Can the US Auto Industry Survive?

[Samurai Waki]

Well, I certainly don't think the US Auto Industry is quite on the brink of collapse yet, hence the major cutbacks in employment and so forth. Being a business minded individual, one might hazard to guess that the reason behind the cutbacks and the government loans is to change wind and rebuild itself entirely. If the consumer market shifts directions, like it has with the gas price ordeal, the US Auto Makers no longer needs the employment for departments it once needed before. What the US automakers greatest fault was, is that they didn't recognize the change of wind like Honda, Toyota, et al. did back in the seventies with the oil embargo. Without the foresight to change (and to some degree they didn't want to take the hit in prestige) They continued like they always had. Now they're playing catch up with auto industries that had since the seventies worried about high gas prices, and so to the reliability issues. BUT! the American Consumer didn't have to worry about higher gas prices until recently (the last six years), so it wasn't the US Industry that was entirely at fault, it was the American Economy hiding behind a facade that it couldn't maintain, and Big Three didn't have access to that kind of information, or if it did, kept rather quiet about it hoping it was just a phase. Now, if they did know, then they gambled wrong, but it isn't the knockout punch. The US auto industry STILL has a much higher Consumerist Market on it's home turf than it's foreign adversaries and to some degree this could be fanned from fifty years of Consumerist Loyalty. The US Automakers are silently rebuilding, researching, and so forth, they are biding their time, but the clock is certainly ticking and they know this. They want to get to be able to build a satisfactory competition to their Japanese counterparts, and this could take time, the Japanese, and Germans have thirty years of experience in this field, and its unlikely that the American auto industry will be able to trump this. So they are building a uniquely American Car, with some of the Dependability Clout the Japanese and Germans have, and I suspect by 2009 they will deliver a Car that has the Typical American Muscle(though not as much as it had before), with the Low Gas Mileage and Dependability to match a Foreign Automaker. This could be a make or break situation we're now predicting, but I'm going to say that at least one American Auto Maker is going to pull through it all, and stand tall atop the pedestal. And if I could choose between any one of them, I would say GM has the money and necessary drive to do it.

But this is just the predictions of a Humble Economics Student.

[spmetla]

All I can say is.... Alfa Romeo

(btw, we need a love-smiley!)

Although it's not the '67 Mustang GT I once wanted I am currently rebuilding a '76 MGB tourer. Though the cheapest of sports cars even when it was new it has a look (beside the rubber bumper) that I like and I feel I can get some help to tweak a bit more power than it has now.