The really great thing about oil is the return on investment, the power out is huge compared to the energy put in to extract and refine it. Hydrogen and battery-mobiles can’t match it. Even hybrids struggle – a good Diesel will use less fuel and emit less CO2 overall (remember I’m including manufacture and disposal costs here) than a hybrid.

When “Flux Capacitors” become standard fitment then we will match oil but until then we need to make the most of it.

I’d be happy with a Corsica or Cressida, I’m grateful for what opportunities come my way. although the all things being equal, the Cressida works much better for me.

I remember 1970s Honda Civics as being even worse rust buckets than anything of the era’s “Detroit Cancer”, and that’s pretty remarkable.

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All the early Japanese cars were that way. After a couple of Northeast winters they would literally dissolve. I was convinced that the Japanese were building them out of compressed rust.

The reason why the Japanese prevailed, is because they acknowledged the problems with their cars and corrected them. With Detroit it was business as usual.

While it sounds like we agree in (economic) principle, I partially disagree with one of your statements. FDR did not cause the depression through his policies, the depression was there when he took office. His policies approved by the congress, just extended the depression and made it more severe. Instead of a short term boom/bust cycle that had been typical, at least throughout the history of this country up to that time, we had a very long lasting “bust” portion of the cycle following the boom of the teens into the twenties. However, I totally agree with you that a large if not the largest impediment to manufacturing in this country is not wages, it is government regulation. It’s not just the wages you pay your employees, it’s the amount of time spent on payroll and HR activities to ensure that you are complying with all the governemnt regulations. Then there are the government safety regulations that are applied wiht a blind eye to the reality that is right in front of the government inspector’s face (“but that doesn’t make any sense in this case” is not a valid answer to “section 1256789(a)(1)(d) of the …. states that you shall not….”). These are the costs of doing business in this country that aren’t normally discussed. As soon as somebody says something is necessary for safety, it’s unquestionable. I mean, how can you be against safety? Then of course there are also the costs of frivolous personal injury lawsuits.

How about perceived problems? How about their reputation for having problems? How do you convince someone that a brand new Ford Focus or Chevy Cobalt is just as good or even better then a new Accord or Camry when the past 25 years says otherwise?

Actually, Honda’s 4-cylinder L-series engines have an 8-plug 8-valve variant (i-DSI) as well as a 4-plug 16-valve variant (VTEC). The former is designed to maximize fuel economy, so it’s not available in any American models. The following article describes the Honda engines: http://asia.vtec.net/Series/FitJazz/lseries/index.html

President Bush said make cars, that people want.

What a Shakespeare-like sentence! still, it`s true. it`s not government, that stops manufacturing, it`s the companies themselves, that make too outdated products, that have superpoor diversity, and superlong product cycle.

that is why colgate and mountain dew is having good profits, because they don`t need to push constantly in high precision movement building. they change labels, slap new names and sell,.

but you can`t slap a new name on old impala and sell it as a new megaturbo cheetah.everything that needs precision assembly ,needs long term investment, but usa is very bad at making profits for tomorrow, not today.

that `s why as a rule all movement involved companies die, but soap makers proliferate. and today if detroit can`t make good cars, they can pretend they make. that`s what rebadge is for. that`s what byuing foreign shares is for.

detroit is destined the vauxhall way. to live in memories, not in egine rumbles.oop`s, you watch that burger boy, you former gm engineer,or your toyota service center diner lounge boss takamichi will fire you………..

More recently, I drove a Catera for a day. It seemed to be a generally good car with acceptable quality, but how unexciting can a car get? Even my wife turned up her nose at it. Another GM market failure.

Certainly words for our modern age. But with so many of the “foreign” companies building in this country, how does your point make sense? Surely Honda and Toyota are burdened more by any domestic industrial regulations than any of the big 2.x who mostly build out of the country?

One thing that astounds me is the big 2.5s lack of investment and refinement in existing production-lines. The Euro/Japanese culture seems to be hooked on steady cycles of face-lifts and re-designs. A face-lift every two years, a major re-design every four years, a new platform every 6 to 8 to 10 years. When an automaker has a steady share of a market sector, it is essential to stay competitive, and not only keep that share but expanding it, and have enough money left when the cycle is over to produce an entirely new vechicle for that sector and market share. The money for the face-lifts, overhauls and replacements must come from the revenue of that market share, thus the smarter management keeps the product competitive, because more vechicles sold means more money for further re-investments. That is the most essential part of car-making. If not, your share of that market sector will diminish as the competition moves further ahead. It is as old as Karl Marx, and the core mechanism of capitalistic theory.

In the fifties and sixties, the american car companies did just that. And they had face-lifts every year! Re-designs every four years, and new platforms, well, once in a blue moon. But the fury and aggression in the evolving design-language from that era is still one of the true wonders of car-making history. Never before nor after that time, has the splendor of car design reached a fuller zenith than then and there.

So, why is that that the american car companies has lost their faith in capitalism? The examples are many in which a company has produced a new car, and not only more or less banished further development, but not even produced a proper replacement when the cycle is over and actually long, long overdue.

Ford Taurus, The Fox platform, Ford Focus, GMs J-Car, the Saturn, Chrysler PT Cruiser and so on and so forth.

I can’t find a single European or Japanese car company that doesn’t invest in existing production lines, and produce proper replacements. Well, it would be Saab, then. But of course, their problem with lack of investment in the 9-5 and lack of replacement seems to be on a GM management level.

I’ve been to Detroit before and that place is definitely it’s own little world and I can see how the corporate people there could easily be out of touch from the real world. They designed and built some of the biggest junk ever made and at the same time, seriously thought they would all be the best selling cars ever. Desperately optimistic and delusional.

How hard is it to take a Toyota or Honda and take it apart and study how it’s assembled and reproduce it’s features/advantages? Why does my 4 cylinder truck(Ford) have 8 spark plugs? You don’t see Toyota/Honda pulling stunts like that and they ALL get better fuel mileage and more power then this joker motor. What a mockery this engine is.

A girl at work owns an Accord and every time I ride in it I think “Gee, this sure is a nice car”. No rattles, nice ride, quiet. Just a nice little car. I got to drive a Prius a while back and that thing sure was pleasant to drive(CVT). Just hop in, leave the key in your pocket, press the button to power it up, pop the electronic joystick into which gear you want and away you go.

Ford and GM COULD save themselves in multiple ways. The sure way not to is to keep building their current vehicles with all their problems and gasoline burning properties.

The “electrification of the automobile”? I think electric cars are ready. You want large format lithium batteries? Type the word kokam into Google. Full size Chevy truck getting 150 miles per change and it doesn’t even have a full load of batteries!

http://www.autobloggreen.com/2006/12/01/edta-conference-more-details-on-uqm-s-electric-silverado/

Hydrogen powered internal combustion(for now)? Put the hydrogen refueling stations at the car dealerships!?! Do a Google image search for the phrase tube trailer.

Mid year model changes are exciting and refreshing. If a car is not selling well, tweak it until it does. Don’t wait a decade to change it up! Is the 2009 Mustang going to be one hundred percent the same as the 2005 model was? Are we esitenially going to be buying 2005 model Mustangs in the year 2015? Everyone who has wanted one of the new style Mustangs has already gotten one by now. I’m not asking for a totally new platform. Just look at the changes between the models from `65-`73. That’s enough to keep things fresh and exciting.

The current Mustang is too expensive. Even if both the V6 and V8 had twice as much power each, I don’t think that would move more volume because of the price point.

Take a bill of materials and analyze every component and ask yourself if that part is absolutely necessary. Why can’t less be more? Why can’t we have a nice looking plain wheel that costs less then the wheels you currently use? Are those stock tires the cheapest brand/model you can find? Who makes your drive line and could it be made cheaper? Why do we need a two piece drive shaft when the aftermarket offers a one piece replacement that is superior to the stock two piece? You did it because the more complex two piece is somehow cheaper right? Those mod motors are cheaper with their multiple cams, timing chains, and greater number of valves then GM’s impressive Gen III and IV engines(one cam and push rods)?

Strip the car down to it’s uni body and crash test it and see how well a ~1,000lb car fares compared to a ~3,500lb car. The acceleration and stopping abilities of the half tonner sure would be nice. Not to mention the handling… Less weight would mean less material, so the price should be less? Your selling this stuff by the ton right?

Also for the record, Civic bodies may have suffered from cancer in the ’70s, but the rest of the car was great compared to its rivals of the time. That’s more than I can say for my first car, a 10-year-old 1982 Cadillac Cimarron with just 52K miles and already rusted through the floor. I still can’t figure out how it still ran. Most everything else didn’t work.

I remember 1970s Honda Civics as being even worse rust buckets than anything of the era’s “Detroit Cancer”, and that’s pretty remarkable.

The rest of your list makes sense to me.

Tom.

Time Magazine a scant 27 years ago,
June 1980 “Detroit Hits a Roadblock”
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,924166-1,00.html

The auto companies are spending staggering sums to comply with the regulations as well as to shrink the highway cruiser and develop new, more conserving engines for powering it. GM alone will lay out $5 billion in capital spending this year. Still, Government pressure increases for even sharper and faster change. Transportation Secretary Brock Adams has called on automakers to achieve even greater gas economy by doing “nothing less than reinventing the car.” One of his goals is a fleet that will average 50 m.p.g. by the year 2000.

Many automen are shocked and angered. “We’re breaking our butts trying to get to the numbers that Adams has got for us already,” grouses Riccardo. Adds a Ford executive: “What he’s calling for is the repeal of the law of thermodynamics.”

Points – 50 MPG by 2000 as a fleet avg! Even Toyota can’t/couldn’t do that. And the huge sums of money to spent to comply with regulations – I said it before that during the 70’s I read that quality took a backseat to complying with safety and EPA regulations. Now I’m not against either but I believe there is no intelligent approach to this by our politicians. They can get a new regulation passed and get great press coverage without regard for what it might do to any industry down the road. They might not even be in office or alive when the unintntended consequences come home to roost.

True story. Years ago there was a yacht building business in my home town. Employed avg working people and paid them good wages to make these things. Congress passed a luxury tax on things like yachts. People stopped buying them in enough numbers that they had to lay off a good number of their employees. Now the tax was passed to raise revenue and make the wealthy pay their fair share as the politicos like to say. Then the unintended consequences kicked in. Fortunately this was something where you could see the cause and effect right away. The tax was rescinded. In the case of auto regulations you may not see the consequences until a years later. I believe the truck/SUV boom was a result of such regulations. and lets not assume the Asians or Europeans were so much smarter than the Americans. They were designing and building these things as fast as they could make them.

Yes, the forecast in Time was indeed from 1979.
Thanks for the correction, Paul. :-)
(Some day I’ll learn to read numbers;)
My kingdom for an edit button!

Geeber is right. I had one. The Mitsu 2.6 large 4 cylinder was nothing to write home about either.