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| Automotive Foibles |
| 02.15.07 (3:50 pm) [edit] |
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The big news here in Canada, and especially in Ontario, is the lay-offs happening in the automotive industry. Daimler-Chrysler is laying off 2000 people in Canada, along with thousands of more from Ford and GM.
The reason for this is not rocket science: The "big three" build crappy cars that have to be discounted so heavily to move that they make no profits. Shit, they make losses so big I can't count the zeros. The America makers just can't get their shit together, having had 20+ years to do so. That is what happens when you take your customers for granted.
The really ironic thing is that there have never been more cars produced in Canada; but they are produced by Honda and Toyota, who then export them in drives to the USA under NAFTA. CAW's Buzz Hargrove may whine and want import quotas but Honda and Toyota continue to expand in Canada but in non-union plants. Try as they might, the CAW has not been successful in organising those plants.
In my opinion, this is what should happen: Daimler should shitcan Chrysler all together and sell MB products at the Chrysler stores. Forget the cachet crap, move metal. Ford and GM should merge and axe any design 1) more than 10 years old and 2) doesn't make money.
The real salvation of the US makers lies in actually doing something different: making real, new technology available to customers waiting to buy them. Build an electric car that can go 100 km at 100 km/h and customers would beat a path to the showroom. I know I would.
Will we see this day? I doubt it. GM's Global Product Development CEO, Bob Lutz, is 75 years old He's stuck in SUVs and Tail Fins. The corporate structure of that place is so moribund that all they can design is cars people Lutz's age want to drive.
So, in the long term, they are fucked. And I am glad of it. Any organisation that treated its customers like shit for so long deserves a slow and painful death.
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