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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: Mr_Shiftright (Mar 01, 2009 12:10 pm) I think that is par for the course now. My dad was amazed that for the first 3 years, his G35 required nothing beyond oil changes. That was it. The Subaru got new windshield wipers under warranty, that was it. I don't think that makes it exceptional I guess. Japanese cars being the same price new or used (or cheaper new with the Obama tax credits) is a California thing. Its why my brother and sister had Escorts in high school and college and not Civics (both of which handled drivers from 16-22 without complaint). |
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Replying to: lilengineerboy (Feb 27, 2009 1:58 pm) News Flash! We are going to lose a bunch of suppliers no matter what happens to GM or Chrysler. There are too many cars being produced for the current market. Sales were artificially raised over the past 7-8 years due to the overuse of incentives/rebates and easy credit. Times have changed and the industry has to adjust. The government providing endless bridge loans is not going to help the industry but drag out the recession. GM could not make money when sales were at 17M 4 years ago. They can't make money now. If Cerberus does not want to invest their own money into Chrysler, why should we? Let's stop playing games and get down to business. Each company has had plenty of time to deal with this issue. GM knew back in 2005 things were coming unraveled. Daimler knew in 2006 which is why they unloaded Chrysler for a song. We're going to be paying for this for a long, long time no matter what happens. The fact that the big banks don't have a good sense of what their losses are is inexcusable. Just heard on the radio tonight that AIG lost $60B the last quarter and needs another $30B. Unbelievable! All this fancy accounting is going to drag the country down more than anything in the auto industry. We can fix GM all we want. If no one can qualify to buy a car, it won't matter. |
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Replying to: dtownfb (Mar 01, 2009 5:35 pm)
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Replying to: dtownfb (Mar 01, 2009 5:35 pm) |
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Replying to: dtownfb (Mar 01, 2009 5:35 pm) I always thought Oldsmobile just died off with the customers...unlike Saturn which got killed off by management. Hmm lets invest a whole lot of money and get people to like an American car...a moderately competitive import fighter...and then lets not update it for 10 years...that isn't "a different kind of car company," thats what Chrysler did with the Horizon.
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Replying to: lilengineerboy (Mar 01, 2009 6:14 pm) Saturn, of course, was a completely different kettle of fish. They didn't know what to do with an originally pretty decent start and let it die.
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Replying to: Mr_Shiftright (Mar 01, 2009 5:54 pm) I'm not sure that is true anymore. we have shipped a lot of our labor off shore. Labor force - by occupation: US farming, forestry, and fishing 0.6%, manufacturing, extraction, transportation, and crafts 22.6%, managerial, professional, and technical 35.5%, sales and office 24.8%, other services 16.5% note: figures exclude the unemployed (2007) Labor force - by occupation: China agriculture: 43% industry: 25% services: 32% (2006 est.) Labor force - by occupation: Japan agriculture: 4.4% industry: 27.9% services: 66.4% (2005) Labor force - by occupation: Germany agriculture: 2.4% industry: 29.7% services: 67.8% (2005)
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Replying to: boaz47 (Mar 01, 2009 7:37 pm)
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Replying to: fezo (Mar 01, 2009 6:56 pm) Saturn, of course, was a completely different kettle of fish. They didn't know what to do with an originally pretty decent start and let it die. It's not that...GM just has always been stretched too thin. They're just starting to realize it now (nearly 10 brands??) but they're still trying to avoid doing anything about it. Since none of them are truly unique it's harder to spin any of them back off to be independent companies, so now they're stuck in a hole of their own making. Toyota sells the same approximate number of models but with only 3 brands...that's a ton less overhead, and it also means fewer dealers cannibalizing each other for sales, lowering resale value. GM dug their own hole, now they need to go bankrupt in it. Heck, Saab has already declared bankruptcy. |
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Replying to: Mr_Shiftright (Mar 01, 2009 7:59 pm) |
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