Auto sales for 2008 are running along at an annualized rate of 12.5m vehicles, the lowest it has been for 20 years. Meanwhile, McCain is proposing new penalties for makers of gas guzzlers - the bread and butter of domestic automakers that are perhaps a year away from bankruptcy filings.
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In a speech being delivered Monday at Fresno State University in California, McCain is also proposing stiffer fines for automakers who skirt existing fuel-efficiency standards and incentives to increase use of domestic and foreign ethanol.
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Ford Focus has better MPG than Honda Civic and does as good as Toyota Corolla even though it has larger engine.

 

It's not Americans can't do that. Quality is another story.

I think the US auto industry is suffering from something more fundamental. They are just not making a product anyone wants. I can not remember the the last time I heard someone say "Hey, Ford has come out with a fine looking sedan. Can't wait to test drive one?"

 

People want a dependable vehicle but they also want something "stylish". Ford and GM decided not to adapt to changing trends and they will and are paying the price for it. What US automakers need to do is come out with a low cost and fuel efficient SUV or make a trendy fuel efficient car that people won't lose their pride if seen behind the wheel in it. Or they can keep churning out more Aleros and go bankrupt.

From what I understand the US car industry was doing pretty well at committing suicide without the help of McCain.

 

When every American I've met says the US makes crap cars, then that should mean something.

 

 

 

This all goes back to Unions and the detriment they are to our nation. Paying some schmoe $35 an hour to push a button or some other easy factory work is just insane especially when those are the wages construction workers earn doing hard and dangerous labor.

 

The real bread and butter of the auto industry arent big cars though , its their trucks. Truck sales account for more then half of all auto sales in the states. High gas prices and decent competition from foreign makes such as Toyota and Nissan are putting a hurt on what has been subsidizing the bottom line for the big 3. The newest models for all of them are actually heads and tales better then what they offered in the past. but it might be too little too late. not to mention Toyota and Honda seam to have more lobbying power in Washington then GM these days.

Build cars people want to buy.  It's that simple.

 

Instead they built trucks, SUV's, and crossover's that people wanted to buy and lost market share on cars.  Then one day gas prices go up enough that people want cars again.

 

GM is betting the farm on the Volt.  If it works they'll be ahead of everyone else with a plug in hybrid.  If it looks half as good as the concept and is reliable they'll start regaining market share. 

 

It's really quite simple- build cars people want to buy.

 

Given the current sales figures for large trucks and SUV's I'm not sure there's a lot of point in penalizing them.  Then again given the GWOT I've got no problems with a gas guzzler tax and/or incentives to buy high fuel efficient cars.

 

In case nobody noticed the fastest production cars built today are all electric.  Electric cars can be very fast.  If the GM Volt turns out to be peppy as well as not needing gas the first 40 miles then they won't be able to build enough for 10 years.

 

I'll agree with you.

I myself am kind of interested if any takers follow suit on the McCain proposal of $300M for that revolutionary battery power source for vehicles.

 

Seems that,

pending Congressional approval,

the FCS family of manned vehicles will feature the first production-run hybrid drive AFVs in history (full production run, not prototypes),

and the Stryker fleet undergoing reset will be  receiving some kind of flash capacitor starter system that allows vehicles to start even when the battery packs are near zero (tech which can, and most likely will be, retrofitted into the US military's surface vehicle fleets over the next couple decades, with new-build vehicles certainly starting to incorporate more hybrid tech and flash capacitance devives for electrical energy boosts)....

 

...So my question is,

with this obvious new oil crisis (1970s all over again),

I wonder how long before Detroit gets off its unimaginative ass and starts implementing such tech into everyday civilian vehicles...?

 

In a globally-competitve market, they gotta evolve or die: meet the customer with what they want (affordable economically friendly vehicles) or sink when your competitors do.

 

Should I feel sorry for the line auto workers when Detroit is all but half shut down?

Most likely, I'll be pointing the blame where it belongs: on the pathetic leadership and their marketing reps who didn't realize that's what people wanted, and dictate to the designers to create more wallet-friendly autos.

Who really wants a muscle car or truck if you end up having to fork out more than a day's wages just to fill the tank once?

Ditto for RV owners: those big motor homes are the perfect candidates to start incorporating hybrid drives, improved energy density battery banks, regenerative braking, even fuel cells for electricity generation for your appliances, etc...if school buses are starting to be built with it, why not campers and even tractor-trailers?

 

Have to learn to foresee coming (anticipated) trends to survive against your competitors,

not just stand idly by watching at the edge until someone else takes the plunge first.

Any market share you lost because you sat idly by whilst your competitors advanced is your own damn fault.

 

Wouldn't it be funny if Detroit got beat to the $300M battery pack punch by a foreign automaker?

 

What no one seems to say is where all the additional electricity to power these new cars is going to come from and what is it going to cost per mile driven.

EXACTLY!!!!!!!!

 

Everyone is touting electric electric, but where do they think that extra electricity is going to come from? Most of the oil we use in the US is NOT for our cars is for producing energy and industry. So shifting the fuel source from one form of oil to another is hardly fixing the problem.  And forget solar, wind hydro ect... that only works in small doses. The Best why to go would be nuclear but thats now taboo isnt it?

 

Lets also mention how are city folks going to plug in there electric or hybrid cars? And how reliable are these new hybrid and plug in hybrids and electric cars exactly? How expensive are they to fix and will I now be a slave to the $85-150 an hour autoshop with the insane parts mark up. How can i fix most problems myself like i can now with a regular car.

Actually the vast majority of new power generation in the US is wind.  T Boone Pickens (oil baron) is building a 4,000 megawatt wind farm in Texas.  Electricity in the US is mostly based on burning coal of which we have the worlds largest reserves.  We generate around 20-25% of our electricity from nuclear power plants- in France it's 80%.  Between new wind farms, nuclear plants, coal plants, and any other thing you care to mention the US will have far less of an issue producing more electricity than it will dealing with $5 to 10+ a gallon gas.

 

There are also homes in some parts of the country with these things called solar panels.  They make a bit more sense with gas at $4 than say a few years ago at $1.50.

 

Electric cars will be more reliable, far less stress and moving parts, than ICE.  I tip my hat that you can work on "modern" cars as I stopped bothering with computer controlled EFI, actually I probably just stopped at EFI.  Things like brakes will be the same so you'll have something to do and there is that little 1.0 liter 3 cyl back up engine you can screw with if you want.  Electric cars are more reliable, pollute less, make no sound, and can be very fast.  Check out utube and watch 500+hp exotic sports cars getting blown away.  Tesla motors is actually the slowest of the new electric sports cars.  Iirc they go 0 to 60 in 4 sec while there's another one that does it in 2.7.  Electric cars have no delay to build up engine torque- when you floor the pedal you get everything there is with no delay.  Once you go black you'll never go back.

 

Source:

"http://www.cnwmr.com/nss-folder/automotiveenergy/"