Plus there is the warrenty issue. Hyundais and Kias was a 10 year warrenty. American cars are warrenteed for 3 years.
I’l agree that they certainly did not prepare for the future adequately. But I find it hard to believe that all the extra revenue from the very profitable light truck era went into executive bonuses.
Does anybody have a cite showing how much money went into executive bonuses over the last 15-20 years? Sure those guys get ungodly huge money, but I can’t imagine all the billions of dollars of profit disappeared into the bosses pockets. Wouldn’t they all be billionaires now?
There’s a big sea-change in the way we tackle energy coming. I would think we’d want to leverage the infrastructure that these companies have in place in order to make a smooth and swift transition. Ordinarily I wouldn’t even consider it - I generally dislike cars from the big-3. While the drive-trains are usually pretty darn solid, the finish and refinement of the interiors in most still sucks cost-for-cost with comparable Japanese counterparts. My experience with most of their vehicles would usually lend me to say ‘let them rot’, but I think things are way more complicated right now than to allow for simple emotional, visceral reactions.
To those who blame labor - they’ve already made some big concessions - chief of which are:
-A pay freeze through the life of their new 4 yr contract
-Offloading of the retirement health care costs to the Union
-An entirely new, lower-paying salary structure for new incoming employees that’ll become the norm when it makes up 20% of the workforce
The average wage of a UAW worker in 2007 was $28/hr. That isn’t much of a premium over their counterparts in non-union plants. The labor issue is basically solved - it just needs a few years to realize the benefits of the new contracts.
We need these companies over the next 20-30 years. They need to be a partner in the huge energy transition that’s coming. They have a huge supply infrastructure and a pool of skilled assembly workers already in place. It would be stupid not to leverage that at a time that could (hopefully - will) see a huge transportation evolution.
It isn’t just the UAW union wage-it is all the crap that goes with the union:
-you must have union stewards
-you must ahve 150-odd job titles and descriptions (and elaborate rules for who can fill in for whom, and when and where, etc.)
That is really what is killing GM.
In contrast, if you work for HONDA, you are cross-trained, so that you can fill a variety of jobs. You are better for it, the company is better, and you don’t have some idot shop steward telling you what to do.
Do you have a cite on what ‘union crap’ costs the automakers?
Not the way you are comparing them.
Kias and Hyundais basic warranty is 5 years 60,000 miles
Toyota, Honda, Ford, GM & Chrysler basic warranty is 3 years 36,000 miles
Kias and Hyundais powertrain warranty is 10 years 100,000 miles
Toyota, Honda, Ford & Chrysler’s powertrain warranty is 5 years 60,000 miles
GM’s powertrain warranty is 5 years 100,000 miles
Unions have given back a bunch. The old union bitching is out dated.
Our economy sucks and is getting worse. Layoffs are at a fast and furious pace. I do not think it would be wise to let the auto companies and suppliers go under. It would crush a lot of companies,bars,stores and restaurants. It would ripple through the market at a very bad time.
There are a shit load of execs at GM. It is not just the top man sitting in front of congress.
US auto executives grant themselves millions in bonuses - World Socialist Web Site This will give you an idea. This is when they were losing money.
http://www.monstersandcritics.com/news/business/news/article_1277294.php They were making money way,way back in 2006. Now they are broke.
They had some quarterly profits in 2007, but ended the year with a (relatively) small loss of 23 million. (not billion) Partly due to the UAW strike during contract negotiations. The results of which lead to the landmark agreement to essentially eliminate the labor gap between them and the foreign automakers. The benefits of which will kick in in 2010. If they can make it that far.
My request for a cite was for this statement
Which your link obviously disputes.
Actually, the early Rabbit was a junker no matter where it was from. The $400 “self-destruct before the 12th payment” carburetor and the “rusted-through before the 24th payment” bodywork were there from 1975-'78. The US plant came on line in mid-'78 model year.
The engineering mods of which you write were probably bumper-standard and
emissions-standard related, but VW had 3 years to work the kinks out of those before the first US car rolled off the line and didn’t.
They retooled and spent a lot of money remaking themselves into a smaller GM. They mothballed plants,cut workers with buyouts and laid off a bunch of others. That is an expensive process. They spent a ton developing the Volt and other smaller cars with better mileage. They did not spend it in bars.
They may have given the bosses small bonuses too.
General Motors to Invest $1 Billion in Brazil Operations – Money to Come from U.S. Rescue Program
Now watch massive layoffs next year as soon as the bailouts are in place.
The auto makers and the suppliers have been going off shore for a long time. We love to give them tax money to do it. We are stupid.
Yes, we are.
Citi group is going in for a huge bailout Monday. I am sure we all want them to submit a business plan first. Then we should grill their CEOs like the auto companies.
I love the blue collar bigotry we have in America.
How about we treat everyone equally, none of you get a dime from the treasury. Would that make you happy? Detroit’s problems are largely self-inflicted, and that includes labor and management. I’m not bigoted against blue-collar workers, but I have a limited tolerance for idiots, no matter what their class.
Citi group goes for a huge deal tomorrow. Will that make you happy? The financial companies are perfect examples of self inflicted wounds. They began when they fought to get barriers removed from banks acting as financial investors and the removal of safe margins. It wasn’t an event that doomed them. It was a series of deliberate moves to eliminate regulation and to take risks for short term rewards. Yet we have given them all they want. They hurt the auto companies and nearly every business in America.