About 730 days late and billions of dollars short.
Could someone explain again why the other companies manufacturing cars in the US are doing fine? Toyota, Honda, Nissan and others, right?
Capitalism should not be about old, established companies being given a pass on basic management, and rewarded for failure. Let ‘em go down. The economy is going to be a bloodbath regardless.
No pain, no gain.
Filing chapter 11 is the only way to save the auto industry.
I keep asking the same question. Why is it the auto maker’s responsibility to solve our energy crisis.
We are the only country in the world that does not use it’s own resources.
Our men and women have to die in wars over oil and we still do nothing to extract our own oil and natural gas from the land and sea.
Plenty of blame to go around in the auto industry.
However, it is, or would be, relatively easy to reform management, especially now. Its probably a good idea. But it isn’t enough.
Likely, it past time for some major restructuring at the big 3. Probably less models, less marques, maybe each manufucturer will focus on fewer segments. More automation might help too. But it won’t be enough.
There’s nothing inherently wrong with a union (or unions) representing labor in the auto industry. It could be a good thing. However, the current union, is going to have to change radically, and the labor situation will also have to.
It goes way beyond salaries, although that’s a huge part of the problem. The barrier to automation, the inability to fire incompetent, drugged, dangerous, or unwilling workers, the classification of everyone who walks into the facility as an “auto worker” - these cannot be sustained.
It’s too bad there aren’t some visionaries in the UAW who could see the writing on the wall, and actually work towards making their collective employers profitable, with better-than-average salaries and benefits which went to well-trained, willing, and competent workers even if there ended up being far less of those workers when the dust cleared.
Do that, along with the reform of management and product, and the auto industry would be on a good footing. Do one or two without the other, and they’re just prolonging the inevitable.
Just MHO.
They don't care if the moonshine fuel messes up your lawn mower. After all that is an illegals problem.
Everyone reading the above line knows exactly, in their mind's eye, what Maryann Keller--who runs an automotive consulting company--looks like, the kind of friends she has, the kind of neighborhood she lives in, and the kind of man she married to.
Break up the unions. They have served their useful purpose from the turn of the 20th century in protecting workers from evil owners. The foreign automakers do well here because they produce quality products and don’t have the legacy issues the US automakers and airlines all have with huge pensions, healthcare for life, paying people in a jobs bank NOT to work.
Let them fail and Chapter 11 and the bankruptcy courts will help to sort out the mess.
I read somewhere that Toyota won't produce them at their plants here in the U.S. because they aren't confident enough about the ability of their U.S. workers to meet the company's quality standards with a new, high-tech car model that hasn't stood the test of time.
So there's a good chance that the Big Three would end up either producing hybrids that don't work, or they'd have to outsource their production to places like Japan or Europe anyway.
Why should the already-strapped consumer spend many thousands of dollars more for a hybrid car?
In order for “U.S.” automakers to compete, they will have to move more production overseas.
As I understand it: these hybrid and electric cars do not
generate a profit!