I completely agree with you. But I also worry about what will happen to the 2m+ employees and what kind of impact that will have the already-shat-upon economy.
Although, a bailout will do nothing to improve the main reason why foreign automakers are winning out: Better mileage, better reliability, better quality. Maybe a bailout to pave the way for a Japan buyout? Any thoughts?
I think the UAW, and it’s 2m+ members, are part of this problem, if not the primary cause of it. I’m sure those guys ALL get far better pay and benefits than any of us for a job that — as the japanese have shown — can be done by a machine.
I think part of the problem, too, is that emission standards are actually limited better-mileage vehicles. There was an article I read a while back that said that American car companies are making a bunch of cars with great MPG, but they can’t sell them here — they’re getting shipped to Europe.
Excellent point. I am the proud owner of an economy car and a gas guzzling SUV. Will the American people allow these companies to become what they need to be in order to survive?
The UAW does not appear to be a big part of the problem. Labor costs worked out to about 8.4 percent of the price of a typical car in 2006. The average wages for workers at Chrysler, Ford, and General Motors were just $28 per hour as of 2007. The best estimates suggest the corresponding 2007 figure for the foreign-owned U.S. factories (Honda, Toyota, etc) was somewhere around $25 per hour. http://www.tnr.com/politics/story.html?id=1026e955-541c-4aa6-bcf2-56dfc3323682 http://www.uaw.org/barg/07fact/fact02.php
The emission standards argument seems a bit shaky also. The standards affect all the competition more or less equally since everyone is pretty much in the same market. Sure, I suppose that there may be some models that only pass the standards in a particular niche market and not others but I wonder how significant are these one-off models when the biggest market for *all* the big makers is probably still the U.S.
I’ve read also that something like the super-high-mileage Geo Metro could not be made with today’s standards (but in that case, the “culprit” is probably the safety standards, not the emission standards). I’ve also read that one thing holding back fuel efficiency is the low quality of fuel in North America (apparently, significantly more efficient vehicles can be made if higher quality low-sulphur fuel was available in the states).
In any case, it’s probably fair to say that emission standards increase the cost of making cars and maybe even work against increasing milleage (although the CAFE mileage standards can also be seen as an emission standard for CO2) but so what? Anyone who remembers what Los Angeles was like before the standards, knows why they are a good thing. The biggest problem with Europe’s current emission standards is the huge concessions made for the diesel fleets (although I hear that may be changing). I understand that on a damp summer evening in some major German, French and Italian cities, you have to put up with a near suffocating diesel haze. A lot of precious classic architecture has been damaged beyond repair by these fumes. Emission standards are good thing.
Comments
I completely agree with you. But I also worry about what will happen to the 2m+ employees and what kind of impact that will have the already-shat-upon economy.
Although, a bailout will do nothing to improve the main reason why foreign automakers are winning out: Better mileage, better reliability, better quality. Maybe a bailout to pave the way for a Japan buyout? Any thoughts?
I think the UAW, and it’s 2m+ members, are part of this problem, if not the primary cause of it. I’m sure those guys ALL get far better pay and benefits than any of us for a job that — as the japanese have shown — can be done by a machine.
I think part of the problem, too, is that emission standards are actually limited better-mileage vehicles. There was an article I read a while back that said that American car companies are making a bunch of cars with great MPG, but they can’t sell them here — they’re getting shipped to Europe.
Excellent point. I am the proud owner of an economy car and a gas guzzling SUV. Will the American people allow these companies to become what they need to be in order to survive?
The UAW does not appear to be a big part of the problem. Labor costs worked out to about 8.4 percent of the price of a typical car in 2006. The average wages for workers at Chrysler, Ford, and General Motors were just $28 per hour as of 2007. The best estimates suggest the corresponding 2007 figure for the foreign-owned U.S. factories (Honda, Toyota, etc) was somewhere around $25 per hour.
http://www.tnr.com/politics/story.html?id=1026e955-541c-4aa6-bcf2-56dfc3323682
http://www.uaw.org/barg/07fact/fact02.php
The emission standards argument seems a bit shaky also. The standards affect all the competition more or less equally since everyone is pretty much in the same market. Sure, I suppose that there may be some models that only pass the standards in a particular niche market and not others but I wonder how significant are these one-off models when the biggest market for *all* the big makers is probably still the U.S.
I’ve read also that something like the super-high-mileage Geo Metro could not be made with today’s standards (but in that case, the “culprit” is probably the safety standards, not the emission standards). I’ve also read that one thing holding back fuel efficiency is the low quality of fuel in North America (apparently, significantly more efficient vehicles can be made if higher quality low-sulphur fuel was available in the states).
In any case, it’s probably fair to say that emission standards increase the cost of making cars and maybe even work against increasing milleage (although the CAFE mileage standards can also be seen as an emission standard for CO2) but so what? Anyone who remembers what Los Angeles was like before the standards, knows why they are a good thing. The biggest problem with Europe’s current emission standards is the huge concessions made for the diesel fleets (although I hear that may be changing). I understand that on a damp summer evening in some major German, French and Italian cities, you have to put up with a near suffocating diesel haze. A lot of precious classic architecture has been damaged beyond repair by these fumes. Emission standards are good thing.