Comments on: AN’s Edward Lapham Has Lost the Plot

By: charly

charly — Sun, 23 Nov 2008 19:32:56 +0000

The cost of the final assembly of a car is $1000. So the bulk of a Honda Civic’s MSRP doesn’t go to the local Honda plant. They in fact get less than what is spend on sales.

By: psarhjinian

psarhjinian — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 16:19:09 +0000

If your concern is overall economic health, what matters is where the vehicle and most of it’s parts are built. The net benefit to your community is the number of paying jobs a vehicle generates locally.

Where it’s designed doesn’t matter as much.

Where the corporate HQ is matters not one whit.

You’ve heard “buy local, think global”? When you’re talking about economic health where it matters to you, it’s an important concept.

So if the bulk of, say, a Honda Civic’s MSRP goes to workers at the local Honda plant, that’s a lot more beneficial than a Chevrolet built in Mexico and designed in the USA. It may not benefit Mr. Gettlefinger, or designers in California (or wherever, if you live in California) workers in Michigan, or stockholders in New York, or Congressmen in Washington, or even fellow citizens in another part of the country, but the closer to home you spend your dollar the better it is for you.

By: cthill

cthill — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 09:31:53 +0000

Honda, Toyota, etc. may have their HQs in other countries, but they produce the Accord, Camry, etc. right here in the US. GM, Ford, and others have their HQs here but assemble their vehicles abroad already.

Toyota assembles some of its vehicles in the US however the article is talking about where the cars are designed and engineered.

GM does a lot of this overseas but I will bet that it does more of it in the US than any of the transplants.

By: derm81

derm81 — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 03:00:00 +0000

Ah, Crain Communications. I drive by their lovely office complex on I-375 every morning and wonder how they get away with paying their employees such a low wage.

By: autonut

autonut — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 02:55:22 +0000

@Buickman
I admire your professionalism. If you can sell Buicks to octogenarians and ice to Eskimos; my hat is off to you. Listen, don’t fret, you’ll be able to package Hyundai as Benzes for schmacks, after GM is gone.

By: Buickman

Buickman — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 00:57:33 +0000

Ed Lapham is knowledgeable, honest, and insightful. I respect and admire his professionalism.

By: hwyhobo

hwyhobo — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 00:39:05 +0000

Edward Lapham is a clever liar. Honda, Toyota, etc. may have their HQs in other countries, but they produce the Accord, Camry, etc. right here in the US. GM, Ford, and others have their HQs here but assemble their vehicles abroad already. As far as I am concerned, GM can ship their execs to hell where they belong, together with their apologists like Edward Lapham.

By: Stephan Wilkinson

Stephan Wilkinson — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 00:38:56 +0000

Absolutely, that’s one of the first things I ask the dealer when I’m buying a new car, where the R&D offices are located. Just backed out of a deal when I learned they were in Albania. Whew!

By: Paul Niedermeyer

Paul Niedermeyer — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 00:25:33 +0000

China.

By: no_slushbox

no_slushbox — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 00:04:46 +0000

Shocking. The editor of a trade publication for the parasitic dealers that are running the big-3 into the ground is opposed to the big-3 using a pre-packaged, government overseen Chapter 11 to rid themselves of those parasitic dealers without spending billions of dollars (i.e. Oldsmobile).

Mitt Romney – who has a very deep background in the auto industry, but none of the bias that perverts the world view of NADA, AutoNews, the UAW, etc. – sees it differently. He sees Chapter 11 as the only way for American automakers to have a long term future.

“~~British~~ American Leyland” has finally entered the vernacular of the mainstream media; I could care less what’s in this trade publication.