Auto Industry Archive

With so much negative attention focused on the Detroit Big Three, it’s easy to overlook the fact that today’s U.S. market is more like the Big Six. While their parent companies are in much better shape globally, the leading foreign brands in the United States, Honda, Nissan and Toyota,  are quietly having about as much trouble moving the metal lately as Chrysler, Ford and GM....

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There’s not much debate – at least, there shouldn’t be – that providing GM and Chrysler with $14 billion in bridge loans to tide them over is a better alternative than letting them go bankrupt Dec. 31, said an economist who testified before the Senate Banking Committee earlier this month. The Senate shot down the proposed auto industry bailout, along with a “car...

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The Federal Highway Administration reports that in the last 12 months, miles driven in the United States fell by 100 billion miles, a record 12-month decline. That was for the 12 months ending in October. In October, gas prices fell below $3 and kept falling, so next month’s “miles-driven” report will be one to watch, to see whether there’s any uptick in driving, as a...

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GM made drastic cuts to its production plan for the first quarter of 2009, a chilling reminder of the ongoing drop in U.S. auto sales. Production plans are the truest expression of a car company’s near-term outlook. As such, GM’s cuts add even more urgency to the ongoing bailout discussions in Washington. GM said factories representing about 30 percent of its North American volume...

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Maybe it’s because I live in the “blue” state of New Jersey, but the unscientific impression I get from what I’m reading locally and online, is there’s more public sentiment in favor of the U.S. auto industry bailout as a synonym for saving jobs and avoiding a depression, than there is in favor of letting the car companies go broke. Both sides of that argument cite...

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President Bush signaled today he may throw GM and Chrysler a lifeline after all, following the defeat in the U.S. Senate of a proposed auto bailout bill. The House on Dec. 10 approved $14 billion in emergency loans to GM and Chrysler, based on a compromise worked out between the House of Representatives and the White House. Republican senators balked at the bailout on Dec. 11. It only took a...

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It looks like rescuing the U.S. auto industry – or not – will be up the incoming Obama Administration, as the U.S. Senate stopped the proposed industry bailout in its tracks. GM and Chrysler have little choice but to “run on fumes” until a new Congress is installed Jan. 5, and try again, said Brian Johnson, auto industry analyst for Barclays Capital. President-elect Obama takes...

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An analyst for research and consulting firm CSM Worldwide made a point I made in this space recently, which was that Chrysler is the smallest and weakest of the Detroit Big Three, with the cloudiest future. So far, that rather obvious fact seems to have escaped Congress in the political debate over the proposed U.S. auto industry bailout, but it’s starting to crop up. Analyst Michael...

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The real fight over the proposed auto industry bailout can begin, now that the U.S. House of Representatives as expected passed its version of a bailout bill last night, Dec. 10, by a vote of 237 to 170. The results are already ugly from the industry’s point of view – even before hostile Republican senators get their licks in. But as the automakers will be reminded repeatedly over...

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Bottom line, goes the argument, American-made cars can’t match the quality, performance, and reliability of Japanese or Euro imports. Why should American taxpayers subsidize such failure? Baloney, retorts Harvard Business School professor Daniel Snow, an expert on innovation and one-time employee for a U.S.  car manufacturer. He argues that Detroit, which has learned its lessons from a...

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