I'll rant on this if you don't mind...

I was on this topic last week, particularly with GM and it's racing operations. But from a larger perspective, this whole decline is maddening because it didn't take a rocket scientist to see it coming. There we were, in the shadow of 911, going into a war in Iraq and no one even considered changing how we drive, what we drive, what we consume... nothing. Like some sort of detatched reality, consumers kept craving bigger and bigger vehicles, oftentimes excessively large, and Detroit just kept on delivering and did nothing to prepare for the eventual, predictable change in the global economy. So darn shortsighted. So while American auto manufacturers were busy trying to figure out how to squeeze another DVD display into a headrest, those dreaded foreign automakers were tooling up and rolling out proven hybrids and more fuel efficient crossovers.

Just because they are "American" automakers doesn't give them a free pass. It's even worse because they are the linchpin that ties us to our energy dependancies. America is supposed to be the land of innovation, the emblem of hard work and industrious spirit. I have to wonder if these American automakers embody these virtues anymore. It is a quarter by quarter, production run by production run quest for profit. But what was needed, what IS needed, is vision, courage and a vehicle that carries 4 and gets 70 MPG for under $25K.

Ambitious? Yup. But they could have been working us in that direction for the past decade instead of shoving Hummers down our throat.

As for racing, I expet that there will be come decline. Part of NASCAR's beauty is that it is a great value for the big 3, so I don't expect them to leave or anything. Other forms may suffer long before NASCAR does...

X:)

June 2008 sales compared to June 2007:

Honda +11.4%
GM -18.5%
Toyota -21.4%
Ford -28%
Chrysler -36%

What is driving this, as you would expect, is the decline in sales of trucks and SUVs. For Ford, the Focus is +53%, but the F-150 (their bread and butter) is -40% and Explore is basically -50%. Not even Toyota is immune to the decline in trucks and large SUVs.

Here is an article that discusses the declines...http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080701/ap_on_bi_ge/auto_sales

surprisingly GM did beat Toyota in overall sales and didn't decline as much year over year. And I have to agree with Racer X...NASCAR is probably the Big Three's most effective marketing tool...I think my point is that if the Big Three keep getting smoked (and not just by other automakers but also by the economy as a whole) when do they start pulling back on everything, including advertising?

I think one of the biggest problems is the speed with which plus-$4 gas has found us...it wasn't long ago that we were still in the low and mid-$3s, right? I for one am almost glad because I think it takes $5 and $6 gas for us as Americans to actually take action to get into some other, cleaner and less mid-east dependent forms of energy.

The American auto makers seem to believe that Americans will only buy cheap small cars which has been mostly true but this will change. I see the American market moving more toward the Euro market where small cars are actually very nice and do have healthy profit margins. I was in Turkey a couple years ago and a friend of mine was excited to get her new Focus, over there it's a very nice car. The sheet metal on the outside looked just like the American version but on the inside it was clearly a higher quality machine.

So my point is Detroit needs to move the American market off of high profit margin SUVs/Trucks and onto higher end small cars that get better mileage. I'd add that the current Focus is actually a big improvement over years past. I was looking at them and could get a loaded model at employee pricing for under 13k, and it felt just as nice as a Civic, crazy.

I made a comment on another blog with regards to my BIL who manages at a pieces and parts factory for all the auto makers and how they were shutting down every thing in their plant for 2 months with the exception of the Civic line.

Depending on the area you live in and the kind of traffic you deal with on a daily basis, most of these tiny cars scare the LIVING CRAP out of me. I drive a Taurus and whenever I get in my boyfriends Escort I feel terrified. I have been in more car accidents (none my fault) than I care to remember and there are still WAY too many SUVs, and Hummers and stuff out there for me to feel safe on the road in a Civic or smaller. I don't care how many airbags you have or so called safety ratings etc. Civic's don't win against Hummer's in an accident on a freeway at 70 mph. This is one instance when size DOES matter. People in Michigan drive like jack assess and don't care and we have very heavy rush hours in SE Michigan. Another problem in Detroit here, is we were built on the automobile and there is basically no infrastructure for efficient mass transportation like trains or subways so without a car you are S.O.L. Most of the bus systems are in bankruptcy or half shut down as well. Yesterday we drove by a pizza place and one of the delivery drivers was actually driving a Hummer. That seems like a smart move to me. And can we blame all of this lack of foresight on the automotive companies? What about all the people that are actually still buying and driving some of these things? Even as gas rose to $2 and $3 a gallon they were still lining up to buy them. Another interesting fact. Did you know that a good majority of plastics use petroleum and that standard liquid laundry soap is made from petroleum based products? I don't have the actually statistic handy but if everyone put down the Tide and bought a plant based laundry cleaning product we could save like billions of gallons of petroleum without altering our way of driving at all? So let's not blame everything on the automotive industry, there are billions of gallons of petroleum being used in soaps and plastics and dozens of other products we aren't even aware of.

I live close to the Ford plant in St. Paul, and that is supposed to close within the next year or two. It'll be a big loss for this area, as it employs a lot of people.