a far greater extent (tax $ per Alabama citizen).
AE’s laundry list of what needs to be fixed in order to get Detroit going again beggars belief.
At any rate, the basic presumption is a fallacy. DeLorenzo and others are dreaming of returning to how things were: pre-green, pre-energy shortages, pre-“do we really need three cars?”
Those days are gone, and the sooner they retool their mindsets, the better.
Honda, again, is getting derided for being ahead of the curve — while Detroit is anxiously hoping that Americans will buy big again now that oil prices have dropped because the economy is shattered, broken, mangled and beating with an intermittent pulse.
It’s as if Detroit has gallantly chosen not to speak of the elephant in the room: the fact that they went begging for money, a hell of a lot of money, just to get a two-month breather.
Back when we went from horses to cars, a lot of interested parties spent a bit of time and resources figuring out what was needed, across competitive boundaries and placing common interest before self.
Now that the automotive equation is changing in just as serious a way, we’ll need to do the same thing – and people such as DeLorenzo, solidly stuck in the past, won’t be a part of the solution.
Yeah, Lorenzo isn’t half bad most of the time, but it’s hard to argue he is approaching this in a rational manner. People don’t respond to the destruction of their worlds too rationally. Pete spent his life working for Detroit, writing about Detroit, driving Detroit. It’s no surprise that he’s reacting to its death by blaming the consumer and seeing conspiracy theories in the media and congress to do them in.
@porschespeed,
One of the first firewalls set up in the Fed. loan is a viability plan that the government needs to approve. If not, it’s C11 and Uncle Sam get the scrap value.
While I share your concern that GM will need to be extremely profitable to pay everybody back, my opinion is that we need to give them the chance, if for no other reason that the costs really go up at that point, to ever-fewer taxpayers.
Either way you cut it, it’s an ugly situation, and it will be expensive for everyone. Couldn’t agree more. But compared to what I’ve lost on my house (on paper anyway), my share of the auto “bailout” is tiny.
Regarding DeLorenzo, he gets a fair amount of coverage in the MSM outside of Detroit, and I’ve find his street cred. to extend well past Detroit to industry-types in Europe and Asia.
I would humbly suggest we’ll just have to agree to disagree beyond that. :-) I wish us all well in 2009…
A general thought on Crazy Times:
A dealer pal of mine here in SE Michigan is going nuts because he can’t get enough pickups and SUV’s from the factory! Demand has suddenly outstripped supply, and his smaller, higher-mileage cars than went like proverbial hotcakes now sit snow-covered and unloved. Ditto Prius, Honda’s, etc.
And no, NO ONE thinks this is good for the long-term, but everyone’s got to eat, and the customer is always right, right?
Crazy, crazy, times!
Wasn’t DeLorenzo on CNBC before Christmas?
I hope for your sake that the dog in the article photo is sitting in a seat in a GM/Ford/Chrysler car. Then again, PMD hasn’t cited TTAC yet, so maybe it’s time.
Wow…that Lorenzo guy is a moron…
It amazes me the lengths these Detroit apologists will go to to trash the FAR MORE SUCCESSFUL import brands…
It is survival of the fittest…and Ford, Chrysler, and even GM are not fit.
@TheRealAutoGuy,
I’ve found that DeLorenzo’s only cred outside DET is that he’s a shining example of the delusions that happen when people can’t just move on.
Yes, the MSM will use him. He’s cheap/free and has the veneer of being anti-establishment. Beyond that, MSM is about cheap to produce filler.
Honest, I really do believe we should have a domestic car industry. Really.
Given them a chance? Somehow they stayed in business longer than anyone else with a trainwreck-abortion balance sheet of that nature.
All I’m saying is that if you actually add the numbers, there is no even remotely plausible scenario where they can make enough money. None. the numbers are are all out there, easily accessible. Please run them, it’ll take you maybe an hour.
As to the ‘firewalls’ and ‘plans’ we all know what a joke that is. More significantly, if one were to cash out every GM asset in NA for scrap, you might see 2B or 3B. That’s being really generous. And you’ll be taking money away from people who have already loaned money to GM using those ‘assets’ as security for those loans. Which is significantly more than 1 or 2B. Ready to bail those orgs out? That’s the next round of collapse.
If they do C11, redo everything, and THEN take about 50B over the next 3 years, maybe GM will still be here. But they’d have to cut the size of the org by about 70% to do that. Highly unlikely.
Best of luck up in SEMI. I had to unload a property there about 2 years ago. It was not pretty.
@porschespeed:
Dropped the ‘e’ off the end of schadenfreude, thanks. It no longer needs to be capped, but apparently you can still do that if you wish.
And I’m not sure where you got your definition. I have never heard or seen one anywhere that defines schadenfreude as anything beyond (net) taking joy in the bad things that befall others. None of them say anything about knowing it’s wrong.
If I had a penny for every time I misspelled a word… I could buy GM (or an Illinois senator) :-)
Thanks for the civilized posts and keeping it out of the gutter.
Here’s what I hope is helpful info on the German language:
Schadenfreude is a powerful, complex German word, with deep contextual layers. First, the pronunciation: It’s “shah-den-froy-duh,” not how most Americans say it, “shah-den-froyd.” From your screen name, I thought you’d appreciate that, since it’s analogous to saying “Por-shuh” instead of “Porsh.” The convention is to use caps (and italics) when referring to the German word, no caps / no italics if English is assumed.
Now, on to the meaning. My favorite German translation dictionary site,http://dict.leo.org/?lang=en, translates Schadenfreude as… (wait for it…) Schadenfreude. It is literally a word with no English equivalent. Words and phrases that are close, according to leo, include: gloating, mischievousness, spitefulness, and malicious joy.
On a lark, it’s on to Wikipedia… where we find, at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schadenfreude,
an entire, detailed page. A couple of key excerpts from this page:
“A distinction exists between “secret schadenfreude” (a private feeling) and “open schadenfreude” (Hohn, a German word roughly translated as “scorn”) which is outright public derision.”
“German: Lachen heißt: schadenfroh sein, aber mit gutem Gewissen: “Humor is just Schadenfreude with a clear conscience.” (Nietzsche)”
“The word Schadenfreude became increasingly known in popular culture from the end of the 20th century. In 1991, during The Simpsons episode “When Flanders Failed”, Lisa asks Homer if he’s ever heard of schadenfreude after he expresses delight that Ned Flanders’ business is failing. Defining it for him, she says, “It’s a German term for “shameful joy”, taking pleasure in the suffering of others.”[23] By 2000, the word was used without explanation during a Malcolm in the Middle (TV series) episode “High School Play”: after Malcolm (Frankie Muniz) abandons the Krelboynes to play the role of Puck in A Midsummer Night’s Dream and has forgotten all of his lines, Krelboyne Lloyd (Evan Matthew Cohen) comments, “Normally, I would enjoy the schadenfreude, but this is just sad.””
If nothing else, feel free to ask a native German; as I said at the beginning, it’s a complex word.
How did I know any of this? I’m a fluent German speaker. BTW, my German dictionary site (leo) is a free service started at my alma mater, the Technische Universität München.
It isn’t just Pete D.
Lately, Autoweek’s editorials have taken on a decidedly cheerleading approach toward Detroit. A few issues back, Dutch Mandel was extolling the virtues of the Chevy Volt and pointing out that GM has more cars that get 30MPG.
True enough. His citizens have sponsored the US bailout, but they’ve sponsored his 4 or so foreign plants to a far greater extent (tax $ per Alabama citizen).
The difference is the Alabama factories are building cars Americans want and will by at a reasonable price. Meanwhile, those plants support families, schools, and the local economy through the taxes and wages they pay. The tax breaks and infrastructure improvements the states made to attract the plants will most likely pay billions of dividends for decades to come.
I do wish the Americans would move as much of their NA market product to being manufactured here. I’d love to check out a Fusion hybrid in a year or two, but don’t want a Mexican or Canadian made car. Meanwhile, the Accord and Camry remain strong contenders because of the local factories.
Detroit has a mountain in front of it. Cerebus will be sold off, Ford I believe will barely scrape by and make it, but GM will have to go C11 just to collapse the brands and drop the deadwood. Two sales channels would be good, Chevy and GM. The GM dealers can carry a mix and match of Buicks, Saturns and Pontiacs.
Detroit needs to realize that for all their hype an jingoistic nonsense, to many, they are well below Hyundai in people’s minds. Yes, I know plenty of people who are excited about the Genesis, and none of those would even take a first look at the CTS.
So you need to offer a 10 year warranty. And more features. And a better base price without rebates so my resale isn’t slaughtered. Oh, and it would help if I could actually get a car the way I want it (why Germans can get books of a thousand colors and I can’t is a mystery to me).
Oh, and I actually like agile cars with highly bolstered seats and good handling. Preferably as lightweight as possible. And I am think most of your designs are pretty terrible, although if I thought it had a future, I’d consider an Opel/Saturn/whatever…
I am for maintaining a manufacturing base, but I’d rather see every single dollar go to green energy or something that has a future than the crap that is the big 2.8.
“GM has more cars that get 30MPG”
Now if only Honda has FIVE different mass market car brands they too could have five times as many high fuel economy “models”. That’s right, GM has five different brand competing in the US mass market: Chevrolet, Pontiac, Buick, Saturn and GMC. That is nuts. Where I the CEO of GM I would take every opportunity to repeat this mantra:Chevrolet and Cadillac, everything else is noise.
Who gives a damn about running up the model count?
Now if only Honda has FIVE different mass market car brands they too could have five times as many high fuel economy “models”. That’s right, GM has five different brand competing in the US mass market: Chevrolet, Pontiac, Buick, Saturn and GMC. That is nuts. Chevrolet and Cadillac, everything else is noise.
Who gives a damn about running up the model count?
It actually goes farther than your example.
GM counts different trims of the SAME model as different cars (ie. the Cobalt Coupe, the Cobalt Sedan, and the “XFE” versions of those cars are counted as 4 models).
@TheRealAutoGuy,
I also appreciate not having things degenerating into Autoblog…
My German is spotty at best, so I appreciate any enlightenment from those who can go native. German is always nuanced, especially when it does the six-words-into-one party trick.
The other interesting thing about German is that it (theoretically) has a sentence structure that is closest to English, yet it’s far harder for me than Spanish. If every German I know didn’t speak (mostly) perfect English, perhaps I would be more self-motivated…
“GM has more cars that get 30MPG”
Anyone who believes this needs to read actual road test results.
Their “economy” cars fall far short of the competition when they get off the Gov’s treadmill and on the road. The Lobalt and the Rat (er, Aveo) get midsize mpg.
Economy cars w/o economy have no purpose.
Bunter
PS-The Autoabsurdist (I like that!) has been nuts for years, it’s just more obvious now.
I started reading Peters blog not long after he started it and enjoyed it for a few years. He was saying what most of us have been saying, that there needs to be a sea change in Detroit or they’re not going to make it.
I guess he started losing me with the ridiculous hydrogen racing league thing. Then when he went to “unless you agree with me, you’re un American” rantings that’s when I stopped reading regularly.
P71_CrownVic :
January 8th, 2009 at 12:06 am
Wow…that Lorenzo guy is a moron…
It’s too bad that some sink to this level of comment. It really drags the whole TTAC site down to a level I don’t think most want to be a part of. Same goes for a similar comment about him being an industry shill. That one is one step up from the moron, but not by much. Neither are accurate in my view.
Your statement about him being a Detroit apologist just doesn’t hold up when you look back at his writing over the years. He has been very critical of the Big 3, their many missteps and, most importantly, provided no-nonsense talk on how to fix them. He has had one of the few sites where you could get eye-opening commentary about the industry from someone intimately familiar with it. His focus has not been limited to marketing. The coverage there of racing alone is worth the site visit.
He might have been a bit off on the hydrogen thing, but he has clearly wanted to advance racing by touting the advantages of using alternative fuels and technology as opposed to the oblivious spectacle that is NASCAR, for example. I like most of his commentary and proposals in this area. Check out this week’s Fumes column for a prime example.
I will agree that he has taken a different tone in recent months with the industry meltdown. It must be one thing to point out the failings over the years, but a harsh reality to see your grim predictions come to bear with such brutal speed and finality. He obviously takes no pleasure in seeing the industry he grew up with at the precipice of oblivion.
I think times have changed and Sweet Pete just can’t change with them. He has always started from the premise that the Big 3 need to be fixed. He can’t fathom the notion that at some point their continued existence might do more harm than good. What once made for a provocative point of view is now perceived as cheerleading. Pete didn’t change; the world did.
When Peter first came out, he was pissed.
Over 20 years in the trenches of auto marketing, some with Dodge and most with Chevy, he’d had it up to here with the underhanded, stupid, brutish louts that comprise the manufacturers’ marketing departments and management teams.
He and his site came out firing with both barrels, and he was hitting so hard, he chose to remain anonymous for awhile.
Yes, Dirty Dancing in Detroit was his expose of the brag-rag auto awards scams.
He was one of the first to criticize the Too Many Divisions, Too Many Models, Too Many Dealers GM structure and called for the dismantling of the Sloan model years ago.
Peter was the loudest critic of GM’s attempt to use Proctor and Gamble consumer good marketing techniques — and exposed how the Ron Zarella experiment shed point after point of market share.
I’m telling you, he was pissed.
He had fire, insight, and the pictures.
But those days are gone. No longer does he expose practices that go on in the auto media, in manufacturer boardrooms, or in UAW meeting halls.
Pete now laments not the car industry he helped expose in recent years, but the one he remembers from his youth. All chrome and cubic inches and burbling race-cam exhaust notes.
He’s now the old guy on his porch yelling at the kids to stay off his lawn.
Polishing his Gran Torino.
Still pissed, but at the world in general now.
Paranoid. Swinging at shadows.
I’ve been reading his column for years, and frankly, he’s been VERY critical of Detroit, and especially, GM. If you’ve only been reading the past few weeks, then you might come away with the same sentiment of this umm article, but if you do some research and have some time in the game (I’m talking 15-20 years, not two), you might have a better understanding where this guy is coming from.
If you’ve only been reading the past few weeks, then you might come away with the same sentiment of this umm article, but if you do some research and have some time in the game (I’m talking 15-20 years, not two), you might have a better understanding where this guy is coming from.
Exactly. He’s coming from 15-20 years ago.
I don’t read de Lorenzo that often, I will admit, but in what I have read, he has argued that the products are fine and that the problems are limited to branding and marketing.
That’s a fundamental mistake. For the most part, the products just aren’t as good as the best of the competition. In the few cases in which they appear to be close to being on par, they are usually too new and unproven for many people to take the gamble.
Combine that with the poor resale values and the spotty warranty coverage, and it just isn’t worth the dice roll for many consumers. That’s true even if the domestic is considerably cheaper, as it often is.
Until these guys understand that the American consumer needs to be persuaded and impressed, rather than insulted or ignored, they are doomed to fail. Calling people names and demanding that they be “patriotic”, whatever that’s supposed to mean, just misses the point.
I’ve been reading his column for years, and frankly, he’s been VERY critical of Detroit, and especially, GM.
He stopped being so about two or three years ago, coinciding with his initial work on of “The United States of Toyota” and his baptism within the Church of Lutz.
Peter, like a lot of other old-school scribes that have (had) integrity were really suckered by the Lutz soundbite train. He said the things people like Peter wanted to hear, that GM was going back to being the kind of company that guys like Peter loved in their youth. The problem is that Lutz talked a better game, and that the company that Peter wanted back really can’t exist anymore.
The problem is that, instead of trying to goad GM into being a better company today, Peter lapsed into bitter old man syndrome. This might work with him, and other people who’ve swallowed Lutz’ train of excuses and blamestorming. To skeptics, he sounds bitter; to younger skeptics, he’s actually insulting. More than a few of Peter’s columns over the last year decry the decay of society, and show a willful ignorance of human history.
The way Peter writes, you’d think that humanity lived in a Garden of Eden prior 1967, when men were Real Men, women were Real Women and cars were Real Cars, eight yards long, with more chrome than a Toyota Corolla has steel—and that somehow anyone born after that year is a lesser species. That bothers me, and I suspect it’s resulting in more than a little reciprocal bitterness towards Peter, which is only annoying him more.
As a posted above notes, very “Get off my lawn!”
@ Ronnie Schrieber
Robert, what does Delorenzo say here that is wrong? There are people who simply won’t consider a domestic brand. Not even the handful of cars like the Malibu, Fusion or CTS that you acknowledge are worth considering. Detroit has a very challenging task ahead. Product is the most important factor, but once you have good product, how do you get the 30-50% of people who won’t consider a domestic brand know that you have good product? I figure it takes 5 years minimum to establish some kind of word of mouth about reliability and resale value.
First off, even assuming that’s true (regarding the 30-50% numbers), so what? That is exactly the situation the imports were in 30 years ago, plus the import-phobia of the time was exacerbated by a subtle but noticeable garnish of racism, xenophobia and bitterness over WWII.
So the answer is obvious: Detroit is going to have to win those customers back the same way Toyota, Nissan, Honda and others won them in the first place: One customer at a time, by building decent cars and by performing better than people expect.
And by “perform”, I don’t mean the cars as much as I mean the dealers. Sloppy service departments, quibbles over warranty repairs and slick, sleazy salesemen are going to be the death of the big 3. Detroit needs to understand that the dealer is the “face” of the brand and people who have a bad experience at Joe Blow’s Chevy are going to be sour on Chevy for a long time after Joe Blow closes his doors.
IMO one of the primary reasons for the success of Honda and Toyota was the positive dealer experience people had. That’s the kind of word-of-mouth that makes sales.
Of course, the other tactic they could take is to simply beg for money from the government with not-so-veiled threats of economic catastrophe, and then try to shame people into buying their products with lame attempts at hiding behind the flag.
Which one is more likely to work?
First of all, the “Southern Republican’s want to destroy Detroit” theory is inconsistent with even pro-bailout logic. Specifically, it bites the much-touted “cascading bailout” argument. If Shelby were only looking out for his state’s interests, wouldn’t he try to protect common supplier firms?
That just shows how little Shelby knows about the auto industry. He thinks he’s helping Mercedes, Hyundai, Honda and Toyota who he insists are all doing well. As he was saying this, all those companies were cutting production at their Alabama plants.
Sen. Corker at least made a good faith effort to come up with a deal. Of course, he’s now considered a heretic by some who post here because he said nice things about GM’s Spring Hill engine plant. Four legs are better than two legs and anyone who dissents from “Detroit can do no right” must be shunned as unclean, unclean.
He thinks he’s helping Mercedes, Hyundai, Honda and Toyota who he insists are all doing well.
That may be part of it. But he is also fairly questioning why we would hand money to a business that is simply going to burn through it and demand more.
So far, the Detroit defenders can’t answer that question. They have plenty of time to whine about the evil Japanese and the stupid American car buyer, but they seem to have no time to create a legitimate plan to sell vehicles to those stupid Americans at a profit.
Without profits, the loans can’t be repaid, and it is likely that even more money will be demanded later, turning this into a Michigan money pit. Since whining isn’t really much of a plan — try that at your corner bank and see how far that gets you — the guy may have a point.
Which town is no longer the center of the automotive universe. The old guard simply cannot comprehend this new reality.
Toyota must be part of this supposed old guard since they spent over $700 million building their North American r&d center in Ann Arbor, less than an hour from Auburn Hills, the Glass House, RenCen and Solidarity House. When VW decided to put their HQ on the east coast, they still had to keep about 400 staffers in Detroit. Tesla’s closing of their Rochester Hills engineering shop got a lot of attention but what isn’t widely known is 60-75% of those engineers are still working for Tesla at a different facility in suburban Detroit.
Virtually every company that does automotive business in North America has some kind of facility or operations in southeastern Michigan.
So far, the Detroit defenders can’t answer that question. They have plenty of time to whine about the evil Japanese and the stupid American car buyer, but they seem to have no time to create a legitimate plan to sell vehicles to those stupid Americans at a profit.
I’m pretty much identified as a “Detroit defender” here and I’ve never said anything about “evil” Japanese or “stupid” American car buyers. I don’t think you can find anything similar in Delorenzo’s writings either. The inference of racism or charge of blaming the “victim” i.e. the consumer, is just a strawman argument.
Delorenzo’s refusal to categorically condemn Detroit despite his own pointed criticism of the domestics marks him as a heretic in the eyes of the Detroit-can-do-no-right crowd. True believers have a difficult time with nuance.
Every time I ask the Detroit-can-do-no-right crowd for constructive criticism instead of schadenfreude filled piling on, almost none of them will answer that question. They have plenty of time to whine about evil Detroit automakers and stupid UAW workers, but they seem to have no time to suggest a recovery plan for those automakers.
Without profits, the loans can’t be repaid, and it is likely that even more money will be demanded later, turning this into a Michigan money pit.
My eyes must be deceiving me. Farago keeps telling me that nobody is bashing Michigan. As for money pits, California and New York, about 20% of the US population, are about $50 billion in the red between those two states.
They have plenty of time to whine about evil Detroit automakers and stupid UAW workers, but they seem to have no time to suggest a recovery plan for those automakers.
Thanks for trying to dodge that bullet, but you haven’t.
You are the advocate here, so it is up to you to support your position.
I’d like to see your plan for fixing Detroit. Since we all agree that not fixing it will lead to their deaths, hence the need for taxpayer money, we are all clearly in agreement that a problem exists.
I want your solution to the problem. I have mine and I have offered it, but you have offered nothing of the sort.
You need to convince Americans to buy the cars, and you need to match the company to that level of demand. So how would you do it?
It seem to me that if Detroit’s leaders really understood the scope of their problems (or weren’t blinded by hubris), they’d see bankruptcy as a tool of redemption, not a mark of failure. Such a mark would be absurdly redundant. Handily, bankruptcy is both remarkably effective and thoroughly honorable. Compared to the bailout, that is.
My guess is that GM, Ford & Chrysler have done enough focus groups and other consumer testing to come to the conclusion that backlash from a bailout would hurt sales less than filing Ch. 11.
I’m putting together a list of questions to ask execs at the NAIAS and this one is going on the list for all 3 of the Detroit companies: Have you consumer tested for a bailout backlash?
I’d like to see your plan for fixing Detroit.
I’ve already posted what I think Chrysler should do: cut all product lines where they aren’t competitive. Shrink back to minivans, Jeeps, Dodge trucks and maybe the LX platform vehicles. Honda doesn’t compete in all segments and neither should Chrysler.
Ford seems to have done most of the heavy lifting they needed in terms of restructuring and matching capacity to demand.
GM is a knottier problem because while they’ve mismanaged those brands, the brands still have some value. Eliminate about half of their dealers, focusing on urban areas. Combine Buick, Pontiac and GMC into one dealer channel, giving Buick one or two sedans for the near luxury segment and the Enclave plus a smaller CUV. Pontiac should be performance vehicles only. G8, Solstice, and V6 coupe and convertible versions of the G6. With the Malibu and Aura, there’s no reason for Pontiac to have a plain Jane sedan. If they can shoehorn an Ecotec into the Aveo/G3, that might make sense too. Chevy should be the mass marketer, but I’m not sure if they should sell anything badge engineered – so Buick might be the only one with a Lambda CUV. The real question is what to do with Saturn. They have 400 good dealers. Perhaps badge engineered Opels might make sense – just nothing that competes directly with Chevy & B/P. Building on the success of the CTS, Caddy needs a bigger sedan that can compete with 5/7 series BMWs, the large Lexus, and the E and S Class M-Bs. Caddy will also need their crossover to compete with the RX Lexi, so the SRX stays. Caddy also can’t walk away from the Escalade buyers.
The difference is the Alabama factories are building cars Americans want and will by at a reasonable price.
That’s simply not true. Shelby’s pet Mercedes plant is on hiatus for half of January, will close for a full month later this year and has offered all the plant employees a buyout. Honda and Hyundai which make SUVs at their Alabama plants have cut production by about 40%.
If the South is so hospitable to business, what happened to all those textile mills and furniture factories?
The way Peter writes, you’d think that humanity lived in a Garden of Eden prior 1967, when men were Real Men, women were Real Women and cars were Real Cars, eight yards long, with more chrome than a Toyota Corolla has steel—and that somehow anyone born after that year is a lesser species.
It’s unfortunate that those who have the disadvantage of a post 1970s education, who didn’t have to learn things like historical facts because the schools were more concerned with self-esteem, think they know so much. My daughter, who is 29 and no right winger, bemoans how it’s hard to discuss things with her contemporaries because they have plenty of opinions, but have little solid knowledge backing up those opinions.
GM is a knottier problem because while they’ve mismanaged those brands, the brands still have some value.
That’s debatable. But in any case, you still haven’t addressed the issue.
What you have done instead is effectively tell us that the current GM “plan” of combining BPG and crossing fingers is a good one.
Obviously, the results show that it is not. Buick is no more desirable now than it was before. Ditto Pontiac. Ditto everything else. Nobody really cares how many cars Buick has, they just know that they don’t want them.
Once again: Show me how vehicles will be sold at a profit. I understand that vehicles can be moved with cut rate financing and discount prices, but that does not lead to profits.
We all know that insanity is defined as repeating the same mistakes with the expectation that something will change.
of racism, xenophobia and bitterness over WWII.
It’s the height of irony to accuse the US of racism, xenophobia and bitterness over WWII in the context of Japan. The Japanese don’t want to address their use of Korean women as sex slaves, while we Americans freely admit that our dads and granddads fucked their way through Europe using chocolate bars as currency.
Is there any American word that denigrates non-Americans akin to the way geijin denigrates non-Asians in Japan?
Are there any US textbooks that whitewash US actions during WWII? Most US textbooks spend more time on the bombing of Hiroshima/Nagasaki and the internment of Japanese Americans than they do on the battle of Midway or the attack on Pearl Harbor. Do Japanese textbooks discuss the brutality of their occupation of China? Do any textbooks in Japan discuss their active biological warfare activities? The US got many of our rocket scientists from Germany – the germ scientists, though, came from Japan.
IMO one of the primary reasons for the success of Honda and Toyota was the positive dealer experience people had. That’s the kind of word-of-mouth that makes sales.
Right. Hendricks and Penske send all their crappy employees to their Chevy stores and save all the good ones for their Toyonda shops.
I don’t really believe the Southern legislators are out to destroy Detroit, but let’s say they are? Would it really be because they favor the foreign players, or would it really be because the UAW spends so much money trying to defeat all of their legislative goals?
It was all fun and games for the UAW to kick sand in their faces, but when these guys fight back they are supposed to have a hidden aganeda?
Sorry, but trying to make the Southern legislators the bad guys simply won’t fly. Even with all the MSM support you might get (though they don’t even seem to be buying it).
@Ronnie,
Having read DeLorenzo’s stuff for quite awhile, I just don’t see him as that critical of DET.
As has been pointed out, the only thing he is truly critical of is branding and marketing.
Too many lines, disjointed, overlapping? Please, these were discussions I had with my friends when we were in high school. Our parents all got tired of the D3 back in the late 70s, and we understood why.
If you read his stuff through the lens of a non-DET employee, he’s 10 years late and 250B short of reality.
My friends and I saw this coming 20 years ago. We kept watching the market share slide even then. 5 years ago anyone who paid any attention at all saw that the day of reckoning was on the horizon. And that GM was doomed.
Fixing it? I enumerated a rather short plan for Chrysler. GM isn’t much different. This is just business. Why haven’t the braintrust fixed it yet? Simple. It’s not in their personal best interest to do so.
Unfortunately the kind of bloody, messy, radical change that’s needed will never happen as long as people ignore the financials, and pretend that somehow it can all go back to good.
Your plan for GM goes about one quarter of the way. What’s going to need to happen is the other three-forths. It will happen whether you want it to or not. Doing the one-forth only makes things harder to fix in the long run.
How DARE he tell me what I do and don’t find desirable.
I know what I like – and there aren’t many cars made by the big 3 on that list.
There are no “facts” you can present me to convince me that most of their cars pale in comparison to the readily available competition.
Not to mention DEALERSHIP EXPERIENCES?
I think Peter DeLorenzo is getting unfairly flamed here.
He’s been way out-front on Detroit’s (and others’) flawed products and business strategies for years. And how our government’s been asleep-at-the-wheel with industry support when foreign governments nurture their auto industries.
I think his recent posts deal more with his belief that a healthy auto manufacturing sector is a strategic national asset that should not be allowed to die… not only is it vital to our security, but it permeates into thousands of businesses in the supply-and-distribution chain from coast-to-coast that employ millions.
Would we allow Boeing to go out of business… so we could go get our jet fighters from Sweden, France, Israel or Japan? I don’t think so. A domestic vehicle manufacturing capability is similarly vital… I don’t want to rely on Nissan or VW for HumVees.
Detroit has made many many missteps. Detroit’s dealers are also a generally poor bunch, but no worse than Toyota, Honda or Nissan stores.
What I think Peter is saying is basically:
A) our government ought to REALLY consider the strategic benefit of a domestic vehicle industry and maybe start fostering success rather than impeding it, and
B) as consumers, we really should give a look at what Detroit is offering… the products are demonstrably good, and maybe we’re all a little better off if we buy from our neighbor instead of someone from across the ocean.
I’ve been reading Peter’s rants for longer than I’ve been lurking on TTAC. I don’t always agree with him, nor do I always agree with what is said on TTAC. However, I often find Peter’s writings insightful and a gauge of what’s happening in Detroit. If Peter is feeling paranoid that the entire country is against Detroit, then that is probably what a lot of people in Detroit feel. They’re taking it personally. Frankly, I find a few of Peter’s latest rants rather insulting to America, but looking at the bigger picture, that’s what he’s feeling.
Detroit didn’t take it personally when my car broke down under warranty and their companies said it was my fault. They didn’t respect my view when my car came back to me in worse shape than when it went in and all they said was “sorry, we’ll fix it next time” and never did. I just got rid of my last D2.8 car I will ever buy. I’m very happy with my “import” car. By the time GM finally changes their business model and entire corporate culture right down to the dealership experience, I will probably have died of old age by then.
I could go on and on and but that does not help the D2.8 come up with a real sustainable recovery plan. I thought that’s what the well paid CEO and executives were supposed to do.
The “national defense interest” is a very easily swallowed red herring.
DoD, NASA, and every military contractor there is buys more than a few mission critical sub-assemblies from China. Let alone Japan.
It’s the height of irony to accuse the US of racism, xenophobia and bitterness over WWII in the context of Japan. The Japanese don’t want to address their use of Korean women as sex slaves, while we Americans freely admit that our dads and granddads fucked their way through Europe using chocolate bars as currency.
Ronnie, Seriously, WTF are you talking about?
My point was simply this: You piss and moan about the “perception gap” that the domestics have to face. My point was simply that the Japanese and German imports had a significantly greater “perception gap” than the big 3 ever had (or will ever have) because the perception that Japanese-made cars were crap was magnified by racism and bitterness over WWII and they still managed to get over it and become top dogs.
What that has to do with Korean sex slaves or Japanese textbooks is …. what, exactly?
Right. Hendricks and Penske send all their crappy employees to their Chevy stores and save all the good ones for their Toyonda shops.
And again I have to play the WTF card. Are you arguing that bad dealer experiences are not a part of the domestic’s problem?
My guess is that because the domestic auto dealerships outnumber imports by ~ 3:1 it is easier for a bad domestic dealer to sour a customer’s relationship with the brand than it is for an import’s. Maybe the import manufacturers more closely monitor their dealers than the domestics, I don’t know.
My guess is that because the domestic auto dealerships outnumber imports by ~ 3:1 it is easier for a bad domestic dealer to sour a customer’s relationship with the brand than it is for an import’s. Maybe the import manufacturers more closely monitor their dealers than the domestics, I don’t know.
Everyone has lousy salespeople, that’s part of the business and can’t be helped. Many of them have lousy service departments. The domestics have no monopoly on bad retailing.
But those automakers that build a more reliable car will have fewer angry customers because the customer will have fewer opportunities to interact negatively with the dealership. The dealership is less likely to piss you off if you don’t have to go there.
A related issue is that a penny pinching organization will create more opportunities to antagonize the customer when warranty claims are denied. Since the dealership won’t typically eat the cost, the dealership and the brand will both be damaged by the denial.
porschespeed…
Whatever DoD & NASA are buying from the Chinese is only based on price… but I’d bet they’re all items easily-sourced domestically if needed.
Buying low-tech subassemblies from China can hardly be compared with the necessary strategic capability of designing and building special-purpose vehicles by the tens of thousands.
A heavy-industrial capability is still a strategic necessity. If the Big 3 go down, who do we rely on… Caterpillar and John Deere (until Hyundai take them out too)? Or do we federalize the imports’ plants and engineering here in the US?
Ronnie Schreiber :
I’ve already posted what I think Chrysler should do: ….
dumb plan.
You can easily figure out why this plan wouldn’t work by adding up the sales numbers of the cars you want to keep. Large corps with high fixed cost can’t magically shrink to a fraction of their size.
Listen there is no way we need to keep the American auto industry alive if they can’t adapt to the new markets. There are far too many greedy people ready to stand up to intercept money thrown by the gov’t to keep the company on life support. How many times must the history books explain why this won’t work long term?
So the automakers dry up and whither to a fraction of what they are today and alot of their supply chain does the same. Maybe the management will finally take a hint and decide they need to build GOOD desireable quality products. Not some version of two of those three.
As for outsourcing parts – there are plenty of auto parts manufacturers around the world that can step up if the domestic guys fall on their noses. Harley-Davidson is buying parts for their “American” motorcycle from all over including CHINA. Not that I’m happy about that but it is entertaining when I meet some Harley dude with a big opinion of his American bike while he looks down on whatever rice-burner I’m riding then.
I think it is time for the leadership of the car manufacturers and the unions both to do some serious re-evaluation of their priorities.
Maybe this is something that America as a whole needs to re-evaluate.
Does Detroit want to demand high wages now or do they want to have a job in five years? I hope they choose a longer outlook than what works for the next 6 months. I get the feeling though that they think if they can out last the recession that life will be rich and easy all over again. No it won’t because with each passing year of my entire life they have slipped further and further towards the edge.
Let’s get it over with and let them go broke and rise from the ashes.