american empire

[leo9]

Buying Toyota does not mean buying a car made overseas - just that you're buying one not grown in a cocoon of UAW red tape.

And there I always imagined that the Big Three's failure to design cars for any time later than 1980 (even when it meant creating a brand new class of vehicle to get round fuel efficiency laws) was down to management. I had no idea the unions were so powerful.

[js207]

And there I always imagined that the Big Three's failure to design cars for any time later than 1980 (even when it meant creating a brand new class of vehicle to get round fuel efficiency laws) was down to management. I had no idea the unions were so powerful.

If you mean SUVs, that "creating a brand new class of vehicle" was one of their few successes, actually making an effort to build cars they could still sell for a profit, even with the inflated per-unit costs imposed in part by the UAW. Building the smaller, cheaper, more fuel-efficient cars you might prefer them to build was economically a non-starter - but the higher margins on SUVs made them viable, indeed the lifeline which kept the Big Three going until very recently. For that matter, you'll find the foreign manufacturers make them too - not because they're in on the evil conspiracy to use mind-control rays to make people endure those big luxury vehicles they don't really want, but because they were what people did want.

As for powerful - yes, of course the UAW have a chokehold on the Big Three. How many non-union plants do they have in the US? Do you have any idea just how much it controls them, down to being able to block plant closures, shift changes and personnel decisions? It's a miracle they've survived this long.

[leo9]

Building the smaller, cheaper, more fuel-efficient cars you might prefer them to build was economically a non-starter

So why did people keep buying them, in the face of everything the advertisers could do to convince them that it was still 1950 and mileage didn't matter?

but the higher margins on SUVs made them viable, indeed the lifeline which kept the Big Three going until very recently.

Those higher margins were only there because, by pretending they were pickup trucks, SUVs could dodge the mandatory fuel efficiency rules. The only reason the class was created was so they could go on sticking big low-comression engines into them.

For that matter, you'll find the foreign manufacturers make them too - not because they're in on the evil conspiracy to use mind-control rays to make people endure those big luxury vehicles they don't really want, but because they were what people did want.

So if nobody really wanted those little fuel-efficient cars, why are the companies that made them surviving, while the companies that didn't, are waiting with their tin bowls in the Government free money line? Is the AUW some kind of eco-terrorist front that only targeted SUV makers?

[js207]

So why did people keep buying them, in the face of everything the advertisers could do to convince them that it was still 1950 and mileage didn't matter?

I'm not saying there was no market for the econoboxes - just that the Big Three couldn't make them profitably because of their higher overheads. People kept buying SUVs, too, until fuel prices went silly.

Those higher margins were only there because, by pretending they were pickup trucks, SUVs could dodge the mandatory fuel efficiency rules. The only reason the class was created was so they could go on sticking big low-comression engines into them.

No, the margins have nothing to do with fuel efficiency rules - they're about how much customers are prepared to pay, versus the costs involved. (Yes, a different tax regime could have either squeezed margins and/or pushed prices higher, but that's really not relevant here.) It's more a case of the class having been created to keep delivering the big cars the market wanted at the time without being gouged by the silly fuel consumption taxes which were imposed on equally powerful non-SUV cars.

So if nobody really wanted those little fuel-efficient cars, why are the companies that made them surviving, while the companies that didn't, are waiting with their tin bowls in the Government free money line? Is the AUW some kind of eco-terrorist front that only targeted SUV makers?

The Government and exploding fuel prices finally managed to kill off the Big Three's main cash cow - and the UAW targeted American car makers, forcing their costs up making smaller cars uneconomical for them to make. Now, the small car manufacturers are still making them and making a profit - the companies which couldn't make them profitably before still can't, but no longer have the alternative market segment open to them either.

[Matin]

nice tangent y'all

any thoughts on how losing this huge industry to foreign companies can affect america's economic stability?

[js207]

nice tangent y'all

any thoughts on how losing this huge industry to foreign companies can affect america's economic stability?

Very little, I imagine: the Toyota may be "foreign", but still builds cars in America employing American workers just like Ford and GM, only without the UAW ball and chain - and presumably Toyota will have some American shareholders while Ford has Japanese ones, so not much change there either.