US car industry

[y66]

Can someone tell me why people thought they really needed these big trucks? I mean, they don't fit in parking spaces, don't get around small corners and are just unhandy. Now if I would live in mountainous areas with few solid roads, an SUV would be the right thing. But in London or Los Angeles they are just out of place!

 

My dream car is a 2009 Golf GTI (can't justify a BMW M3 where I live). So, I'm not qualified to comment. But I think the U.S. market for truck-like alternatives to cars grew out of a weird intersection between trade policy (10x higher tariff on imported trucks than on cars), American consumer psychology (bigger is better; bigger is safer; "off-road" is sexier than "station wagon"), the declining influence of engineers in auto industry decision making (build for profit margin, not for engineering excellence) and cheap fuel. And parking is not a problem at Walmart.

[helene_t]

As an example if GM gets 34 billion from taxpayers I assume they can pay off a loan they owe to a bank or company outside the USA.

I would assume there would be some restrictions on how they can use those 34 bill. Maybe they won't be required to pay off domestic dept first, though.

[kenberg]

 

Can someone tell me why people thought they really needed these big trucks? I mean, they don't fit in parking spaces, don't get around small corners and are just unhandy. Now if I would live in mountainous areas with few solid roads, an SUV would be the right thing. But in London or Los Angeles they are just out of place!

It's a challenge to explain why someone likes something that I have never had any desire for. Some of it no doubt comes from lifestyle. My older daughter has two soccer playing kids. Unlike when I was young, parents take their kids, and other kids, to play in soccer games. Also unlike when I was young, you are not allowed to just pack a bunch of kids in your car and go. My daughter and her husband have resisted, so far, buying a van but they think about it. So this explains some of it.

 

Still, I drive often in suburban traffic and see forty year old guys in suits driving some car that claims to be suitable for use in the jungle or at least in the Wild West. I look at him and figure he will enter the jungle the same day I take the field as running back for the Redskins (that's football, American style). Some sort of fantasy life is all I can figure.

[helene_t]

Also unlike when I was young, you are not allowed to just pack a bunch of kids in your car and go.

Huh? Is there a law saying that kids must be carried in armored vehicles when taken through downtown, or something?

[Winstonm]

Also unlike when I was young, you are not allowed to just pack a bunch of kids in your car and go.

Huh? Is there a law saying that kids must be carried in armored vehicles when taken through downtown, or something?

Only in South Chicago. ;)

[blackshoe]

There are all kinds of restrictions on kids in cars that didn't exist 40 years ago. Seat belts for all. No riding in the open back of a pickup truck. Special seats for younger kids. Kids of a certain age must sit in the back seat. Technically, I think, you cannot have more people (kids or otherwise) in the car than the number for whom there are seat belts (five, in my case). Some of it is increased safety awareness, some of it is political correctness, some of it is just BS. It is there, though.

[jdonn]

There are all kinds of restrictions on kids in cars that didn't exist 40 years ago. Seat belts for all. No riding in the open back of a pickup truck. Special seats for younger kids. Kids of a certain age must sit in the back seat. Technically, I think, you cannot have more people (kids or otherwise) in the car than the number for whom there are seat belts (five, in my case). Some of it is increased safety awareness, some of it is political correctness, some of it is just BS. It is there, though.

Which one is BS?

 

Now if they told us that dogs weren't allowed to hang their head out the window, THAT would be BS!

[TimG]

No riding in the open back of a pickup truck.

I sure miss this one.

[jikl]

Are helmets compulsory for motorbikes over there yet? I know they weren't 10 years back and they are a serious drain on the economy. (More injuries and deaths etc)

 

Sean

[blackshoe]

Sean: If by "over there" you mean the US, each state makes its own rules. Most Eastern states require helmets, I think. Some Western states, notably California, did not in the past, but I haven't paid much attention lately. Things may have changed.

 

Josh: I'm not sure any of the specific examples I gave is BS. I was referring more to the general attitude towards "nanny" lawmaking, which seems to be an ongoing trend in the last couple of decades.

[PassedOut]

Back in the 1940s, there were four-door cars in which the rear doors opened toward the back of the car. No seat belts either. Some children opened doors when the car was moving, and fell out of the car when the air caught the door and pulled it completely open. (It happened to a relative of mine who was injured seriously that way when she was a young girl.)

 

Also, some cars had steering wheels with large points in the center aiming right at the driver's chest.

 

As one who has always been in business, I think its completely reasonable for the government to establish strict safety standards, polution standards, etc. that a business must follow. Those rules allow responsible business people to compete against those with no social conscience.

[blackshoe]

I agree there should be standards (and that they should make good practical sense). I don't agree that government should be in the business of legislating them.

 

Say you have an independent private standards organization. That organization says "doors should open towards the front of the car". A sensible car manufacturer, seeing the handwriting on the wall, is going to make sure his car doors comply with the standard. Why? Because in a sensible society, if something happens to someone, and the manufacturer violated the standard, the (civil) courts will cut out the company's wallet, and hand it to the victim. Within reason, of course. But the point is that this kind of thing is properly a civil matter. When the government starts legislating standards, it becomes a criminal matter. Not to mention that there's no guarantee that the "standards" the government legislates will bear any resemblance whatsoever to the good, sensible standards that independent engineers would have come up with - and which were probably what the legislature had to start with, before "political concerns" were added to the mix.

[kenberg]

Also unlike when I was young, you are not allowed to just pack a bunch of kids in your car and go.

Huh? Is there a law saying that kids must be carried in armored vehicles when taken through downtown, or something?

There is a continuum.

 

Suppose I am baby-sitting my younger grandchildren and suppose for some reason their mother calls and asks me to bring the kids somewhere. I cannot do this since I do not have car seats in my car. (Yes, the car does have seats. But car seats are special things for young kids.)

 

Compare with my childhood. My father would announce he was available to take kids to the ballgame Friday night. The number of kids that he would take was limited to the number of kids that could be stuffed into our 1940 Chevy. A couple in front, four or five in the back. He would be arrested for, well, for something today. Actually I was arrested once for something along these lines (perhaps properly so).

 

So now by law each child needs his own seat, properly approved. This changes the way society sees things. Armor starts to appear like a sensible idea.

 

I am not on any campaign to revoke safety laws. I was offering it as a partial explanation of how people end up with these tanks. No doubt all this metal offers some protection but, since I once drove a VW bug and once rode a BSA motorcycle, my current Honda seems very protective by comparison. Others are shocked that I do not feel the need for more armor.

[helene_t]

OK, in the sixties you would put a driver plus seven children in a 4-seat car. Today you need an 8-seat car. Got it :)

 

Actually, the only times I miss having a car is when I need to transport more stuff than I can take with me in the train or a taxi. So I guess my first car would be a van, too.

[Gerben42]

OK, in the sixties you would put a driver plus seven children in a 4-seat car. Today you need an 8-seat car. Got it

 

Not only an 8-seat car, but also 7 car seats if the children are too small to sit on the regular seats.

 

I've sat in the back of the car when I was small, and I mean really the back, not the back seats. I guess that's out too.

[Al_U_Card]

Back in the early 60's, (I had lost a tooth to the back of the front seat of one of our american cars....you know, the ones with a "cord" across the back of the front seat for rear passengers to hold onto...) our family took the grandparents to the port as they were off on a cruise.

 

Volkswagon beetle, Mom and Dad in the front, Grandparents and oldest brother in the back seat and my other brother and I in the "cubby hole" behind the back seat under the rear window. With all the luggage on the roof rack, we must have looked like a clown car when we got out at the boat dock. :) :lol:

[eros2]

Although I belong to the Austrian school of economics, I would argue that if nothing else were to be changed, the auto industry must be bailed out. Simply, you cannot solve a Rubik's cube by completing one face.

 

There are no free markets in America, and certainly not the labour market. A generation of young adults would be marginalised by competition from laid off workers. Therefore, to allow the big 3 to go under would not solve anything. The problems are systemic in every market, and the problem is intervention.

 

This is a lose-lose situation. Which do you prefer? Accountability at the cost of the economy, or wealth for a few and relative security at the cost of taxation? Both will lead to disaster, but the latter is more gradual and sensible people will have time to get out of the dollar.

[JoAnneM]

Back in the 50's I went on a church camping trip to Yosemite and all of us kids rode in the back of the pickups on top of our sleeping bags. What a great time that was! Could you see that happening now?

 

On the other hand, when we were living near Ft. Meade in Maryland many years ago ten kids were joy riding in a pickup truck at night and eight of them ended up in trees, the field, and the ditch - all dead. Two sets of siblings in that group, very tragic. Of course in my case adults were driving.

[kenberg]

Although I belong to the Austrian school of economics, I would argue that if nothing else were to be changed, the auto industry must be bailed out. Simply, you cannot solve a Rubik's cube by completing one face.

 

There are no free markets in America, and certainly not the labour market. A generation of young adults would be marginalised by competition from laid off workers. Therefore, to allow the big 3 to go under would not solve anything. The problems are systemic in every market, and the problem is intervention.

 

This is a lose-lose situation. Which do you prefer? Accountability at the cost of the economy, or wealth for a few and relative security at the cost of taxation? Both will lead to disaster, but the latter is more gradual and sensible people will have time to get out of the dollar.

I pretty much agree with this, at least in theory. I am of the general view that I am OK with this costing me some tax dollars, but then it had better work. I can't say I much trust these CEOs. They are used to playing hardball as are the unions who were on the other side of so many negotiations. I would like to see a healthy auto industry, I would like to see well paid workers, I very much don't want to be played for a chump.

 

The auto industry reached this dismal condition, at least partly, because those in charge had trouble accepting the reality of changed tastes, needs and competition. The much criticized arrival of auto bigwigs in their private jets to tell Congress we should give them some money because they want it indicates to me that they haven't learned much. Since then they have changed their PR, but I doubt they have changed their fundamental views.

 

It occurs to me that taxpayers and shareholders could be natural allies here in that we both see an advantage in a successful restructuring. The problem is the management. Their incompetence is plain to see, and the first act in a successful restructuring might well be to fire their asses.

[Al_U_Card]

The auto industry has only been coerced (legislatively) into better safety and more economical vehicles etc. Where they were allowed to do what they wanted, they always opted for the fast buck.

 

Government should impose restraints and guidelines that must be followed. Gee, we will have a nation of small cars that save our money and the environment....how ever will we live with that????

[Winstonm]

Government should impose restraints and guidelines that must be followed

 

Regulation!?!? You said REGULATION!?!? Help!!! I'm melting...melting...

 

Phil Gramm

[Al_U_Card]

Well, we certainly saw what the reduction of regulation accomplished.

 

We are talking objectives and targets, not how to get there (so much) ;)

[eros2]

Well, we certainly saw what the reduction of regulation accomplished.

 

We are talking objectives and targets, not how to get there (so much) ;)

Repainting the fence =/= no more fence.

 

Regulation in any guise has failed.

[mike777]

The auto industry has only been coerced (legislatively) into better safety and more economical vehicles etc.  Where they were allowed to do what they wanted, they always opted for the fast buck.

 

Government should impose restraints and guidelines that must be followed. Gee, we will have a nation of small cars that save our money and the environment....how ever will we live with that????

As I have suggested before it just may be eaiser for the government to buy the car companies, say you can only buy from us and no one else including individuals and you must buy what we make.

 

This is basically what you are saying.

 

I think this goes back to the fundamental issue, is the government smarter than the free markets. Keynes suggests it may be.

[blackshoe]

Keynes was wrong.