Bailout Watch 117: Honda CEO: "Sure. OK. Why Not?"
Autoincar.com reports that Honda CEO Takeo Fukui is down with the U.S. Department of Energy’s $25b loan program. You know the boondoggle that provides no-to-low interest loans to automakers for retooling 20-year-old-or-more factories to build more fuel efficient vehicles than previous. Which could include a Honda factory, but won’t, ’cause Honda isn’t hemorrhaging cash. And there’s a reason for that relative success vis a vis The Big 2.8. “The times have changed,” Fukui said. “Their response was too slow.” Fukui also claimed Honda avoided disaster by not expanding into the pickup truck sector. “We didn’t dabble in that, and that worked out well for us,” he said at a Tokyo hotel. Anyway, never mind. No harm, no foul. And U.S. federal aid to the truck-heavy domestics is no biggie. “It is totally proper for the U.S. government to help out U.S. automakers.”
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What's interesting about this position, if I have my history correct, is that the Japanese government refused to help Honda build an export car business in the late sixties. Honda decided to go ahead on their own. I wonder if they've since decided government help is more trouble than it's worth. But I don't know if they've had government assistance since then.
"Fukui also claimed Honda avoided disaster by not expanding into the pickup truck sector. “We didn’t dabble in that, and that worked out well for us” Ummm what? cough.. Ridgeline... cough...
The ridgeline is not a "truck". It is unibody not body on frame. As Ridgeline and Pilot sales go down the same assembly line starts cranking out Accords. Not that I am defending the horrid looking Ridgeline (or Pilot) but Honda did not get into the "pickup truck" business and certainly didn't spend the kind of development money that Toyota spent on the Tundra.