Tuesday - April 24, 2007
Deja Vu
I am reliving the mid-1970’s all over again. Deja vu. The war overseas is getting closer and closer to being pretty much lost thanks to Democrats who want to cut funding and withdraw all of our troops overnight ... and American automobile manufacturers are getting trounced by Japanese automakers.
General Motors is now no longer the world’s top automaker. Toyota has taken over the top spot. This happened in the 1970’s when GM, Ford and Chrysler couldn’t stop making shoddily built, big, gas-guzzling cars and the Japanese proved they could do it better. It took decades for Detroit to catch up.
Now US automakers are falling behind again, this time mainly due to union contracts that are draining all money out of those companies to pay for health insurance until death for every auto worker. No money for R&D, no money for new plants, no money ... period.
So Toyota continues to build better cars by building plants in America (14 in all, at last count), negotiating new contracts for auto workers that often leave the UAW outside in the cold.
So how do GM, Ford and Chrysler fix their problem? Fire the unions, close unprofitable plants and get lean and mean. Build better cars and trucks. Cut prices. Do all the things necessary to level the playing field. If they don’t, they will go into steep decline just like happened in the 1970’s.
Now if we can just figure out how to avoid electing another Jimmy Carter we can stop this flashback to the 70’s from getting much worse.
Toyota Tops GM in 1Q Global Auto Sales
TOKYO (AP) - Apr 24 03:00 AM US/Eastern
Toyota Motor Corp. became the world’s top auto seller in the first three months of the year, passing rival General Motors Corp. for the first time, the Japanese automaker said Tuesday.
Toyota sold 2.348 million vehicles worldwide in the January-March quarter, company spokesman Satoshi Yamaguchi said, surpassing the 2.26 million vehicles that GM said it sold during the same period. The results mark the first time Toyota has beat GM in global sales on a quarterly basis, he said.
While the figures represent only quarterly sales results, they foreshadow a tough challenge for GM as it fights to hold onto its title as world’s top automaker—a claim usually staked on annual production figures.
Toyota has been gaining steadily on GM in recent years, and analysts have been saying it is only a matter of time before it eclipses its Detroit-based rival, which has seen its market share shrink in the United States even as it leads sales in China, a market with tremendous potential.
While GM has struggled to shore up earnings with job cuts and plant closures, Toyota has expanded rapidly, thanks partly to the popularity of its fuel-efficient cars. In 2006, Toyota’s global output surged 10 percent to 9.018 million vehicles, while GM produced 9.18 million vehicles worldwide.
Posted by The Skipper on 04/24/2007 at 06:04 AM
Filed Under: • Economics •
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Oh, and here's some kind of visitor flag counter thingy. Hey, all the cool blogs have one, so I should too. The Visitors Online thingy up at the top doesn't count anything, but it looks neat. It had better, since I paid actual money for it.