Well, it finally happened...

I am surprised it didn't happen sooner. While Toyota is busy reinventing the luxury brand and Infiniti nipping at the heels of BMW, the American Big Three are busy lobbying DC for insentives to sell more SUVs and trucks.

 

thats cause most people are retards and think GM makes unreliable gas hogs and toyotas are gods gift to automobiles...

 

They are probably going to fall a lot more behind. They have been complacent for far too long!

US automakers still don't have in their range enough fuel efficient models to compete against the Japanese firms.

The writing has been on the wall for several years about the increasing cost of Gas (still 1/3 of the price we pay in Europe!), but US car companies have prefered to pander to the dubious taste of uninformed consumers and kept on producing gas-guzzlers rather than invest in fuel economy research and technology to be able to sell cars the consumers can afford to run.

 

actually GM has more cars over 30mpgs then anyone IIRC

7 models i believe... plus the best gas milage of any full size PU and full size SUVs (especailly with hybrids)

 

And more cars that no one will buy...

 

Exactly. People who haven't even driven a modern GM car.

 

GM dug that hole for themselves by building unreliable gas hogs. It's going to take a while to change the perception. Hopefully they can hang on long enough to do so. But it's not the American public's fault that GM has been making POS vehicles for a long time.

 

+1 Billizon percent.

The problem wasn't the labor unions. The problem was top management. Way too many martini lunches followed by golf.

Dale

 

There is no such thing as TOO many martini lunches. Golf only interrupts the steady flow of martinis anyway.
What's a GM?
Check the supply numbers in Automotive News if you want some giggles.

 

UNRELIABLE gas hogs??? My '95 GMC truck has over 150,000 miles and all I've ever done to it is replace a couple of serpentine belts and the alternator.

This "hoity toity", nose in the air attitude that people have against American vehicles in favor of foreign cars is really absurd.

Q: "How do they haul 10 year old foreign cars to the junk yard?"
A: "With a 20 year old American semi truck".

 

That may be what it is for some people, but I have owned several GM products as company cars and have never been impressed. They look/feel cheap yet cost damn near as much as a BMW! The BMW's are way better screwed together (and used to be more stylish, but now they look like crap so I would get an Audi which is probably better anyway, if the company would let me)... The Ford products were MUCH better. All have been quite reliable, and I ABUSE the crap out of them! They get terrible gas mileage w/ my throttle use though! That said, EVERYTHING in my hands gets bad gas mileage! LOL!

US car makers will continue to get their A$$ handed to them too if they don't get it together and start building efficient cars that appeal to the masses!

YMMV!
James
Austin, TX

 

New Cobalt looks good, feels -really- solid, gets an honest 34 MPG on the freeway @ 70, and can be bought for well under 14K. Not bad at all. It's not the 80s anymore.

 

I'm shocked; A post on ferrachat that implies that the free market isn't always right?

 

Naive...party of most of the posters in this thread...your table is ready.

Car companies (regardless of continent) are RE-active, not active. To say that GM is asleep at the wheel is silly, they (GM) built what U.S. consumers wanted, they (GM) did NOT set the market conditions. Cars are designed YEARS out, the current gas situation in the U.S. did NOT exist when, as an example, the new Challenger or Camaro were started, if it had, I doubt these 2 cars would have been made. To hold the Japanese (or European) makers as paragons of fuel economy is incorrect. Toyota makes a great number of large, gas munching vehicles (Tundra, 4 Runner, Land Cruiser) not to mention EVERY Lexus. Nissan/Infinity does no better (check the X-Terra's mileage or the fact that a 350Z can't best a C6 in fuel mileage is spite of the cavernous performance difference). Honda seems a little more resposible till you gander at a Pilot. How rich would I be if I bet all the right thinking posters in this thread 15 years ago that the #1 selling Porsche on EARTH would be an SUV called the Cayenne (which probably saved the company as well).

The article that started this thread is so lopsided that it is funny. "American carmakers caught off guard", give me a break. American car companies will continue to have problems as long as junk like this is written. Someone pointed out that GM has a high number of cars with very good gas mileage, that doesn't seem to have been reported in this piece, as it's easier to write a piece where no research is required, just trot out the same old "American car companies relied on trucks and SUVs too long" thought. That Japanese/European cars are perceived as being better is partly the Big 3's (Now 2.5) fault (for sins committed long ago) and partially the fault of articles like this. In particular, Toyota and M-B in the last 5 - 10 have had a pretty nasty streak of reliability issues, recalls, etc. This, not supprisingly, doesn't get a whole lot of ink or air time when you can regurgitate the same crap that Pat Bedard wrote in Car and Driver 30 years ago. Of couse, if gas was still $2.50/gallon, the writer of this article would still be doing his (or her) original job at Hallmark.

If you want to keep believing that GM is a relic, don't drive a new Malibu or CTS. They are great cars. I find it interesting that the experts on American cars (and drivers) don't live here. To put an end to this shameless Pro-American rant, I sat beside a woman tonight at dinner who proudly talked about the Smart 4 2 that she just ordered. I asked her what she found attractive about the car and she went on and on about carbon footprint, etc...When I said to her that a Chevy Cobalt gets similar mileage (and doesn't require premium fuel), she looked at me like I was a nut. Ah, perception is reality and the Prius'/Smarts of the world sell and the Civic Hybrid is disco'ed, because the Civic didn't look GREEN enough (just like a Cobalt).

Jimmy

 

Like it or not, the Big 3 have been producing inferior product for quite a while. This does not apply to full size trucks, but the rest of their lines.

Their problem is that their cash cow, the trucks, are taking a beating. And they were already in trouble before gas prices spiked.

 

The big 3 might have more sympathy on a truck or SUV forum...

 

+1

1994 Jeep Grand Cherokee with inline 6 cylinder = almost 190,000 miles. That car is a champion, it hasn't gone through any major breaks or repairs.... Besides the shoddy gas mileage at times.

 

Exactly!!

 

I'm sure a lot of it is personal taste, but I agree with the above comment that $20k Japanese cars seem to have better fit/finish than American cars and I find German cars to be even better. You can get several VWs for less than $20k and they are much nicer than Japanese or American in my opinion.

 

It doesn't matter to me since ill never buy another import again.

 

What does "import" even mean anymore? There are lots of Japanese and German branded cars that are manufactured here in the USA.

 

That will still leave you with several Honda's, BMW's, and I think a Toyota or two... While the parent company is foreign the cars are built right here in the good'ol US of A!

I agree w/ the post above, what is "import" anymore anyway. Heck some of the Fords are more "imported" than Honda Accords!

James
Austin, TX

 

GM laid-off 12,000 workers last week in the USA.... They are hiring people in Mexico
because GM's future- "Cost Cutting" which means...built by Mexican workers in Mexican plants (Or China and then shipped in the future to new Mexican ports).

You want a car built in the USA... try a BMW
This Monday, BMW will announce plans to expand its U.S. assembly plant in Spartanburg, South Carolina. This is more great news for Spartanburg, as BMW has increased production at the plant three times previously, and the facility is already running over capacity. Its stated capacity is 140,000 vehicles per year, but workers there cranked out 154,999 vehicles in 2007. BMW will reportedly expand its facilities in Spartanburg by 70,000 square feet, at a cost estimated at $27 million. This will bring the German automaker's total investment in Spartanburg to $4.83 billion since it opened in 1994. Clearly BMW has been a significant boost to the regional economy.

The German automaker is currently manufacturing the X5 SAV, Z4 Roadster and M Coupes, and the upcoming X6 SAV at the plant. In 2010, it plans to send the Z4 assembly to Germany, but bring all X3 SAV production to the States (some X3 production is currently done under contract assembly by Magna Steyr in Graz, Austria).