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Automotive News & Views Buying American Cars What Does It Mean?
7263 messages, Last post on May 27, 2009 at 4:31 AM
You are in the Automotive News & Views Forum. Your Hosts are steve_ & claires
With parts coming from everywhere, does "Buying American" have much meaning anymore? Is quality and price the bottom line?
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Replying to: lemko (Nov 05, 2008 10:42 am) Try telling that to all the rich A$$H  &*S who've ruined the old car hobby
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Replying to: circlew (Nov 05, 2008 12:32 pm) My opinion is that Detroit needs to get out of the 'mainstream' car business, concentrate on those low tech high profit trucks and SUVs, of course and maybe keep a minimal presence in the specialty car markets e.g. the Vette, Mustang, Camaro etc All this would require a lot of downsizing, which I think would run contrary to those UAW contracts and other expectations. In any case, quite painful and a lot of perfectly good folks out of work . Heck if gas stays at $2 for any prolonged period of time, they might be able to sell those behemoths again, make some money and sign ridiculous labor contracts again in the false euphorias of some black ink. Detroit hasn't been a real factor in the car business anyway, for a number of years now - unless, of course, you are into renting cars  .
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Replying to: captain2 (Nov 05, 2008 2:22 pm) If they wanted to sell SUV's into high cost fuel markets, they should have targeted affluent only. Perhaps that will be one area they can manage because $55K for a hybrid SUV has a very small customer base and shrinking extremely fast. Mainstream SUV's need to make 25 MPG minimum to sell briskly even particularly when the economy turns positive. Regards, OW
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Replying to: captain2 (Nov 05, 2008 12:05 pm) I guess significant can mean different things but GM has over 60 plants in NA (powertrain, sheet metal, assembly). 3 are in Canada 3 are in Mexico Now with all the announced closings this may change slightly. In fact GM has announced closing a truck assembly plant in both Mexico and Canada. And I might add GM does sell vehicles in both countries, so building a few vehicles where they sell them would be nice. http://media.gm.com/manufacturing/facilities.html |
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I guess significant can mean different things but GM has over 60 plants in NA (powertrain, sheet metal, assembly). 3 are in Canada 3 are in Mexico Well, if that's the case GM must have dozens of NA plants that are doing nothing. Just surveying Chevrolet, the following cars/trucks are assembled in Canada: Korea, or Mexico - Aveo (of course), Avalanche, Equinox, HHR, Impala, Monte Carlo, and Silverado, a substantial portion of Chevy's overall volume. and a number will increase as those plants you're talking about are allowed to close. That is significant particularily for a manufacturer that claims to be 'American'. Just a guess - but it would seem to me that since Toyota built that $1 billion dollar truck plant in Texas, and in consideration of all the high volume vehicles (Camry etc.) that they have been building in Kentucky for years that the car/truck buyer is more likely to end up with a US made Toyota than a Chevy. By necessity, GM and the other 2) will end up being the same international cos. that the others are - but in the same vein should be embarassed to be calling themselves 'American'' - something that it plainly not the case now and likely even less so in the too near future. The slogan ought to be: Buy American and put another American out of work!
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A story I read somewhere today about Toyota pointed out that they were importing 50% of their vehicles, but since their truck production here had been cut, that percentage probably had increased. I'm not sure that means you're more likely to get a Toyota built in USA than a Chevrolet. |
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Replying to: captain2 (Nov 06, 2008 11:56 am) Aveo is overseas, equinox in canada, HHR in mexico, Impala in Canada (with Camaro, MC is gone). Full size trucks will not be made in Canada any longer and are still being made in Mexico. Impala also going to be taken out of Oshawa. I think you got all of them! So the Camaro (and future Zeta based vehicles) and Equinox will be built in Canada. The HHR and some full size trucks in Mexico ( and there are still plenty of full size truck plants here in the US). The HHR does have a limited future. I have no news on the replacement after the Cruz comes out. So that is 5 models out of maybe 50+ others.
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Replying to: 62vetteefp (Nov 06, 2008 6:02 pm) Maybe so, but missing my point - 'Heartbeat of America' Chevrolet is no longer any different that big bad ole Toyota in terms of actually producing cars in this country and may in fact be worse if you consider actual # vehicles built in the US. And as you note, the situation (producing 'American' cars outside of the US) is only getting worse and not only for Chevrolet/GM only. |
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| ...but the trend is definitely running in that direction. Toyota as a group builds about half of their sales volume here, with the imports being Lexus, Scion, and mostly the low-volume models (the Prius being the most notable import, but that will change before long). GM still builds more here than Toyota, but their collapsing volume (they will be hard-pressed to crack 3 million this year) and ingrained cost-cutting mentality will even them out fairly soon. | |
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Replying to: lemko (Nov 05, 2008 10:42 am) Today the cars such as CTS and Vette are fine, no doubt, but the damage has been done. Perhaps, if the Unions want to hold on to jobs and GM, they would agree to a pay cut or layoffs when required without pay, and to pay health insurance, before GM goes bankrupt in December. Sure the government can step in and print more money, but what then???
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