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Automotive News & Views Does America Even Need Its Own Automakers?
1788 messages, Last post on Mar 03, 2009 at 2:18 PM
You are in the Automotive News & Views Forum. Your Hosts are steve_ & claires
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Replying to: jeffyscott (Nov 12, 2008 11:41 am) |
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I think the main problem with the Big 3 is that they have burned too many customers that just "won't go back." So they've earned a reputation for cheating customers, which means they have lost those customers. The simple fact is no matter what the Big 3 do, they have lost too many customers, and there are not enough customers in the world to replace all the ones they have burned. Extinction is inevitable. The Big 3 might have a reputation that is less than flattering and maybe some of their customer base would love to see them go under. The part you are so willing to ignore is that GM, Ford and Chrysler still have roughly 45% of the car sales in the US (the worlds largets car and truck market at present and has been now for 60,70 years.) even if they were to go bankrupt I fully realize and am perfectly happy with them coming back into the economy much smaller than they are now but at least profitable. They will be smaller regardles what happens in the next 10-20 years or so anyway. Once the Chinese figure out how to build reliable cars and trucks that are dirt cheap which they will figure out at some point even Toyota and Honda will have their hands full. If I were the Big 3 I would seriously consider ditching manufacturing entireley here in the US. The Big 3 should continue building cars and trucks in Mexico, until the UAW gets a strionghold there which is inevitable they will. Once the UAWis strong in Mexico, the bulk of their cars and trucks should be built in China. Once the quality thing is mastered, and it will be mastered at some point in the next 10 or so years the Big 3 will be poised for a come back in the US. The UAW and CAW are no friends of the Big 3, especially these days. I heard today that if you take th average pay and benefits of an assembly line worker in Detroit, they make $72.20 an hour, That is obscene! The Japanese here in the Country make about $48.00 for the same type of job. GM, Ford, and Chrysler can't compete against that. $26.00 less an hour for the sasme type of work, that is crazy. Dress it up anyway you want to justify money going to the Big 3, it is most certainly a bailout. One thing that makes me upset about the "bailout" is that the bulk of the money would be going to pay for the wages of the UAW and CAW employees because they are the biggest expense the Big 3 have to contend with, to spin it any other way is being disingenious. Since there are so many people that are so interested in seeing the Big 3 go under, I think The Big 3 should leave this country and move to China. When you see how many jobs are directly and indirectly hurt by no auto industry, I think you might have a change of attitude.
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Replying to: dill (Nov 12, 2008 5:53 pm)
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Replying to: fezo (Nov 12, 2008 6:11 pm)
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Replying to: gagrice (Nov 12, 2008 6:24 pm)
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Replying to: cooterbfd (Nov 12, 2008 6:28 pm) Seems like our congresspeople aren't listening to the public at all - Pelosi has got a special session set for next week to give away umpteen billions of taxpayer dollars to Detroit. I'm going to start hounding their phone switchboard..... |
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Replying to: steve_ (Nov 12, 2008 11:43 am) Both of them would be eligible for the junkyard bonus 
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Aren't they based primarily on Daewoos and Holdens??? I believe they have a number of branded Buick models that are based off of a number of different cars like Daewoo and Holden. I believe the vast majority of Buick offerings are Daewoo in nature however. I realize GM would lose marketshare here in the US if they were to ditch the US manufacturing arm of GM. That being said, GM in China is growing a lot every single year. Buick is one of the best selling brands in China and has been for the last 5 or so years with no end in sight to Buicks sales. People would absolutely come back to Buick in the US if they were getting an inexpensive well built car that was reliable and got respectable gas mileage regardless of its country of origin. Look at Hyundai, the Hyundai excell (a mitsubishi car from stem to stern) was complete garbage. There were many people who bought them who were extremely disappointed in those cars. Hyundai, tried again with their own models that were better cars, and it wasn't until the early part of this very decade that Hyundais are good respectable cars comparable to the competition. Hyundai's biggest problem has been the exchange rates that have made their cars more expensive here due to the exchange rates. If people perceive value even if there experiences in the past have been bad ones they will eventually come back to that brand. I wouldn't expect everyone to come back initially but within 5-10 years they would have enough of a market to make a profit, this would be especially true for a car company with such little labor costs like China has verus the rest of the world. |
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... with their vote this month. They don't have a problem putting Nancy in charge of giving away our money. Her new boss certainly won't have a problem. Nationalism and Socialism is here to stay so we may as well have comunist built cars and then give welfare to the unemployed UAW workers. Cut a deal with China to put us all on welfare and we'll stay home and let them build things. (Sorta like paying farmers not to grow crops)
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Replying to: wvgasguy (Nov 13, 2008 6:11 am) 
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