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Post by canadian mojo on Mar 27, 2009 20:00:14 GMT -5
We've got an ad playing up here where Ford actually says their quality is as good as Honda and Toyota. You know you're in trouble if that's the best selling point you can think of.
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Post by antichrist on Mar 27, 2009 20:40:01 GMT -5
We've got an ad playing up here where Ford actually says their quality is as good as Honda and Toyota. You know you're in trouble if that's the best selling point you can think of. I love that commercial, they've basically been reduced to begging.
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Post by Mantorok on Mar 27, 2009 21:11:22 GMT -5
GM would like you to see The Cadillac CTS and CTS-V, Chevy Corvette, Corvette ZO6, and Corvette ZR1, Buick Lucerne, and Chevy Malibu, among others. All these cares are at the top of their respective classes and brought GM some long-needed praise from automotive journalists. Apart from the Malibu (which is just an Opel Vectra), the rest are large-engined cars. If you want to sell cars like the Japanese, the first step is to look at what they're doing right. Four cylinder engines with under 2.5L of displacement are pretty much the standard for Japanese cars.
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Post by mistermuncher on Mar 27, 2009 21:11:37 GMT -5
For example, when most people think of SAAB they think of European-styled luxury cars. They don't think about the fact that SAAB produced three fighters planes for the Sweedish military: the Drakken, the Grippen, and the Viggen; the latter is famous for only needing a piece of tarmac the size of an average city street to take off or land from. SAAB thus has experience in regards to designing and manufacturing aircraft, so Ford (et al) could possibly put their heads together to see if expanding into the aircraft market is feasible, even if only unmanned drones or component parts like engines. Yes, but SAAB were making planes for at least as long as they've been making cars (The name itself stands for "Swedish Aeroplane Company" in Swedish), so there's no real comparison. I miss SAAB. They made lovely cars before GM completely fucked them up.
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Post by skyfire on Mar 27, 2009 21:19:45 GMT -5
For example, when most people think of SAAB they think of European-styled luxury cars. They don't think about the fact that SAAB produced three fighters planes for the Sweedish military: the Drakken, the Grippen, and the Viggen; the latter is famous for only needing a piece of tarmac the size of an average city street to take off or land from. SAAB thus has experience in regards to designing and manufacturing aircraft, so Ford (et al) could possibly put their heads together to see if expanding into the aircraft market is feasible, even if only unmanned drones or component parts like engines. Yes, but SAAB were making planes for at least as long as they've been making cars (The name itself stands for "Swedish Aeroplane Company" in Swedish), so there's no real comparison. I miss SAAB. They made lovely cars before GM completely fucked them up. That's the point: Ford could tap that competency to try and move the entire company beyond simply making consumer vehicles.
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Post by mistermuncher on Mar 27, 2009 21:23:18 GMT -5
How could Ford tap it? GM owned SAAB, not Ford, and SAAB are now independent again (Praise the Heavens. they might start making good cars again) in any case. Given that SAAB's aeronautical division has existed as an independent entity since the arse-end of the eighties, it's a moot point in any case.
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Post by dasfuchs on Mar 28, 2009 0:41:05 GMT -5
Unfortunately, yes, American cars are designed to suck fuel and cost too much to fix This was not always so. Ford's Model T went out of production in 1927, yet the last one to leave the road as a licensed, original (non-restored/historic) vehicle did so in 1973! That sucker lasted nearly 35 YEARS. Today cars are designed to fall apart into an undesireable state exactly when the last payment is made, encouraging most people to buy another one as soon as the old one is paid off, thus keeping them eternally in debt to the finance company (one of the largest of which is, **GASP**, General Motors). That and like i mentioned before, the sensativity and bad design of everything means they need to go to a shop. The first time i saw one of those oil change sensors was when the light was on. I was informed nothing was wrong, the driver's husband liked to change the oil on his cars so he knows it was done right, but doesn't have the equipment needed to reset the sensor. I just don't see a point in spending 15k on something that's gonna loose value and be a pain on your wallet till the day you ditch it
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Post by dasfuchs on Mar 28, 2009 0:45:45 GMT -5
My ideas for what Detroit needs to do if they want to survive and thrive in the new reality of things, in no particular order: 1. Tap into existing competencies and experience.Let's look at Honda, shall we? In addition to making cars, trucks, and SUVs, Honda also makes motorcycles, jet engines, lawnmowers, ATVs, generators, robots, and a few other items. Thing is, most of their product line is related by the fact that they have combustion engines; Honda can simply take what they already know and apply it elsewhere. Detroit can apply the same principle to their own brands. For example, when most people think of SAAB they think of European-styled luxury cars. They don't think about the fact that SAAB produced three fighters planes for the Sweedish military: the Drakken, the Grippen, and the Viggen; the latter is famous for only needing a piece of tarmac the size of an average city street to take off or land from. SAAB thus has experience in regards to designing and manufacturing aircraft, so Ford (et al) could possibly put their heads together to see if expanding into the aircraft market is feasible, even if only unmanned drones or component parts like engines. Likewise, Hummer got its start by producing a family of utility vehicles for the military and civil service outfits. What if GM got everyone to put their heads together and shared the collective knowledge with the Hummer staff? Could Hummer move beyond its namesake family of vehicles and go into additional lines of utility and service vehicles? 2. Benchmark off of Japan.An article in the April issue of Fast Company magazine (which appears to have not yet been archived on their website) notes that whereas Nissan has cost-cutting down to a science, Toyota has efficiency down to an art. Detroit could take a lesson from Nissan in how to trim back unneeded expenses (such as slimming the supply chain down) and another from Toyota in how a more efficient factory can reduce costs and increase production output. This would have the effect of making the Big 3 leaner yet more efficient and producing cheaper vehicles. And while we're at it, don't forget the Japanese concept of continuous improvement. Japan's car makers are perpetually looking at ways to either make production more efficient or produce better vehicles. Detroit can go several model years at a time before making any sort of effort to truly improve what they have going. This is a large part of the reason why Japan tends to produce better vehicles than Detroit. 3. Divide (the workload) and ConquerOne problem with Ford and GM is that they've got a whole family of manufacturers underneath them yet their design teams are often stepping on each others' toes. How many different SUVs does the market really need? How many coupes? How many compacts? Detroit's at the point that it's starting to compete with itself for $$$ owing to how many brands and models are out there. Instead, what they could do is give the design staff for each badge a specific area to focus on when it comes to design, shuffling staffers as needed. This way, the staff can focus specifically on a handful of vehicles of a certain type, function, or class; said vehicles can be re-badged as needed. For example, let's look at GM. The Hummer team can focus on Humvees, Hummers, and possibly other utility vehicles. GM's team can focus on trucks, vans, and SUVs. Chevy's team can have the sports coupes and the alternative fuel vehicles. Saturn can take the family market. Opel can have the compacts and subcompacts. If needs be, re-badging or even importation can take place as needed. Catch my drift? 4. Play "surgeon."Whenever a surgeon is confronted with diseased tissue, a tumor, or certain minor organs (such as the appendix) in bad shape, what do they do? They cut it away so that the whole body can survive. Much like a surgeon, Detroit needs to take a good, hard look at what expenses not immediately related to car production they can cut away for the sake of the whole. Union contracts need to be re-negotiated with an eye to compromising while reducing expenses. Management salaries need to be re-calculated, including penalties for poor performance alongside bonuses for good performance (for example, for each quarter the company fails to make its target in one year, that's how much of the next year's pay and / or benefits the CEO can expect to forfeit unless they can prove external difficulties beyond their control). Solar panels and other "green" products can be introduced, helping to trim the monthly bills. And, in general, a belt tightening needs to commence. Part of any company is the money it wants to spend. The abillity to make cars people want is there, they don't want to spend their money to retool their shops to do it though. another point is the after sales points, if they make cars that last as long as possible, they won't sell more so long as no one needs one. The big three basically paid all their head ceos their nice large amounts of cash to kill the comany and sat on their hands to wait for things to shift while they tried to convince the US that what they made was what everyone wanted. when the bailout ideas popped up, the big three were the first to hold their hands out and say 'Gimme'
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Post by dasfuchs on Mar 28, 2009 0:47:44 GMT -5
If American car companies want me to be more patriotic they should make attractive cars that are safe and don't break down. Until then, STFU. GM would like you to see The Cadillac CTS and CTS-V, Chevy Corvette, Corvette ZO6, and Corvette ZR1, Buick Lucerne, and Chevy Malibu, among others. All these cares are at the top of their respective classes and brought GM some long-needed praise from automotive journalists. And all but one cost well above what any of them is worth. That one that doesn't just skimps by at overpriced, but not badly. I'll let you guess which one
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Post by antichrist on Mar 28, 2009 1:14:57 GMT -5
Well Volvo (owned by Ford) built the car "just for women" brand.blogs.com/mantra/2003/12/volvo_car_for_w.html- there's no hood on the car, because women never lift the hood anyway - it wirelessly sends messages to the local service center who then calls the woman, because obviously a woman just cant keep a maintenance schedule in her pretty little head - the car has no gas cap (guess that's beyond us too, how do we survive) - lots of room for shopping though, a girls got to have their priorities - the car parallel parks itself Who the fuck thought that women wouldn't be insulted by such a thing? I'll stick with my Nissan (bought that when my Taurus blew up). At least they don't treat me like an idiot.
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Post by JonathanE on Mar 28, 2009 6:33:59 GMT -5
The whole "buy American" thing is ridiculous. It assumes that one can even find consumer goods that are made in America. Virtually every product in WalMart, for example, is made in China. The irony is that the tax policies of the super-patriot GOP made this inevitable. Taxpayers actually subsidized the movement of high paying manufacturing jobs offshore, thanks to this. My '93 Honda Civic, built in Alliston, Ontario, still runs, cost just over 10k new, gets 40-42 MPG highway and 30+MPG city, has cost approximately $3500.00 in repairs (not maintenance) in the 16 years I have owned it, and still looks like a new car, although, it was "cleaned up" and repainted 5 years ago. It surpasses current emissions rules by a factor of 10+, and has 200+ kilometres on the original engine. I admit that I am very anal about regular repair and maintenance, though, which will extend the life of any car. I also own a 2005 Tracker, also built in Ontario, and have, apart from buying tires and replacing front brake pads, spent nothing on repairs since I bought it. The wonder of it all? I was offered $3500.00 for my Honda just recently, a 16 year old car that cost just a little more than 10K when I bought it.
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Post by the sandman on Mar 28, 2009 10:10:23 GMT -5
The bottom line is that Detroit will never turn things around until they pull their heads out of their collective asses and start giving the public what they want instead of telling the public what they want.
We don't want giant, gaz-guzzling, penis-replacing monster vehicles anymore. No giant Suburbans, no Hummers, no Chevy trucks rated to haul three tons of cargo yet marketed to commuters. (Frankly the "light truck" classification has always been a scam to market vehicles to commuters that bypass all Federal emissions and fuel economy standards.) All of that has to go. We want smaller, efficient, affordable, gas-hording cars that are not intentionally designed to look like a Saltine's box. (Yes, lower cost vehicles ARE, in fact, deliberately designed to be less aestheticaly appealing than the expensive ones...despite the fact that the body for a Corvette costs about the same as the body for a Civic. That's done to encourage you to spend more to get the "sexy" looking car.) (And yes, I know that the whole Corvette/Civic thing is not really a valid comparison; I am exagerating for emphasis.)
There is no need for a hybrid vehicle to cost 10 grand more than a comparable gas powered one. It is criminal to try to convince us that we should drop the extra cash because the "long term fuel savings will offset the initial cost increase." That's always been a bullshit way to actually discourage the use of hybrid vehicles. It's so bad that the US government will actually offer you a tax incentive to buy one of these things because even they have finally figured out we need to be encouraging fuel economy rather than screwing it over at every turn. (And God forbid that big business should help cut into their future fuel profits by producing an affordable hybrid...the US government (translation: the US taxpayers) should foot that bill, right?)
We want hybrids and electric vehicles and natural gas vehicles and bio-diesel vehicles. We want 4 cylinder engines that are not deliberately designed to feel sluggish and underpowered. We want vehicles that transmit more than 11% of the potential energy in the fuel to actual movement.
Until Detroit gives us what we want and need, they will stay eternally fucked.
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Post by schizophonic on Mar 28, 2009 10:46:45 GMT -5
I've come to the conclusion only rich people and stupid people buy patriotic. I'd think buying anything in a US economy would be considered patriotic since it's supporting that system. I'm not even sure rich people buy American. They're the ones who can best afford to, though. They can be picky. And I've noticed the people who want to buy American in the "stupid" category, have no creaking clue what American really is. The irony of this is that the same people that are making the assertion that it is unpatriotic and "anti-American" to buy a foreign car are the same people that claim to be diehard capitalists. Makes you wonder if they even know what "capitalism" and the accompanying "free markets" and "competition" even are. According to the very philosophy they hold dear, the only real reason to buy an American car is if the American car is superior to the foreign one. Which demonstrates why nobody should buy into this shit. Well Volvo (owned by Ford) built the car "just for women" brand.blogs.com/mantra/2003/12/volvo_car_for_w.html- there's no hood on the car, because women never lift the hood anyway - it wirelessly sends messages to the local service center who then calls the woman, because obviously a woman just cant keep a maintenance schedule in her pretty little head - the car has no gas cap (guess that's beyond us too, how do we survive) - lots of room for shopping though, a girls got to have their priorities - the car parallel parks itself Who the fuck thought that women wouldn't be insulted by such a thing? I'll stick with my Nissan (bought that when my Taurus blew up). At least they don't treat me like an idiot. Wait, what? That was serious?
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Post by skyfire on Mar 28, 2009 14:52:22 GMT -5
Wait, what? That was serious? Agreed; I'm thinking that someone picked up a satire piece and accidentally passed it on as the real thing.
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Post by dasfuchs on Mar 28, 2009 14:58:24 GMT -5
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