What is the American Auto Industry?

I will forget for a minute that I am a car nut, I love the automobile and know way to much for my own good, let us look at the American auto companies;

Not long ago there were no choices for cars and trucks outside of the big 3 (Chrysler, Ford, and GM). The first Japanese cars started to come to the US in the late 1950s with popularity really growing through the 70s and 80s. While the first of the Honda and Toyota imports were of poor quality like all good businesses they learned from there mistakes and start to make a quality product that could no longer be ignored by the American Consumer. During this time what were the big 3 up to? Nothing. They believed deep down that they were always going to be better than the foreigners simply because they were the BIG 3.

Anyone that is not blind can visibly see the difference between a Japanese auto and an American one.

A while ago my dad decided that he wanted a pickup truck to drive during the winter months (why he decided this is a mystery). Logically we chose to go and drive all of the available options for a full size pickup. That meant the Ford 150, Chevy Silverado (same as the GMC Sierra), Dodge Ram and, the Toyota Tundra ( Nissan Titan was not driven because it is essentially a Dodge Ram with a different body). Let me point out that the big 3 have always owned the truck market, they have simply had no other serious competition. That is until Toyota came out with their most recent Tundra. Now having driven all the competition it became clear that Toyota had done their homework. Americans are known for their huge trucks with a huge amount of power, but that is where the similarities with the American trucks stop. The Tundra drives like any Toyota car and most notably the fit and finish is worlds ahead of Ford, Chevy and Dodge. When you sit in the cab of the Tundra it shows you what quality means. It does not look or feel cheap the way the other examples did. Ford may have been the worst, the truck honestly looked like it had been engineered by a 5 year old. The interior especially looked and felt like it was velcro'd together. If i was going to pay 30 or 40 thousand dollars for a truck I would at least want it to look like a quality piece.

I think that the reason that the big 3 got into trouble in the first place is that they just could not compete any more. The cars that they were building were literal pieces of shit while the Japanese where building cars that notoriously last longer than 200 thousand miles.

They best way to get these companies to wake up and smell the flowers is not to give them billions of dollars to support themselves and then go into bankruptcy, it would have been to let them go into bankruptcy at the beginning.

They need to downsize. Period.

When you look at Toyota you see 2 brands Toyota and Lexus (and scion), when you look at Honda you see 2 brands Honda and Acura, when you look at Ford you see 3 brands Ford, Lincoln, and Mercury, then there is GM with 4 brands (now after closing pontaic, olsmobile and saturn) Chevy, GMC, Buick, and Cadillac. (Chrysler gets left out because they just do not sell a product that anyone wants and they are owned by FIAT)

Not for the life of me can I figure out why you would produce the same cars with different bodies in segments that compete with each other. GM especially. Trucks that are labels as GMC and Chevy, there is just no point they are the same truck with a different badge. And Buick and Cadillac, they are both up market brands much like Lexus is to Toyota, but they have the same parent company GM could save billions in the long term by eliminating duplicates that compete with one another. Getting a clue would be best for everyone, in this case the market needs to be able to determine who lives and who dies, the strong survive for a reason.

Then there is the whole perception of "buying American". The perception that the American car companies are building American cars in America is not as true as it used to be. Many foreign cars are assembled right here on American soil. Not to mention that the two most popular cars in the US ( Honda Accord and Toyota Camry) are more than 60% parts sourced from the US. So now is buying American really buying Japanese? I think it works out that way.