Thought provoking video regarding automakers worldwide

I love this guy.

I, like him, Grew up in southern Michigan, and his Backgrounder is almost a carbon copy of my family history.

My dad was an engine designer for Ford in the early 60s, we had many family friends that were Big Three employees.

My wife's family was all about Jeep in Toledo.

So many of us ended up like this dude's mom. I know I did the minute I drove a BMW.

For My sister is was an Audi.

Will the American auto industry be able to adapt?

What say you?

Germans are deteriorating. if they don’t stop they will simply stop buying because the secondary market is not about the Germans

The germans export almost double the amount in cars alone, which are complex manufactured goods, as the russians do in oil. Oil is not a very complicated thing to drill and ship. Dissing the Germans is a very russian thing to do, but its not based in any reality when it comes to manufacturing. The Germans exported MORE than the entire russian GDP, and that was before Putin destroyed the Russian economy. $1.4 Trillion in 2020 The dogs bark, but the caravan moves on, and russian ogliarchs hiding in Dubai are driving Mercedes and BMW, not Ladas.
In my tiny town in rural america, there are german cars from 1955 to 2022 being driven by all kinds of people, from farmers to boeing employees.

Ries said:

The germans export almost double the amount in cars alone, which are complex manufactured goods, as the russians do in oil. Oil is not a very complicated thing to drill and ship. Dissing the Germans is a very russian thing to do, but its not based in any reality when it comes to manufacturing. The Germans exported MORE than the entire russian GDP, and that was before Putin destroyed the Russian economy. $1.4 Trillion in 2020 The dogs bark, but the caravan moves on, and russian ogliarchs hiding in Dubai are driving Mercedes and BMW, not Ladas.
In my tiny town in rural america, there are german cars from 1955 to 2022 being driven by all kinds of people, from farmers to boeing employees.

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no one despise. but the Germans are now making ugly cars. resale loses a lot of value. Germans give emotions, only emotions pass quickly and many who are tired of constant breakdowns switch to the Japanese

and stop telling tales about the microscopic Russian GDP. Financial bubbles have nothing to do with GDP. Germany's entire economic miracle came from cheap Russian resources. no resources, no competitiveness

mrSanders62 said:

and stop telling tales about the microscopic Russian GDP. Financial bubbles have nothing to do with GDP. Germany's entire economic miracle came from cheap Russian resources. no resources, no competitiveness

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This is NOT about Russian shit. This about the world wide auto industry. Russians have NOTHING to do with it.

Russia makes no exportable cars. Stop high-jacking threads with your USSR bullshit please.

This thread is about how the Germans and the Koreans, and the Japanese are driving the U.S. automakers to build better products........Hopefully.

Nothing in there about Russia.......................Nothing.

Thunderjet said:

This is NOT about Russian shit. This about the world wide auto industry. Russians have NOTHING to do with it.

Russia makes no exportable cars. Stop high-jacking threads with your USSR bullshit please.

This thread is about how the Germans and the Koreans, and the Japanese are driving the U.S. automakers to build better products........Hopefully.

Nothing in there about Russia.......................Nothing.

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I was talking about GDP and not about car production. in the United States with their production, everything is also unimportant. tesla? Who makes batteries for them?

mrSanders62 said:

no one despise. but the Germans are now making ugly cars. resale loses a lot of value. Germans give emotions, only emotions pass quickly and many who are tired of constant breakdowns switch to the Japanese

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Not just ugly. A friend had a VW hybrid and the transmission failed out of warranty. They wanted $9,000 to replace it so the vehicle was sold for less than that and replaced by a Japanese Hybrid.

The vehicle had been properly maintained and not abused. Apparently transmission failures are common on these.

Steve Lehto is a car guy and a lawyer and comes up with some pretty good commentary.

Often times the value is in the comments tied to the video and in this case they are pretty good. It's an American manufacturing thing in many cases....get the product out using any and all shortcuts you can find and don't be bothered by what happens as long as you make bank and keep the stockholders happy. Never changes whether is Ford, or GM or even Boeing, or any of the big name companies. Of course most discussions of the auto industry at this point are speculative or fond reminiscing.

So true story:
Back in the 1980's I was working for an auto manufacturer and at the time was farmed out to a QA project where we did assessments of the competitions product.
Yeah....one day they borrowed a Honda Accord and had it set up in a review area. The paint guys rated the paint. The body shop (stamping) guys eyeballed panels, doors, fit and finish. Same with all the other parts of the car. I had walked over the review area with a well seasoned production superintendant who had worked just about every area of auto manufacturing. He know his shit and was very good at what he did.
We did our thing basically doing a QA fit and finish eval. The window sticker with pricing was there to see--whoa baby. We finished, walked out of the review area....and out of ear shot of the big dogs...looked at each other and knew we were fucked.

And....It's a good video and very accurate regarding the period. At one point I reported to one of the "Bob Lutz" faction. There was the Lutz faction and the Eaton faction. Eaton succeeded Iaccoca and it was pretty career ending for many of the "Lutz guys". Lutz does a lot of commentary about how things worked in the auto industry and he's very interesting.

Of course how my rambling story from many years ago fits into today's auto production environment I can't say-----

Thunderjet said:

This is NOT about Russian shit. This about the world wide auto industry. Russians have NOTHING to do with it.

Russia makes no exportable cars. Stop high-jacking threads with your USSR bullshit please.

This thread is about how the Germans and the Koreans, and the Japanese are driving the U.S. automakers to build better products........Hopefully.

Nothing in there about Russia.......................Nothing.

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Not trying to provoke you but although Russia might not be a player in auto production....right now it is starting to look like auto production in Germany most certainly will be impacted by Russian supplied energy or a lack there of. Of course accurate info and reporting can be hard to come by.

standardparts said:

Not trying to provoke you but although Russia might not be a player in auto production....right now it is starting to look like auto production in Germany most certainly will be impacted by Russian supplied energy or a lack there of. Of course accurate info and reporting can be hard to come by.

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"Hard to come by" There's a mouthful.

Everyone is impacted by the ruskys bullshit. All things being equal, the big three will still keep building cars to fail just out of warrantee and wonder aloud about why they keep loosing market share.

Plastic everything, don't care about fit and finish. Just put cool wheels on it, it'll sell.

Meanwhile, a bunch of busy little Koreans are eating your lunch.

Wait, what just happened?

Thunderjet said:

"Hard to come by" There's a mouthful.

Everyone is impacted by the ruskys bullshit. All things being equal, the big three will still keep building cars to fail just out of warrantee and wonder aloud about why they keep loosing market share.

Plastic everything, don't care about fit and finish. Just put cool wheels on it, it'll sell.

Meanwhile, a bunch of busy little Koreans are eating your lunch.

Wait, what just happened?

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I guess I'm goona have to ask....What is this "Big Three" you speak if? Something from the 1980s?

As for Koreans eating "your"(?) lunch welcome to the party pal because it ain't just Korea who's been eating our lunch for a very long time now. "Wait just what happened".....was a long time ago. LOL

As for Koreans eating "your"(?) lunch welcome to the party pal because it ain't just Korea who's been eating our lunch for a very long time now. "Wait just what happened".....was a long time ago. LOL

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I'm not your pal.

They're not eating my lunch, They're buying it for me. We actually sell stuff TO them, regularly. LOTS of stuff. We love 'em.

We would sell to the Ruskys too, but can't right now.

China, and Vietnam along with India are our biggest buyers right now.....in the millions of packages yearly.

Oh, and Space X is right up there.

And you know EXACTLY who I'm talking about when it comes to the big three.

Thunderjet said:

I'm not your pal.

They're not eating my lunch, They're buying it for me. We actually sell stuff TO them, regularly. LOTS of stuff. We love 'em.

We would sell to the Ruskys too, but can't right now.

China, and Vietnam along with India are our biggest buyers right now.....in the millions of packages yearly.

Oh, and Space X is right up there.

And you know EXACTLY who I'm talking about when it comes to there you go...some good news.

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Excellent news...It is a Global Market after all and the real objective is to produce or source goods and make money doing it.

standardparts said:

I guess I'm goona have to ask....What is this "Big Three" you speak if? Something from the 1980s?

As for Koreans eating "your"(?) lunch welcome to the party pal because it ain't just Korea who's been eating our lunch for a very long time now. "Wait just what happened".....was a long time ago. LOL

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Must be a young fellow. Big Three were GM, Ford, and Chrysler and for several decades they dominated the American market.

The ones who actually "ate our lunch" were the Japanese, especially Toyota and Honda.

Scottl said:

Must be a young fellow. Big Three were GM, Ford, and Chrysler and for several decades they dominated the American market.

The ones who actually "ate our lunch" were the Japanese, especially Toyota and Honda.

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I guess if your talking about the U.S. domestic market the names are kinda-sorta the same. GM-Ford-Chrysler. Likely Ford is the only one that still has the same fundamental ownership roots. I don't even think "Chrysler" is even on the sign on corporate headquarters in Auburn Hills.

"The Big Three"--used to only mean ONE thing...now if you do a search you have to add automotive.

Best not to bring up machine tools, cameras, and electronics........(Just had an old Pioneer tuner receiver re-capped, cleaned and tweaked for old time sake...while I linger on a SB Chev build with a.....wait for it...carburetor...and even worse.....Vertex mag...there goes the reception...buzzzzzzz.)

Damn, I'm starting to get like Thermite....

in our country, the big three is primarily understood as Mercedes, Audi and BMW. American cars are not listed))

standardparts said:

Just had an old Pioneer tuner receiver re-capped, cleaned and tweaked for old time sake

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I had an advanced car radio Pioneer, a very cool sound. how cool she was, I only realized when I was chasing LG's newfangled flat-sound CD format

Thunderjet said:

Will the American auto industry be able to adapt?

What say you?

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The rush towards electrification has given the American auto industry an opportunity to hit the reset button. Right now it's the wild west when it comes to EVs and car companies are reinventing themselves. They'll have to rethink their money-making strategies though, as EV maintenance isn't nearly the same cash cow.

Meanwhile, Japan isn't convinced. They've been all-in on hybrids for quite some time now and aren't ready to take the next big plunge toward full electrification. They still have time to readjust, but the clock is ticking and right now is the time for companies to place their bets.

Orange Vise said:

The rush towards electrification has given the American auto industry an opportunity to hit the reset button. Right now it's the wild west when it comes to EVs and car companies are reinventing themselves. They'll have to rethink their money-making strategies though, as EV maintenance isn't nearly the same cash cow.

Meanwhile, Japan isn't convinced. They've been all-in on hybrids for quite some time now and aren't ready to take the next big plunge toward full electrification. They still have time to readjust, but the clock is ticking and right now is the time for companies to place their bets.

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I think part of that is that they are more in touch with what their customers want. None of the hybrid owners I know would willingly switch to a pure EV at this point in time.

Most of the push for EVs comes from governments and NGOs, not from motorists.