On Thu, 13 Nov 2008 00:30:19 -0500, Wayne.B
wrote:

On Wed, 12 Nov 2008 16:26:46 -0500, "Eisboch"
wrote:

That may change (and it should), but the point is .... Detroit builds what
people buy.

Right up until they don't.

Detroit made two big mistakes:

1. They thought they could keep pushing profitable big iron forever.

2. They could never figure out how to build a small, high quality,
economical car at a reasonable price. Given the high cost of their
labor content it may have been impossible but they never really tried.

Is there any reason why GM could not have produced something like a
Toyota Corolla or a small pickup truck even if they had to build it
offshore? People have certainly bought plenty of them from Toyota so
we can't claim the demand wasn't there.

Good points although I could argue that point #2 is somewhat
disengenous.

Detroit could have developed small and efficient cars because they
built them in Europe. When we were in Ireland a few years ago, all
the taxis in Dublin were Fords and very similar to the Focus in size
only more efficient. Taxi drivers there told me they got 34 mph on
average - which is pretty damn decent.

I understand that the problem with importing these cars to our side of
the pond was that they wouldn't meet California emissions standars
and, believe it or not, California emissions standards are the defacto
driver for the US auto industry - it was too expensive to retrofit
them to meet our standards.

I seem to remember reading recently, that 20-25% of all cars sold in
the US are sold in California - it would make sense if the percentage
is that high, their standards would become defacto for the rest of the
nation.

I still maintain that we can have our cake and eat it too. All we
need to do is switch to diesel/electric trucks and do the same for the
bigger cars. I read something the other day about GE's Evolution
diesel/electric locomotive, 12 cylinder turbo charged diesel engine
producing 6300 BHP and something like 6000 THP (traction wheel
horsepower) which can move a ridiculous amount of freight (in the
order of 50 million pounds or something like that - might even have
been higher) 6 miles on one gallon of diesel fuel.

You can't convince that the lessons learned in developing that type of
transportation power can't be used in developing a diesel/electric
capable of moving a F-350 around town efficiently. :)