What is wrong with the motor city, aside from the legally challenged Detroit mayor and the depressed economy, which typifies Michigan’s one state recession, made worse by high taxation and political mismanagement?
Even Motown Records abandoned the City of Detroit over two decades ago, and now it seems many American consumers are doing the same. Why are the Big Three automakers continuing to loose marketshare, even as survey after survety shows quality on-par, or even exceeding the foreign competition.
The answer is clear and to get that answer, a person can simply visit a Ford, Chevy, Jeep, Dodge or other Big Three branded dealership. What do you see? Row after row after row of fuel inefficient trucks and large SUVs. In an era of $4 gasoline the market for such vehicles has dwindled to a trickle. Then go visit a Toyota or Nissan or Honda dealership? You see the exact opposite (with the possibel exception of Toyota) You will witness a sea of small and medium size passenger cars. Why is it that America’s foreign competitors seem to understand the domestic market so much better than entrenched domestic producers.
As the conomy has slipped and as gas prices have soarded, Japanese auto producers in particular have ramped up production of various in-demand vehicles, including hybrids, meanwhile the big three talk a great deal about shifting production, little else is down. This goes to the inefficiency in the way the Big Three have operated, dependence on Unions and less reliance on innovative automation renders the Big Three far less efficient in altering production strategies. At the same time companies like Toyota have sold over a million hybrids with several models in production, while GM and Ford have only sold a few thousand and Chrysler hasn’t sold a single one. What exactly is it going to take to wake up these fossils in Detroit, perhaps when they are auctioning off the corporate headquarters for these firms, perhaps then they will recognize what should have been done? Will someone tell GM, Ford and Chrylser to stop talking about Volts, hybrids, hydrogen fuels cells and increased fuel efficiency and start production.
Pick up practically any magazine these days and you will notice that GM and Ford, in particuloar, are spending millions advertising Ford Escape Hybrids and malibu Hybrids and so forth, but where are they. In Metro Atlanta, for example (or all of Georgia for that matter), not a single Ford dealer has even one hybrid, in fact, while Ford continues to produce thousands of their non-0selling conventional models. Why are they advertising cars that can;’t be purchased at any price. This has the affect of aggravating potential customers and driving them to the competition. Exactly who is running the shop in Detroit?
Links:
http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5gYXm6L25yay9RRQymP7uDxeSsX1g
http://money.cnn.com/2008/08/06/news/companies/big_three_woes/?postversion=2008080610
