The #1 and #2 top selling vehicles in the USA in 2010 are trucks. #5 is an SUV, #6 a truck. GM's best selling vehicle is the Equniox, an SUV. People seem most interested in buying trucks and SUVs still.
That's pretty silly. There is plenty of profit to be made on fuel-efficient cars. The American companies were just way too slow to figure out how. If no one bought fuel-efficient cars, you might have a case. But in fact lots of them have sold - just not the ones made by Ford, GM, and Chrysler. Fuel economy standards are much higher in Europe and Japan, and yet it is the American car companies that can't make a profit due to CAFE? They made crappy cars, people bought from their competitors, and their market share and profit declined. CAFE has very little to do with it. barfo
GM may have been the top producer of ethanol ready vehicles before Obama took 'em over. And Ford was selling a 60+ MPG diesel vehicle in Europe that was outlawed to sell in the USA. GM's share of the overall market may have declined, but it's sales were quite consistent.
Worldwide. But between 1999 and 2007, their sales in the US of A declined by 20%. And then they declined by a lot more in 2008 and 2009. barfo
My point is to disagree with your point that CAFE is what drove the US automakers under. At most, it was their response to CAFE, not CAFE itself. I guess you could argue that when the government said "make fuel-efficient cars" Detroit heard "make shitty cars". But that's not the government's fault, that's the automakers fault. Figuring out that that fuel-efficient isn't a synonym for shitty doesn't require a marketing genius. barfo
You keep saying they made shitty cars, but they didn't. They made more fuel efficient ones which weren't the ones that were selling for them. And all of this is a smokescreen for Obama's "focus like a laser beam" on the economy, those statements of his usually followed by some vacation or overseas trip.
They certainly did make shitty cars. The Pinto, the Vega, the Pacer, the Chevette... shitty, shitty cars. Fuel efficient cars became popular after the days of gas rationing and have been popular ever since. Had Detroit produced good cars to meet that need, they would have been selling those. Instead they produced astonishingly bad cars, and thus created entire generations of Americans who wanted nothing to do with their cars. You were the one who put up this smokescreen about CAFE standards. It isn't relevant to the initial discussion, as I pointed out at the time. barfo
The automakers didn't make those models you listed during the time their market share declined. I owned a Chevette during the early 1980s and loved it. Aside from a Jeep Grand Cherokee I owned for over 10 years, the Chevette was the best American made car I ever owned. And still the question remains, "does he mean it this time?" Given past history, he's said he'd focus on the economy and then focuses on other things instead. All hat, no cattle. Or no clue. Probably no clue given the results.
I notice that you qualified it as the best "American made car" you ever owned. Not the best car you ever owned? I'm happy you enjoyed your Chevette, but I think your experience is fairly atypical. It takes time to earn a reputation. Those bad cars in the late 70's, early 80's led to people looking elsewhere for their next cars, and to a widespread belief that American cars were poorly designed and poorly built. The market share they ceded in small cars allowed Toyota, Honda, et al. to become stronger, and able to compete with Detroit in larger cars too, and that competition further weakened Detroit. A couple of days ago, you said that, and in response I listed several major economic actions. You dismissed the list by saying that I hadn't mentioned CAFE standards, and off we went into Pinto-land. I expect you to disagree with everything that's been done, and claim that it was all bad for the economy rather than good. But to imply as you are here that nothing has been done - if facts don't matter to you, you might as well just claim he's a socialist terrorist born in Kenya and be done with it. barfo
You list actions that punish economic success as if they're a good thing. Extending the tax cuts wasn't even a stimulus, though the FICA tax holiday is the first reasonable thing done to help the private sector. So I don't disagree with _everything_ that was done, it's just too little too late at this point (to help anyone for the past two years, Obama's entire presidency, super majority in the senate, etc.). It's rather stunning that the strongest economic area is within a few miles of the capital. It should be the Texas R&D corridor or Silicon Valley. I consider my old '72 VW Bus to be a great vehicle I owned. I owned a 15 year old Porsche 944, which was fast and fun, and easy to park. The Jeep was overall the best quality vehicle I've owned. An American car. The Chevette? I used to commute in it to work during the Chicago winters and it handled really well and the heater worked and I laughed at the Corvettes I saw sitting (spun off) in the ditch by the side of the road.
Hey barfo, What do you think of Obama having the military bomb Pakistan? Stinks of Nixon and Cambodia during the Vietnam days, to me. http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/world/2010-12/28/c_13667814.htm 12 killed in U.S. drone strike in Pakistan
Bombing a neighboring country to where we're fighting, and that we're not at war with. Bring the troops home. Leave an aircraft carrier (group) in the region and bomb the taliban if they make their presence known.
We aren't at war with Afghanistan, either. So, what you'd do differently is bomb Pakistan from an aircraft carrier instead of bombing Pakistan from drones? I'm not sure if I can handle that amount of radical thinking this early in the morning. barfo
We've got 100,000 troops stationed in Afghanistan and none in Pakistan. Who said anything about bombing Pakistan? Isn't the idea to prevent the country's wealth (such as it is) from funding terrorist organizations? Oh yeah, mission creep. What we're doing there isn't reasoned anymore.
