Who will be the US "Big 3" in 2016?

Let me guess - English is your second language? If not, you should find your high school English teacher and sue her for not doing her job.

Toyota and Honda pull off major redesigns of their big selling cars every 3-6 years. Once upon a time, the US companies INVENTED the idea of constant design updates to keep the vehicles interesting. Somehow in the 1970s they lost the ability to do so. One could blame government regulations, but how then do you explain the fact that the Japanese pull it off like clockwork while selling cars all over the world in left and right side control configurations as well?

John

That is easy. Because of CAFE, date certain deadlines, the domestics had to spend billions to change their manufacturing facilities over from RWD, to build the more costly. less safe FWD vehicles to make vehicles smaller and lighter, yet still have sufficient room for five people that American wanted.

At the some time, because of date certain deadlines, we had to do required emission and crash improvements, sucking up mope millions of dollars of capital. The imports needed only improve the small vehicles they already produced, in low cost countries, to meet emission and crash improvements. By setting date certain deadlines, rather than goals to be met as new technology could be developed, the government set back innovation in the America automobile industry by ten years. It would have been far better to set goals rather than timetables, as the government now does, and allowed those billions to spent on R&D rather than production facilities. The far better vehicles of today in terms of crash safety, fuel efficiency, nearly zero emissions, as well as the improved reliability and longevity could have been available ten or even fifteen years sooner.

mike hunt

Really? The Canadian government can command a US company to sell its products in Canada and then set the price? And all the other countries can do this also? How does that work?

Don't be naive. Big Pharma makes a good profit selling to those other countries. They are making a killing in the US. Don't believe the big sob stories about their research and FDA approval costs and the great new drugs they give us. While there are constant improvements in drugs, most new drugs launched on the market are little or no better than the old ones and a new drug always carries an uncertain risk. And a lot of the research is marketing driven.

A lot of work needed, no doubt. Fortunately there are lots of working models to learn from.

If you want to be scared, check out the number of personal bankruptcies which are caused by medical expenses and the stories behind them.

and that their cars have been and in some cases are still less reliable than their Japanese competitors. And lastly, Ford and GM are saddled with some very, very high retirement and healthcare costs that makes each car the actually are able to sell less profitable. GM and Ford are currently losing BILLIONS of dollars annually because of all of this.

You mentioned that they could still make a comeback. They better do something very drastic soon or it ain't gonna happen.

Mike. I gotta tell you, this is one of the few times I agree with you. Anything run by the government is always more expensive -- and usually poorly run too.

Really? I was at a major old cars show today. Loads of small British, German, Italian and French cars from the sixties among the Corvairs, Falcons, Valliants, Nash Ramblers, Hudson Jets, Henry Js, Studebaker Larks, Willys and even some Chevettes, but only ONE Jap car, a 240Z with only 23K on the clock.

What ever happened to all those 'superior;' Jap small cars, they're sure not still on the road. There were more than 30 VW bugs, nearly 40 Nash/Hudson/AMC Metropolitan coupes and convertibles and a half dozen CROSLEYS for goodness sake and a couple Isettas but only ONE low mileage Jap car, curious. ;)

mike hunt

Do you mean FWD is inherently less safe than RWD?

But the import makers also changed their chassis designs completely and switched from RWD to FWD, except Honda.

What innovations has the auto industry, American or foreign, made to vehicles since the 1960s that weren't the direct or indirect result of government requirements for safety, emissions, or fuel economy? I get the impresson that the majority of advancements in the industry have been on the production side, as evidenced by the need for far fewer workers to produce the same number of cars. The car busines hasn't been nearly as innovative as electronics or biotechnology.

A high ranking GM manager told me the reason they changed to FWD was that they could build the car $50 cheaper than a RWD. I have no idea if that is true.

At Toyota, FWD is less expensive to make than RWD. I do no know why the same is not true at Ford.

You believe that because you know nothing about how vehicles are built on an assembly, I supose ;)

mike hunt

"Mike Hunter" wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@ptd.net:

"INITIAL" quality... give it 10 years...

Those cars end up in the junk yards, lets face it, they were not purchased for their classic styling.

Japanese Classic Car Show: Long Beach

Mike Hunter will have a cow trying to spin that-fortunately he is KF.

a transaxle is cheaper to produce than a transmission with a seperate axle. this is where the FWD 'assembly' cost savings come from.

bob z.

" integrate the drivetrain, steering, shock absorbers and brakes directly into the wheels of future cars"

snipped-for-privacy@gmail.com wrote:

ISTR the Apollo astronauts took a vehicle something like that to the Moon with them. ;-)