... I have to admit I would have liked to see these two cars come to fruition and I really hated to see the Lightning go away.
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Yeah, the Lightning and the SVT division will be missed, but I haven't given up on the hopes of their revival. My hope is it is just another cycle.
Cuz they were stupid enough to trust the government. Ford was smart enough not to.
It wasn't that Ford trusted or distrusted the government. From all that I have read, itt was just a simple case of timing. Ford managed to secure their financing before the credit crunch prevented GM/Chrysler from taking similar action. I don't know that it was necessarily foresight on Ford's part.
The quality of both manufacturers are very good. It's not quality that drove them down. It's legacy costs, unions (opening a can of worms) and government intervention, and mandates.
The US auto industry has just gone in the same direction as the steel industry. Forced out by high costs and forgien competition without the overhead and taxation. As well as some bad decisions.
IMHO Obama forcing out the ceo of GM a few months ago was the biggest case of industrial sabotage ever perpetrated.
I agree that (again based on what I've read), Ford and GM have improved significantly their levels of quaility. And that legacy costs vs. payroll costs are an albatross around the neck of U.S. auto manufacturers.
The U.S. steel industry provided their own undoing. Greed by management and stock holders kept the industry from reinvestment of profits, improving their infrastructure. In the end you could purchase a better quality product for less money (Belgium steel not cheap Chinese cr@p), including the transportation costs was what cost us (America). ***That opinion is based on second hand/third hand knowledge. ***
The GM ceo thing is not exactly cut and dried for me. On the one hand it is an unusual step in our culture. We, as taxpayers, are now "shareholders" in GM and Chrysler based on our considerable investment. Shareholders can exercise their right to call company leadership to account. And, will GM be better off with new leadership?
The primary reasons are the antagonist relationship between management and labor and the associated higher labor costs coupled with many bad decisions. The government is not the root cause.
That is an ageless battle.
Not the root cause - agreed. But I see amazing culpability in the chapter 11 filing. I'm sure that management thought that the govenrment would help out in their troubles, only to get screwed in the end.
Ford took another tack. They chose to leverage their assets and go it alone. I'm sure that if they had asked for govt help, it would have ended the same way.
I still see the government forcing Ford down the tubes. The last enviornmental move on the governments side in the past would have had the manufactureres up in arms. Instead, they had the ceo's there smiling and applauding. So all it really takes is a few more mandates from the fed and Ford too will be sitting there with their hand open.
Chrysler will go down in a few short years, GM will probably follow.
What this really did was weaken our stance both economically and defense wise.
I don't know that it is the "government's" intention to "force anyone down the tubes". In the case of the auto manufacturing industry, it would not appear to be in our best interests. As far as the EPA's gas mileage/emmission mandates, those would seem to benefit the country. If the goals are unreasonable then the engineers would surely come forward to explain why they are unattainable.
My hope is that the industry emerges as leaner entities shed of the unnecessary duplication of models across different "badges". Spending their resources building their best quality, best selling vehicles.
