Detroit - what the Hell happened?!?!

[Frank Lee]

Pretty decent letter, I don't agree with it 100% but do for the most part.

[jamesqf]

It certainly squares with my own experience (some years ago now) of union construction work. I've always thought that it's not really the money that's the problem with unions, but the work rules and employer-as-enemy attitude. I used to do ceramic tile work: on a union job, we weren't even allowed to plug in our own extension cords. Had to wait for a UNION electrician to come along and do it. There were rules about how many square feet you were allowed to do in a day: when you'd done that much, you stopped - but had to stay on site and get paid for 8 hours. And on and on, to the point that it seemed a miracle that anything ever got built. Contract a non-union job, one where we were paid by the job rather than time, and we could get about 3 times as much work done in a day, and take home twice as much money.

[Big Dave]

Up until about 27 months ago, the big SUVs sold like hotcakes and they couldn't give away little cars. Price of gas went up and the sales pattern reversed. Seen it before. 1973, 1979. Now gas is coming back down and the Priuses stack up on the lots, too.

The auto industry is nearly as cyclical as oil. Billy Durant made, lost, regained, and lost GM in an eleven year period of boom and bust - nearly a hundred years ago.

I think everyone tries to oversimplify the problem as "GM didn't make little cars." Back in the early 70s Honda were archetypal "cheap Japanese junk." The mid-70s Vega was a lot better car than the Hondas of the day.

[Duffman]

I agree Dave, the big 3 are not sunk because they relied on trucks, that is only the straw that broke the camels back. UAW and overpaid management have been structural problems for decades. What is never talked about is GM and Ford aquiring AM General and Saab or Volvo, Land Rover, Jaguar and Austin Martin, stakes in competitors, not because they fit a missing need within the corporation or provided technology that they couldnt produce themselves, but to deny any of their competition from aquiring it.

Capitalism has gone off the rail for a few reasons, but I dont understand why the media doesnt talk more about this unlimited corporate consolidation that has been allowed over the last 20 years. How could halving the competition in the field be good for anyone? How could growing companies into "too big to fail" category be good for anyone?

[order99]

You forget that the Media has been consolidated under corporate management as well. Not much competition there either, not when hundreds of media outlets reside under only a half-dozen or so corporate umbrellas...

It's one of many reasons I gave away my television last year.

[Eighty-Nine Si]

America’s strong suit has always been innovation…often on the part of amateurs working in their basements or garages…guys like us. Innovation, however leads to competition which is anathema to the greedy corporate elites who by their very nature oppose free-enterprise. The big-labor elites have long since sold out the American worker for their own take on “exploiting the little guy.”

VDARE.com: 12/30/08 - The UAW's Money-Squandering Corruptocracy

The Big Three have lavished enough money on the presidential candidates that the “bailout” was a foregone conclusion. The end result is that the American automotive industry will be nationalized for all intents and purposes. Socialism, corporate or otherwise, does not work. Between the corporate, labor and media elites, we have not just lost our industrial capacity, we have lost our liberty.

[jamesqf]

Originally Posted by Big Dave

Up until about 27 months ago, the big SUVs sold like hotcakes and they couldn't give away little cars.

Who's "they"? 'Toyota, Honda, and all the rest of the Japanese/European makers of mostly small cars seem to have been making decent profits through all those years, when Detroit couldn't give away THEIR small cars. How'd they do that, AND manage to gain absolute market share, if everyone in this country only wanted SUVs & oversized pickups?

Back in the early 70s Honda were archetypal "cheap Japanese junk." The mid-70s Vega was a lot better car than the Hondas of the day.

Crap. I owned a mid-70s Vega. It might have been marginally better than a Trabant or Yugo, but I doubt it. The shifter would get stuck between gears, the floor pan rusted through - in Southern California! - and don't get me started on the engine...
My next car was a Mazda RX-3, which while admittedly pretty poor in city driving, was wonderful for the long-distance highway travelling I was doing in those days. Never had any sort of mechanical problem with it, nor with the '78 Datsun pickup which was the only other '70 Japanese vehicle I owned.

[hypermiler01]

Originally Posted by Big Dave

they couldn't give away little cars.

Maybe GM, Ford, and Chrysler couldn't give away the little P.O.S.s that they have been making, but Civics, Corollas, and Jettas have consistently been top sellers for the last 30 years.

In addition to the Audis and other cars I have had, I have owned a 1981 Mitsubishi Colt and currently own a 1981 Mitsubishi Galant Sapporo. The fit, finish, and quality of engineering of those two cars rivals anything coming out of the factories today. The Colt got 37 mpg in city traffic, and the Galant averages 28-29 while being buttery smooth, comfortable, and quiet.

[Figjam74]

The ESX II pictured above was getting some good mileage (~70 MPG), and the ESX III that Dodge built 5 years later (in 2003) was getting 72 MPG. The cost premium on the ESX II was around $15,000 more than the normal Intrepid, and less on the III. I'm not sure why they didn't build it, but they were using diesel motors so maybe they were having trouble with emissions.

Dodge ESX3 Concept wallpaper # 01 of 03, MY 2000

[captainslug]

It's really not complicated.
The people that the industry has been relying upon to design most of the cars made in the past 20 years are industrial design students with no formal training in practical engineering. In effect they are nothing more than glorified conceptual artists, so it's no surprise that the designs they have come up with have nothing to do with improving anything tangible. They are only there for satisfying the needs of a focus group positive result that makes the marketing department and management happy with potential sales figures.

R&D is primarily a sector used to shoe-horn in gimmicky features added in successions that give the marketing department an extra bullet point to add to the brochures of each successive model year.

The bulk of the "advancements" that the automotive industry has added to their product lines in the past 20 years are nothing more than creature comforts like iPod docks, GPS, OnStar, and so forth.
It stopped being about the car itself and instead became more about how many gizmos they could cram into the interior.