American carmakers out of touch?

Parent Cafe
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<p>Right, as I stated earlier, the Volt is a series hybrid (ignore the PR from Zielinski) rather than a parallel hybrid like the Pruis or a series-parallel hybrid that are the next gen. Hondas and Toyotas.</p>

<p>There might be an advantage to a series-parallel hybrid over a pure series hybrid, or vice versa, but it remains to be seen.</p>

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<p>Right - but that was before the 25% bump in price.</p>

<p>How many people would stick w/ the Volt if the next-gen series-parallel hybrids from Honda and Toyota can undercut it by $5k?</p>

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Source.</p>

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The cost basis between a unionized Korean auto worker & US auto worker is vast. I knew guys pulling 150K+ (skilled trades, but still a massive amount). In 05, when I was working the base rate was $27.50/hour. 55K/year simply on a 40 hour week. Most everyone was clearing 75K/year. This does not include pension, 401K, or healthcare.</p>

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Dependability ratings aren’t great. Average for Hyundai, below average for Kia.</p>

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Why? I’m already in agreement with you. Regardless, the domestics have made huge strides in the last few years, as I’m sure you know. In certain vehicle classes there is no difference in “interior quality”.</p>

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Only the latter. If you can’t pay your way, don’t force others to pay for you. An unpopular opinion surely. I don’t care.</p>

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I do think health insurance should discriminate against customers who do idiotic things like riding with no helmets.</p>

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I don’t really pay attention to advertising at all. I pay attention to data.</p>

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Ok.</p>

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I don’t.</p>

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I agree.</p>

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I don’t think energy independence is some sort of goal we should strive for. I believe low cost energy is the goal. If we import low cost energy then who cares if we are importing it.</p>

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Lawbreaking caused the latter two, not deregulation (ie: if laws were followed then situation would have been far less). Why was the first one even bad?</p>

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Absolutely.</p>

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This says nothing of the standard of living.</p>

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The median citizen in the US is certainly in better shape. A simple cost comparison of similar goods would show that to be very clear.</p>

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Yes, because European infrastructure is doing quite well. :)</p>

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I’m not sure, but I tend to think it has to do with credit bubble collapsing & the war.</p>

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That doesn’t make very much sense, because the other major oil/energy importing currency blocs have appreciated against the dollar. One must remember that the primary Middle Eastern currencies (Saudi/UAE/etc) are pegged to the dollar.</p>

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<p>Uhh, how are people “forcing others to pay for [them]” when insurers either refuse to offer them coverage in the 1st place or drop them in mid-coverage?</p>

<p>Plus, the problem w/ our healthcare system is that it is SOOO INEFFICIENT.</p>

<p>We already have “national healthcare” – it’s called the ER.</p>

<p>I don’t want to go into a whole discussion on national healthcare – but the system as it is just bleeds $$.</p>

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<p>Well, supposedly some insurers already do – but any increase in premiums for the non-helmet riding bikers don’t cover all the resulting healthcare costs (the rest of us “insured” subsidize them).</p>

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<p>And the data says that people are influenced by advertising – hence the BILLIONS spent on it.</p>

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<p>Like I said – that’s for long-term data – which takes into account autos from the 2004 model year (which is prior to the launch of Hyundai’s revised product lines) – and doesn’t correlate to current models.</p>

<p>Plus, for someone who is purportedly into “data” – only 14 out of the 38 auto brands had higher than the industry average of 218 problems per 100 vehicles.</p>

<p>Hyundai’s 228 problems per 100 vehicles is only 13 more problems per 100 vehicles than Infiniti (which is the 14th rated brand) and thus, is pretty much inconsequential data-wise.</p>

<p>Hyundai, otoh, is ahead of brands like Volvo, Audi, Mini, Porsche, Nissan, Mazda, VW and SAAB – having 46 less problems per 100 vehicles than Nissan and 61 less per 100 vehicles than Mazda.</p>

<p>You need to look at the data a little more closely.</p>

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<p>Right – but Brazil isn’t feeling the pain at the pump nearly as much as we are b/c the govt. had the foresight and the gumption to get something done w/ regard to diversifying their energy sources.</p>

<p>Yeah, we have the whole corn-based ethanol thing, but once again, special interests ruled the day (big agri-businesses like ADM and US Sugar) where the much less energy efficient corn-based ethanol was pushed over the sugar-based ethanol.</p>

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So I guess according to you - Phil Gramm pushing and passing for a law easing regulation of energy-commodity trading had nothing to do w/ California’s drastic run-up on electricity prices and Enron’s role in it.</p>

<p>And I guess deregulation also had nothing to do credit default swaps and the insane amount of leveraging which led to the sub-prime mess.</p>

<p>Even Martin Feldstein, the “Father of Reaganomics” has admitted that there was too much deregulation and not enough oversight.</p>

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<p>So working 20% longer hours and having a higher infant mortality rate, etc. is a better standard of living?</p>

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<p>Much better shape than ours, tho.</p>

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<p>What? The Europeans, Japanese and Chinese holding an immense amount of US paper hasn’t affected the dollar? Lol</p>

<p>The dollar was on its way down way before the credit bubble.</p>

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<p>I’m not talking about currency valuation here – but simply that a huge transfer of wealth is occurring presently due to the high price of oil (it’s the reason why the Saudis and Russians are flush w/ cash and we aren’t).</p>

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I think it should be illegal for insurers to drop people mid coverage. If insurers refuse to offer you insurance in the first place then you are cursed and I’m sorry.</p>

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We have an inherently less healthy population and get extremely similar health outcomes, why are we inefficient?</p>

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Yeah, I’m not a fan.</p>

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Truly, I wouldn’t even have that much of a problem with national healthcare, I just wouldn’t let obese people or smokers join. I don’t want to fund idiotic behavior.</p>

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Yes, people don’t have the right incentives.</p>

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I am not. I don’t understand this point of argument.</p>

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Replace “Hyundai” with GM or Ford and you have the same level of truth.</p>

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I assumed it was weighted by vehicle volume.</p>

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And I said Hyundai was average, didn’t I?</p>

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All brands not known for reliability.</p>

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What are you talking about? I said Hyundai had average performance. That is a correct statement.</p>

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Sorry to say, your “blame government” tirade is not going to work with me. The main problem with us is the anti-nuclear, anti-fossil fuels NIMBYism that occurs in the US.</p>

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You did not mention the CA electricity fiasco, you merely referenced the implosion of Enron (at least I assumed you were). I’m not well versed enough on electricity issue to comment.</p>

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Can you please cite the exact laws that were deregulated and caused the sub-prime mess?</p>

<p>I believe the surge of sub-prime lending was just the result of a credit boom that has since been extinguished. The housing ownership rate was at a stable 65% for ~20 years. The modern political climate tried to boost this number…obviously there are some issues that prevents the other 35% from owning homes.</p>

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What changed?</p>

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Depends what you want. The level of material wealth here is far higher. Comparing health outcomes without comparing demographics is laughable as well.</p>

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During my travels I generally thought the opposite. France, Germany, Italy are the countries I am talking about.</p>

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The holder of the debt is irrelevant. As a percentage of GDP the US is at a level similar to many European nations.</p>

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When exactly do you think the credit bubble began? LOL.</p>

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Umm, you were talking about currency valuation. You said:</p>

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That, quite clearly, indicates you think the wealth outlay to oil producers contributed to the devaluation of the dollar to the world basket. My point is that similarly importing nations did not experience this similar drop (ie: Euro, Yen).</p>

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<p>Not very impressed w/ the 2010 Chevy Camaro’s design photos that came out this week. I know its a difficult time and all, but I must say, the styling is bland and unimaginative.</p>

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<p>As senior engineering staffs are laid off or taking buy-outs, the Big Three keeps hemorrhaging their knowledge base and leaving junior staff with no mentoring. This results in production/manufacturing errors that senior staff would have caught. Seemingly at Ford, GM and Chrysler, it’s the blind leading blind. </p>

<p>Richard Gresens, the senior designer for the Ford Flex was laid off by Ford. See: [Flex</a> designer is among Ford’s layoffs | Freep.com | Detroit Free Press](<a href=“http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2008807260308]Flex”>http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2008807260308)</p>

<p>According to the Detroit Free Press (June 6, 2008) : “Ford also has sent letters to about 100 recent college graduates who had been offered jobs, telling them that their hiring would be deferred indefinitely. Ford is offering the would-be employees $5,000 to compensate.” </p>

<p>I’m guessing those just graduated engineers will be working for the Japanese, Indian and Korean auto companies.</p>

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<p>Uhh, b/c we spend significantly more per capita and don’t do any better (and a bit worse via many factors).</p>

<p>About 1/3 of the total cost spent on healthcare in the US is spent on administrative paperwork, etc. and not actual healthcare (I’d call that inefficient, wouldn’t you?).</p>

<p>Anyway, don’t want to keep debating, b/c don’t have the time or energy - but the latest JD Power Dependability study came out (based on 2005 models) and not only did Hyundai finish above the industry average, only two large, mass market brands finished ahead of Hyundai - Toyota and Honda.</p>

<p>Hyundai, in fact, finished ahead of Infiniti, Audi, Mercedes, Nissan, Mazda and VW.</p>

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<p>This study ignores one major factor: new vehicles. Whenever a new vehicle is introduced it always has more problems than established products. Of course GM was going to see it’s numbers drop, they have introduced the most new vehicles of any auto maker in the last 5 years. Look at the Saturn brand; the entire line was replaced in 3 years. I think with time the domestics will continue to get better.</p>

<p>I’d also caution against reading too much into the brand scores, since you’re buying a model, not a brand. Scores can vary quite a bit from model to model within a brand.</p>

<p>When the score worsens for a brand, it will often be because one or two models were redesigned three years ago. And when one improves, it can be because a redesign happened four or five years ago. For example, Saab launched the redesigned 9-3 in 2003, and worked the bugs out in the first two model years.</p>

<p>TrueDelta’s results, which are updated every three months provide scores for individual models:</p>

<p>[Vehicle</a> Reliability Research](<a href=“http://www.truedelta.com/latest_results.php]Vehicle”>http://www.truedelta.com/latest_results.php)</p>

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<p>^ True (and True Delta is a better source, esp. if you don’t have access to JD Power’s breakdown for each model in a brand).</p>

<p>But remember, the JD Power Dependability rating is only for the 2005 model year and every make usually has at least one new model out.</p>

<p>As for Saturn, during 2005, most of their models were a previous gen or discontinued line. Most of Saturn’s lineup nowadays are rebadged Opels/Vauxhauls.</p>

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<p>It’s even worse than that. Different options configurations in a single model can turn a silk purse into a sow’s ear. For example, the Womashota Wombat with the four-cylinder engine could be a disaster, while their 3-cylinder turbodiesel runs for 250,000 miles without service. The rating agencies rarely get into enough detail to show you these fine distinctions.</p>

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<p>Yes they are out of touch.</p>

<p>I hope they all go out of business and they have to swallow the costs on all those new gas dinosaurs they’ve built. They would probably say “well we were just following what the consumer wants and they weren’t ready for anything but gas-powered vehicles.” Bull. </p>

<p>With all the money they had to work with they could have <em>come up with something</em>. They could have used all the money they spent on the new dinosaurs to make a less expensive electric or hydrogen vehicle. </p>

<p>I hope they all go out of business.</p>

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<p>Three years ago, car makers couldn’t give away fuel-efficient (read “small”) cars. Today, they are in hot demand. Did you predict fuel costs would double in 24 months? Are you that smart?</p>

<p>Have you done the math on hydrogen? Lots of people have and the answer is that it would be a good solution if you don’t care about global warming and were willing to spend a few hundred billion dollars building a distribution system. The current gasoline-distribution system has taken 100 years to build. It was at least 30 years before it was really a nationwide system. Where will the money come from to build a similar hydrogen production and distribution system? Should manufacturers build a vehicle that can’t get fuel in 99% of the country? How much would it cost to build a fuel cell vehicle? How many hydrogen cars should you build waiting for a fuel delivery system? And, why do you make the assumption that hydrogen will be a lower operating cost fuel than gas? Maybe hydrogen vehicles will cost $5 per mile to operate because of the inefficiency of using energy to convert a substance to another form which can then be used to generate energy? Why not just use the energy directly instead of using it to make hydrogen? Everyone who has seriously looked into this know that hydrogen is an energy-transfer system, not a source. (In fact, fossil fuels are just solar energy from millions of years ago, stored in the form of crude oil.)</p>

<p>The Tesla is probably the most practical (if a 2-passenger vehicle that can’t carry a week’s grocery is “practical”) all-electric car coming to market right now. Do you want to spend $100,000 for a car? The battery pack ALONE in the Tesla costs something like $25,000 – and that’s the cost to the manufacturer, not retail cost. Hmm, why won’t those stupid manufacturers adopt a technology that only a teeny-tiny portion of their customer base can afford? They sure are stupid.</p>

<p>Despite what a lot of folks think, technology doesn’t happen because you really really reallyreally believe you can “come up with something.” Ask all those PhD scientists who have been working on commercial fusion power for 50 years.</p>

<p>I know Ford was working on low-cost, high energy batteries in the mid-70s. They abandoned it as unfeasible. A leading engineering manager for GM, who is bringing the money-losing Chevy Volt to market in 2010 (for something like $30,000 - or nearly twice what you would pay for a nice Honda Fit of similar capacity) recently said that he was optimistic about electric technology, and that it would only be another two or three decades until electrics could compete economically with ICE-powered cars. This was an engineer, not one of the “stupid” top executives to which you are referring.</p>

<p>In essence, you haven’t done your homework, and your position is, at best, really poorly informed.</p>

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This is true. I consider the 1991 Ford Exploder I had as the least reliable vehicle I’ve owned yet had some friends with the same basic model and they were happy with theirs. However, mine had 4wd and theirs were 2wd units and the majority of my reliability issues were with the 4wd compnents. The front hubs went out twice - once nearly stranding me on a 4wd trail far from anywhere in the Borrego desert and the other nearly getting me stuck in Brianhead Utah in winter when I needed it in the snow and ice. The transfer case went out inexplicably while driving at about 65 mph up hwy 395 in 2wd mode sticking the vehicle in Bishop (after being towed 40 miles or so from June Lake) for a week. This is only a partial list. Needless to say, I quit doing any 4 wheeling in it for fear of getting stuck in the middle of nowhere.</p>

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<p>I think it would be useful to let the Big 3 car executives and managers drive other companies cars so they had some idea of what they were trying to do.</p>

<p>I grew up in a family that drove GM cars, and happily continued that tradition with my first new car purchase. Three years and 42,000 miles later I sold it when we moved somewhere that I didn’t need a car. Its track record was</p>

<ol>
<li><p>Delivered with non-working odometer. returned to dealer and replaced, along with free fingerprint on inside of gauge window and dent in middle of hood, which was repaired at dealers cost.</p></li>
<li><p>Permanent rusting around rear marker lights. Impossible to paint with any commercial product…rusted again within 3 months every time.</p></li>
<li><p>Thermostat failed and led to overheating, causing radiator hose to burst. </p></li>
<li><p>Heater core developed a leak which put coolant into the rug in the passenger area. Took a while to figure out why the windows were always fogged on the inside.</p></li>
<li><p>Center caps for fake mag wheels (stock oem) did not stay in place and become lost on highway, one by one.</p></li>
<li><p>Voltage regulator failed on a long christmas trip and required removing the alternator to replace.</p></li>
</ol>

<p>The remarkable thing was that when I traded it, I was very happy with it and would have bought another one. Little did I know. </p>

<p>After owning a toyota for the first time in the early 80’s I was impressed that it had no delivery defects, and no operational defects in the first 5 years I owned it. Nonetheless, I gave GM another try with a Buick Park Avenue when our first child arrived. It made it one year before I traded it. During that year it had repeated transaxle shuddering and loss of power in heavy rain, the speedometer completely stopped working and then started up again during a trip, and the windshield wipers ceased to work and had to be replaced. The dealer who replaced them tried to charge me for it, and I had to retrieve the manual from the car and go back after paying to get my money back under warranty. I traded it in less than a year and probably took an 8k hit. </p>

<p>This is the problem that they are having, over and over and over. And I hear executives claim that their quality is comparable to Toyotas. I am sorry, but they long ago used their last chance with me. As long as they train people to look somewhere else for quality, they are going to have a tough time…mileage or not. I do not believe that many people there grasp this. It is truly too bad.</p>

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<p>Shecallsmedad
In addition to being clueless about available technology, you do realize you are wishing for financial ruin on hundreds of thousands of families who would be affected by such a catastrophe. Without the tax revenue from auto dealers many counties across the country would be bankrupt. There would be a tragic chain reaction. Watch out for what you wish for.</p>

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<p>Washdad:</p>

<p>Plenty of people have been predicting much higher gas prices, and they are not “chicken little” types. A lot of drunks on any back street in any town in America could have seen that one coming, i.e. much higher gas prices? </p>

<p>You are going to tell me and everyone who reads this that the American automakers could not be somewhat, if not significantly, closer to an alternative to fossil-fuel driven automobiles? If I read you correctly, you are implying that the American automakers are doing their damnedest–out of the goodness of their hearts, mind you-- to help the “common man, woman and child” in America to have the most affordable transportation as quickly as they possible can?</p>

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<p>Mom, how are things going in Detroit? </p>

<p>You know, the world doesn’t revolve around fossil-fuel driven automobiles. </p>

<p>So the automakers go broke–big deal. Of course a lot of people will be affected by them going broke, but it will only be a fraction of what the rest of America is going through right now.</p>

<p>I wasn’t aware I was posting on an American Automobile lobby sponsored website…</p>

<p>Oh, I understand now…you’re watching out for what you wish for.</p>

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<p>Shhh Dadx…Washdad and Collegemom are convinced the American automakers are doing their damnedest to look after your and my best interests…Don’t talk too loud or you’ll wake them up.</p>

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<p>[Who</a> Killed the Electric Car? - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia](<a href=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Who_Killed_the_Electric_Car%3F]Who”>Who Killed the Electric Car? - Wikipedia)</p>

<p>plus</p>

<p>[Car</a> industry: General Motors announce $15.5bn loss as BMW issue profits warning | Business | The Guardian](<a href=“http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2008/aug/02/generalmotors.automotive]Car”>Car industry: BMW sneezes but General Motors catches cold | General Motors | The Guardian)</p>

<p>equals:
Galatians 6:7 (it’s in the Bible)</p>