Posted on 01/29/2007 11:22:19 AM PST by .cnI redruM
The Big Three are hemorrhaging money, and struggling to stay competitive with foreign rivals. Fortune's Alex Taylor crunches the numbers.
NEW YORK (Fortune) -- An enormous gap still separates the performance of Detroit automakers from their foreign competitors - and it isn't all their fault.
The stupefying $12.7 billion loss that Ford Motor Co. reported Thursday for 2006 comes one year after General Motors' equally horrendous $10.6 billion loss for 2005.
But for all the bad decisions these companies have made by not listening to their customers, they aren't entirely to blame. Structural inequities between the U.S. and Japan - notably in labor costs and currency - account for a big chunk of Detroit's problems.
The evidence can be seen in a report prepared by the Detroit consulting firm Harbour-Felax, first released back in October and updated for Fortune. For anyone who makes a living from the domestic auto industry, it is depressing reading. An enormous and persistent gap separates the home team from the import companies - large enough to question the continued survival of the U.S. companies.
(Excerpt) Read more at money.cnn.com ...
LOL!
btw, have you seen this:
http://www.detnews.com/2005/autosinsider/0510/17/A01-351179.htm
(Jobs bank programs -- 12,000 paid not to work
Big 3 and suppliers pay billions to keep downsized UAW members on payroll in decades-long deal.)
Which are then sent back to the US to build the new Tundra plant in San Antonio (their seventh assembly plant in the US), or the the recently announced 8th one - location unset.
And it's all the evil workers fault for wanting health insurance and a decent wage.
Big labor has killed Ford and GM? ROTFLMAO They killed themselves with HORRIBLE products.
OK.... dumb question time. Are the Japanese car manufacturing plants located here in the US employing unionized or non-unionized employees on the manufacturing lines?
Yep, all that work for one punchline...
I am 6'4" and I have a Honda Civic - the 4th one I in a row. the are incredibly well made and fuel efficient (40+ miles per gallon)
My comment was an attempt at irony...obviously too dry.
look toward NC or TN for the new location.
Nothing more nothing less.
Virtually all non unionized except the large number in Canada.
But, they are apparently happy hard working employees.
I certainly don't want those guys in charge of a company the government wouldn't bail out.
No - not too dry... quite funny actually. That's what I get for responding to a post after only reading the first half...
I'm tired of hearing excuses about the dismal state of the US auto industry. After buying four cars from Ford and GM - all of which caused me no end of trouble, cash, and grief - I bought an import.
If the leaders of the Big Three want to improve the quality of their products, they should be sentenced to drive cars - or better still, have their wives drive - right off the assembly lines. And when the cars have service problems, these leaders and their wives should have to sit in a service bay, wait for repairs, and pay out of their own pockets.
Toyota's workers are insured as well. For $1,000 less per car.
Government.
so what happens?....the company goes broke ...
anybody NOT think that all govt agencies....from school districts...from county road crews...to the police..to the military ..to the defense workers..to Nasa....anybody NOT think that all of these entities are also in reality broke from the mega pension and health liabilites yet we will never hear of any of these institutions cutting back substantially any of these huge total liabilities.....
I heard this 35 yrs ago that the best place to be is in govt work because the govt will never go bankrupt as long as it has the power to tax from else.....
so we can pile blame on the unions and the Ceo's which I do but let's take a look at our civil service obligations as well......
BTW, we happily drive both a Toyota sedan (Avalon) and Sienna (minivan) in our family - both American-manufactured.
That chart is a keeper. With all the rhetoric, it's good to have something like this to help keep things in perspective.
Did you see the low-speed crash test for the Chinese SUV? The driver would have been dead. It's like the Chinese engineers said "Everyone says we need a crumple zone to protect the passengers, so let's make the crumple zone extend all the way into the front seat."
You couldn't pay me to drive a Chinese car.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.