Break down

National Public Radio's "Morning Edition" yesterday discussed the image problem facing American automakers:

According to global marketing information firm J.D. Power and Associates, 42 percent of all car buyers ... won't even look at a vehicle built by a U.S. company.

Dave Sargent, J.D. Power's vice president of auto research, said [that is] a mistake.

"Many consumers still have a view of the Detroit automakers that the products are not as reliable as the imports, but what our studies show is that that is simply not true," he said.

Detroit has been closing the quality gap in recent years, Sargent said. In a study this summer of three-year-old vehicles, J.D. Power said Buick tied Lexus as the most dependable brand. In another J.D. Power study on quality, Ford won in five categories — more than any other company.

But Sargent said when it comes to cars, it takes years for perception to catch up to reality.

I appreciate the dynamic J.D. Powerman is describing. My own experience with cars designed by the Big Three is an unbroken string of hoopdies. My Honda Civic has run for more years and more miles than my Dodge Colt, Ford Escort, Chevy Cavalier and Chevette combined. Those earlier cars all broke down so often, stranding me at so many key moments, that I can still feel the anxiety of those strandings in my muscle memory. Just thinking about it makes my stomach churn. I can't imagine easily coming around to feeling secure about relying on another Ford or Chevy to get me from point A to point B if I need to get there.

I have no problem with buying an American-made car -- my Civic was built by the UAW in Ohio, my Escort was built in Korea -- but it will be a long while before I overcome my hard-earned, visceral distrust of Detroit engineering.

So I understand that aspect of what the J.D. Power guy is talking about. But he fails to notice another equally significant reason that the Big Three automakers have a lousy reputation: They've spent millions of dollars over the past several decades on a PR campaign designed to persuade us that they don't know what they're doing.

General Motors, Ford and Chrysler have loudly insisted for years that they are technologically incompetent. They have spent millions of lobbying dollars to explain all the things they cannot do, all the improvements they are unable to make, all the ways their abilities, designs and engineering are inferior to those of their competitors. All of that money spent advertising their limits and incompetency has had an impact. American car buyers listened. We believed them.

Consider, for example, CAFE standards -- targets for corporate average fuel economy. Every time that Congress or Al Gore or the Sierra Club has suggested these standards should be higher, Detroit shrieks that they can't take the pressure, that it couldn't possibly be done, that they don't have the skill, the know-how or the basic competence to pull it off. Toyota, Honda, Mercedes and Volkswagen, on the other hand, just said, "More fuel-efficient vehicles? Hai. Ja. We can do that. We're good at making cars."

The same thing happened earlier with air bags and emissions standards. When California passed strict new emission standards in the 1990s, GM and Ford shipped their top lobbyists to Washington and Sacramento to argue that the new rules were technologically impossible. Toyota and Honda didn't send lobbyists -- they sent cars that met the new standard. The same dynamic occurred even earlier with seat belts. With GM's lobbyists arguing that the company wasn't capable of meeting the technological challenge of the seat belt why should consumers trust them to build reliable engines?

I've quoted this passage before from James Surowiecki's "Fuel for Thought" column, but it bears repeating:

In the auto industry, there’s one thing you can always count on: if a new environmental or safety rule is proposed, executives will prophesy disaster. In the 1920, Alfred Sloan, the president of General Motors, insisted that the company could not make windshields with safety glass because doing so would harm the bottom line. In the '50s, auto executives told Congress that making seat belts compulsory would slash industry profits. When air bags came along, Lee Iacocca told Richard Nixon that “safety has really killed all our business.” A few years later, when Congress was thinking about requiring fuel-economy standards, auto executives warned that instituting such standards would create “massive financial and unemployment problems."

My point here isn't whether this reflexive opposition to safety and environmental standards is right or wrong. I think it's wrong, but set that aside. My point here is that the automaker's lobbying strategy has been foolish. Their approach, for decades, has been to portray themselves as technologically incompetent, as incapable of meeting new challenges. Somehow they never considered how this would affect their reputation with the car-buying public.

The automakers' lobbying strategy has, in a way, been a resounding success. The American public, or at least 42 percent of us, perceives them exactly as they have portrayed themselves -- as people who aren't very good at making cars and who don't really know what they're doing.

Detroit, in other words, is reaping what it has -- deliberately -- sown.

(Having said all of that, though, the Big Three would still all be turning a profit if America didn't have such a dysfunctional, ass-backward nonsystem for health care. They all realize this, but so far they haven't seen fit to make this, their preeminent problem, a priority for their very effective lobbyists.)

Comments

[not someone else]

(Having said all of that, though, the Big Three would still all be turning a profit if America didn't have such a dysfunctional, ass-backward nonsystem for health care. They all realize this, but so far they haven't seen fit to make this, their preeminent problem, a priority for their very effective lobbyists.)

I... don't get it. Is the connection "sick people becoming poor", or is there something a bit deeper? And if the former, how does that extend specifically to the auto industry?

[Geds]

I'm assuming it has something to do with the fact that the Big Three spend a crap ton of money on overpriced employee health plans.

[Chuck]

The connection is the amount of money those car companies are paying in employee and retiree healthcare costs.

[KnightHawk]

Everyhting alwayscomes back to Health care, and speaking as someone who can't afford insurence, I kinda get why. Being the sole bread winner in the family, when I get sick, it's a disaster that really brings us within inches of the street...but until I read the above comments, I honestly didn't see the connection.

Seriously though, American cars have a bad rep? I was unaware. I've had a Ford Tuarus and a Caivlier, have driven them long, hard, and basically beat them to shit, and would buy either all over again--especially the Cavilier. Parts for that thing were cheap.

Love. Peace. Metallica.

[Ursula L]

I heard that NPR bit, as well.

One thing that amazed me - they were claiming that the US cars were reliable these days, because over a three year test, they were as or more reliable than the imports.

But three years is new for a car. I've bought all my cars used, and all were over three years old. I expect a car to be good at three years. My question is, how will it be at ten years, or more? How much work would it take to get from ten years to fifteen?

If they're looking at three years as a standard of reliability, they've already lost me. And probably quite a few other people, who aren't interested in spending the money or going through the trouble of getting a new car every few years.

[mcc]

"Many consumers still have a view of the Detroit automakers that the products are not as reliable as the imports, but what our studies show is that that is simply not true," he said.

Kind of funny that all these people could somehow get that same false impression all at the same time, isn't it? Oh well, I guess it's a good thing we have marketing firms to set us straight.

Say, does J.D. powers have any studies proving that American-designed cars aren't actually bulky, ugly and weirdly-handling, like I've been thinking they are all this time?

[hapax]

I've bought all my cars used, and all were over three years old.

The problem with buying a used car around here, is that they all have "W" stickers.

I've thought of asking the seller to knock a couple thou' off the price.

[mmack]

"More fuel-efficient vehicles? Hai. Ja. We can do that. We're good at making cars."

Um, Fred, I don't want to burst your bubble, but have you noticed that Toyota has built a new plant in San Antonio, TX? Want to know what that plant makes?

Tundra FULL SIZED pickup trucks.

Want to know the EPA numbers on a Tundra?

2007 Toyota Tundra 2WD Standard Cab 5.7L V8, w/automatic: 16 city/20 highway.

Oh, and for a similar sized AMERICAN truck:

2007 Chevrolet Silverado 2WD Standard Cab 5.3L V8 w/automatic: 16 city/20 highway.

How about the numbers on the Toyota Sequoia, a 4WD SUV?

2007 Toyota Sequoia 4WD 4.7L V8, w/automatic: 15 city/18 highway.

And the numbers for an AMERICAN made SUV of the same size and class?

2007 Chevrolet Suburban 4WD 5.3L V8, w/automatic: 15 city/20 highway.
(Actually, the Suburban is BIGGER than the Sequoia.)

And have you noticed Nissan (a Japanese automaker) builds the Armada SUV and the Titan full size pick-up? Or a Mercedes-Benz GL class SUV that gets 15/19 MPG? Even Volkswagon the builder of Herbie the Love Bug, builds the Touareg, the V8 model struggling to get 12/17 MPG.

Oh, and by the way Fred:

Toyota HAS joined The Big Three (well, big two and a half, I mean, it IS Chrysler, after all) in fighting a delaying action against higher fuel economy standards. From Autopia:

Toyota has fought hard to fit in to America. Over the decades it has suffered periodic backlashes from pro-union supporters and "buy-American" patriots alike. And now that it sells more cars in American than any of the Big Three, the company is especially conscious of its outsider status. This partly explains why Toyota decided to join Detroit's automakers in fighting the new proposed CAFE standard. But there's another reason as well: like GM, Ford and Chrysler, Toyota has come to depend on sales of SUVs and trucks to plump up profits. In this sense, the company's motives are as American as apple pie. "It's deeply disappointing that Toyota has joined in the lie-and-threaten game," says Dan Becker, director of the Sierra Club's global-warming program. The comment may presage an entirely new kind of backlash awaiting the Japanese automaker.

Hmmmmm, guess Toyota's an American company after all.

[mmack]

Ursula,

IMO, there are three things that are going to determine the quality and longevity of any automobile:

1) The engineering process. Did the designers use proven, off the shelf components (engine, transmission, suspension components, etc.), or does this vehicle contain new drivetrain components as well as a new body (Automakers keep proven engines and transmissions in production for years due to the cost of tooling up new ones)? Is it a new body on an proven platform (Automakers often keep the same basic floorpan or chassis in production for years, bolting or welding new body panels to it), or is it a brand new platform from the ground up? Did the engineering staff cut corners on the design by using cheaper parts or materials or did they spend the money to make it the best design they could.

2) The manufacturing process. Did anybody miss anything (nuts, bolts, screws) as it rolled down the line. (As we used to say when I worked in the auto business 'Is she a Monday or Friday car?')

3) The person who owned it. Did the person maintain the vehicle to the best of their ability? Did the vehicle get regular oil changes, transmission fluid changes, coolant changes, tune-ups, etc? Were the belts, hoses, and timing belts changed when they were supposed to? Were the tires rotated and brake jobs done?

Or did the person just beat the sh*t out of the car and sell it before it cost them money?

Problems in 1) or 2) are going to mean no matter how diligent the owner was, the car will fall apart. Problems with 3) mean no matter how well the car was built, it will still fall apart or cost a ton of money to fix. That holds true for Honda and Toyota too.

Remember, no one sells a used car because it runs too good.

The best resource I've found on the web are the comments sections at edmunds.com and kbb.com (Kelly Blue Book). People who actually own the car shown on the page post their and can be brutally honest. Read through and look for posts about reoccuring problems. Edmunds and Kelly will tell you if the year of car you're looking at is a brand new design, or if it's a carry over from a previous year.

[Jeff]

I had my Civic for 10 years. When I needed to get a new car, I looked at the Prius and Civic Hybrid, which were the only hybrids available (and remain the cheapest hybrids). My old Civic was built in Canada; I believe my new one was built in the US. "American" car lost all meaning when the Big Three started buying cars built in Mexico and China, and the "foreign" companies opened plants here ("Gung Ho" was released 20 years ago!).

[Tabigarasu]

mmack: You've proved Toyota knows the American market. Americans want big heavy inefficient trucks to assuage the fact that they feel some stupid inferiority complex about their penises. Toyota caters to that need. So what?

Toyota also makes the Prius, the only hybrid on the market with anything even approaching a track record for reliability and aging well. I'm not going to bother looking up the stats on the Prius's mileage (either in the test lab or as reported by owners) but it sure as hell beats the pants off any car Ford has.

Unlike the Detroit big 3, Toyota is able to both provide high-efficiency low-emissions vehicles for the Birkenstock wearing neo-hippies what want it AND gas guzzling, ::ahem:: ego stroking behemoths for the spur wearing cowboys who want it. That's far smarter marketing than "Built Ford tough."

[twig]

Watch 'Who Killed the Electric Car?'

They're all bastards.

[Richard Hershberger]

I had never thought about this before, but the phenomenon Fred describes is a bit like what I call the Republican Defense.

In the Republican Defense, some Republican is implicated in some scandal, and he explains that he had no evil intend, but rather was too incompetent to avoid the scandal.

This defense goes back to Iran-Contra. There were various high level meetings where various illegal acts were approved, and where the records showed that Reagan was present. Reagan's defense was that he didn't remember anything about those meetings. The thing is, the idea of Reagan sitting through a meeting with no awareness of what was occurring was pretty darned plausible. What was new was that the public didn't hold it against him. Back in the day, Americans expected their leaders to be competent. The President wasn't supposed to play the role of the benevolent great-uncle propped up in a chair next to the fireplace at family gatherings. The President was supposed to be leading the free world. But Reagan was so gosh-darned avuncular that he got a free pass. Republican politicians have been using this one ever since, with Gonzo's protestations of incompetence being the most recent example.

What Fred describes from the auto makers is similar. But unfortunately for Detroit, Americans take automobile purchases seriously. We can only hope that we have learned to vote as seriously.

[Ursula L]

Mmack,

That's pretty much what I did, plus going through the Consumer Reports reliability info (from info in an annual survey of members.)

Anecdotally, it worked out pretty well, I'm having good luck with my Toyota Echo. As for prior use, it had belonged to an elderly woman, who drove very little (not much more than the grocery store once a week), and who eventually decided it was better not to drive at all. Well worth looking out for, as far as finding reliable used cars goes. (Less than 20,000 miles on a four year old car.) Which pretty much took care of your third issue.

But I looked hardest at the longest-term reliability statistics, versus one to two years, and I looked at old Consumer Reports records, to see how the five year rating was as of a few years ago (to be able to project a bit farther back), and I looked overall, to see if the manufacturers tended to have generally good or poor reliablity ratings, and whether they were good across the board, or good for the expensive cars but not so good in the less expensive. Generally trying to get a sense of whether the engeneers took geting reliablity right as a serious issue. Figuring out if the corporate culture is about making reliable cars, versus cars that will have you needing to buy a new one from them a couple of years later. Not as perfect as watching it go down the manufacturing line myself, of course, but about as good as I figure I can get from books.

[Bugmaster]

Yes, the auto makers are bastards, and stupid bastards at that. But, the electric car still deserved to die, and, in fact, killed itself.

Unlike trains, cars need to carry all their energy with them when they get out the door in the morning. Thus, the more energy you can store inside the car, the more range it will have, and the more powerful its engine can be.

So far, the top two choices for energy storage are as follows:
1). Gasoline. Has a massive amount of energy per liter, which is good. But, it produces pollution, which is bad.
2). Batteries. These come in three varieties: lead-acid, which have crappy energy density but are cheap and safe, NiMH, which are a bit more expensive but a bit better, and lithium-based, which have a relatively high energy density but are expensive and tend to catch fire. None of the batteries are as good as gasoline at storing energy.

There are other technologies out there, such as fuel cells and capacitors, but none of them are ready for production even now (not to mention at the time the electric car was designed).

So, gasoline is great at storing energy. Batteries are lousy at it. If you build a car based on batteries, your car will suck.

One problem with gasoline is that the internal combustion engine has a flaw: it can operate very efficiently at a specific range of RPM, but it loses efficiency rapidly outside of this range. To make matters worse, the power of the engine drops at low speeds, which is the opposite of what you want (this is why your car has a transmission with a "low" gear).

Hybrid cars are great because they can utilize gasoline for energy storage, but use electrical power for propulsion, thus combining the best of both worlds: efficient energy storage and efficient propulsion. They are the way to go in the near future; certainly, there are still a lot of improvements to be made (f.ex., why does the Prius have a transmission at all ?), of course. Eventually, fuel cells and other storage technologies may replace gasoline, but, for now, we're still stuck with it.

[Buhallin]

Definitely an amusing irony, but I don't believe the general American public pays enough attention to either big business or politics to make the connection. We think American cars suck because a great many of us have had bad Fords, Chevies, and Chryslers that broke down, or know friends who did, or heard about this friend of my sister's roommate who once had a Pinto explode. It's important to remember the number quoted too.. It's not 42% who think that American cars are lower quality, it's 42% who would NEVER EVEN CONSIDER BUYING ONE.

Perceptions this widespread - to be part of a national consciousness, approaching urban legend status - goes WAY beyond anything political.

[mmack]

Unlike the Detroit big 3, Toyota is able to both provide high-efficiency low-emissions vehicles for the Birkenstock wearing neo-hippies what want it AND gas guzzling, ::ahem:: ego stroking behemoths for the spur wearing cowboys who want it. That's far smarter marketing than "Built Ford tough."

Tabigarasu, how does that Toyota Kool-Aid you're drinking taste? BTW, for "Built Toyota Tough", here's the recall stats on the Paragon of Automotive Virtue, the Prius:

- In July 2006 Toyota issued a recall totaling 34,700 units covering early model Prius and Echo cars (26,200 Echo and 8,500 Prius). This recall was not related to hybrid components of the car. The connector for the crankshaft position sensor may become disconnected.

- In May 2006, Toyota announced the recall of up to 170,856 Prius vehicles because of a crack which can develop in the steering shaft if the Prius is frequently steered at full lock, or if the front tires strike the curb. The fault can affect Priuses made in 2004 through to November 2005.

- On June 1, 2005, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration of the US started an investigation on the 33 reported cases of engine stalling when the Prius travels at highway speed. The cars were still operable under battery power for a short distance with substantial loss of power when the internal combustion engine failed to run. Toyota believes it was due to a computer programming error that was fixed in a recall (SSC-40D) issued back in September, 2004. The investigation needs to verify if all the valid reported cases occurred to cars that did not receive the software fix.

- In August 2004, Toyota began a Special Service Campaign (SSC 40G), affecting most previous-generation Prius cars manufactured between 2001 and mid-2003. This repair involves re-sealing terminals on the high-voltage battery to avoid minor electrolyte leakage. Repairs will be performed free of charge on affected automobiles.

Oh, and speaking about those "Toyota Tough" trucks, try googling "Toyota Tundra Recall":

"DETROIT, May 29 (Reuters) - A glitch in Toyota Motor Corp.'s Tundra pickup truck has caused 20 engine failures and forced it to track down other trucks at risk for the problem, the Japanese automaker said on Tuesday.

Toyota said a flaw in the camshaft in a limited number of 5.7-liter, V-8 engines installed in early versions of the Tundra has caused the engine component to crack and fail.

Toyota has billed the Tundra as its most important product launch ever. Its engine problems comes as Toyota faces pressure to maintain its reputation for quality in the face of a stretch of fast growth that has made it the world's largest automaker.

Toyota said it has determined that a flaw in the casting of a still-undetermined number of Tundra camshafts -- made for Toyota's Alabama engine plant by an outside supplier -- prompted the engine failures.

"The supplier has made changes, and we think the problem is solved," Toyota spokesman John McCandless said. Toyota declined to identify the component supplier.

In cases in which a Tundra camshaft fails, Toyota is replacing the truck engine at no charge, representatives said."

And this:

"More recall woes for Toyota. The company's Tundra pickup may have its second recall in two years, pending the results of an NHTSA investigation into more suspension part failures.

In 2005, Toyota recalled 775,000 Tundra and Tacoma pickups, and the Sequoia and 4Runner SUVs because of ball joint problems that could lead to suspension failure. The current investigation is taking a new look at continued complaints of suspension problems with 2003 and 2004 Tundras.

The NHTSA has 142 incidents of ball joint failure on file, with two-thirds of the failures occuring on four-wheel drive models."

Hmmmm, sounds like some cracks have appeared in that "Teflon Kimono" Toyota has.

And before I go on, I'm not excusing GM, Ford, or Chrysler (Especially not Chrysler, but that's because I owned two lemons they built) for the genuine crap cars that they've rolled off their assembly lines, starting in the early 1970's with such gems as the Pinto\Bobcat, Vega (Give GM credit, the Vega was the first green car. It recycled itself into a pile of rust within two to three years of purchase), Volare, Granada\Monarch, GM's X-Cars (Citation, Phoenix, Omega), etc. And yes, the rush to gas-guzzling SUV's by people who don't need them (when a mini-van or mid-size sedan would be more fuel and space efficient) is very depressing, since it seems we in the US have had collective amnesia about what happened in 1973 and 1979 (Arab Oil Embargo and Gas Lines? Anyone, Bueller, Anyone?)

But I call shennanegans on the press giving Toyota a free ride. They build the same types of big gas-guzzling SUV's and pickup trucks the domestic manufacturers do and because they build the Prius they're "greener" than GM, Ford, and Chrysler. The Prius is their Corvette: an image car. But they're making more money selling SUV's, pickups, and V6 Camry's than they'll ever make selling hybrids. And the last time I checked a central goal of business was to make a profit.

Want to know Toyota's best corporate CAFE score?

26 MPG

Want to know when they scored it?

1983

I worked as a mechanic to put myself through college. Any machine can break, even a Toyota or a Honda. Granted, in general their engineering is better than the domestics. But they outsource subassemblies too, and they're not perfect. No machine made by man is.

[hapax]

FWIW, I tried very hard to convince myself to purchase a Prius. But I compared the mileage with the regular Civic, for the kind of driving I do -- and the Civic got better mileage.

Besides, I really hated that bar in the rear window.

I am, however, one of the many USians who never even considered a Detroit-based company. My mother's family, who never bought anything other than GM, would disown me if they knew.

[Jim]

Great post, Fred. However, I have to disappoint you: your Ohio-built Civic was not UAW-built. The autoworkers' union tried and failed to organize at Marysville and East Liberty. To date the only foreign-owned auto plant the UAW has managed to organize is a VW plant in Pennsylvania. (Joint-ventures between US and foreign original equipment manufacturers are union, but AFAIK none of them make Civics.)

When the US automakers say they cannot make small cars, what they mean is they cannot make small cars profitably, their margins are much higher on SUVs and pickups, which are not (yet) subject to CAFE. And, let me add, their lobbyists are fighting tooth-and-nail so that they will continue to be exempt.

[85% Duane]

I've never driven anything other than an American-branded vehicle, so I don't know about all this psychic foreign goodness I'm missing out on.

For me, a car is just a means to an end.

I toyed with the idea of picking up a Toyota Yaris last year just to have around for when gas got really expensive but I pushed off the buying decision long enough to lose interest in having a shiny new thing. If gas gets too expensive, I'll just stay home.

Fred, I understand you have bad memories of American cars breaking down but looking at your list, I wonder if some of that might be that because of the particular budget models you owned, you didn't really care too much about them and maybe didn't put in as much TLC as you should have? And the Honda Civic was a little better class of car, little more trendy and a bit more expensive so you've taken better care of it? I dunno, not judging, just thinking out loud.

[Scorpio]

I'm sorry, but my last Ford tried to kill me -- and it was a flaw in their design that was causing the problem -- I even talked to someone in engineering when it happened. If your Ford has the odometer within the speedometer, it will take 3 days sitting in a shop and hundreds of dollars to get a fix if feedback between the speedometer and the engine fails and makes your car do nothing when you step on the accelerator. This is a Bad Thing when you are on the highway -- potentially fatal.

I fixed it by getting a Jeep.

[Queequeg]

KnightHawk, are you serious when you say that you were unaware that American cars have a bad rep compared to foreign cars? I'm flabbergasted.

Have you heard the news that vegetables are good for you, or has that one passed you by, too?

[Jeff]

Toyota also makes the Prius, the only hybrid on the market with anything even approaching a track record for reliability and aging well.

A wonderful bit of advertising on Toyota's part. The Prius is the hybrid for people who want to say "Look at me -- I'm driving a hybrid!" Meanwhile, my Civic gets the same mpg. It's not as flashy -- it looks like a regular Civic -- but it saves me boatloads at the pump. And the Civic came out a year before the Prius, plus Honda had at least two years experience with the Insight.

FWIW, I tried very hard to convince myself to purchase a Prius. But I compared the mileage with the regular Civic, for the kind of driving I do -- and the Civic got better mileage.

Plus it had that stupid shifter on the dash, with a special gear for effiecent braking. And a hole in the console if you didn't want their several-thousand-dollar gosh-wow display. My Civic has a BUTTON (that stays engaged) that does the same as their stupid shift slot. Blech.

================================

So, gasoline is great at storing energy. Batteries are lousy at it. If you build a car based on batteries, your car will suck.

This is, of course, bullshit. The electric cars were very popular. When GM bought up their remaining stock, people were clamoring to buy them at ridiculous prices. Instead, GM crushed them to bits.

[mmack]

BTW Fred,

Dodge Colt: Captive import built by Mitsubishi, rebadged and retailed by Chrysler as a Dodge.

[Jon H]

"But they're making more money selling SUV's, pickups, and V6 Camry's than they'll ever make selling hybrids. And the last time I checked a central goal of business was to make a profit."

The thing is, Toyota is serving a market desire for more efficient vehicles.

Ford, Chrysler, and GM don't even take the idea seriously, which is why they do such a horrible job at serving that market.

The American car companies are run by muscle car buffs who are all about image and status cars. The Japanese companies are run by engineers, who can see the value in developing little dancing robots, not just giant SUVs and sports cars. If you challenged an American auto executive to have the company design a dancing robot, the first question out of his mouth would be "Can it have a Hemi?"

[Jeff]

Sticking this in the most current thread...

Remember when Fred told us about the man arrested for feeding the homeless? According to Crooks and Liars, he's been found not guilty.

Thought you all would want to know!

[mmack]

The thing is, Toyota is serving a market desire for more efficient vehicles.

2006 Calendar Year Camry registrations: 448,445 units
2006 Calendar Year Prius registrations: 48,156 units

Japanese companies are run by engineers, who can see the value in developing little dancing robots, not just giant SUVs and sports cars.

Will those little dancing ASIMO robots help Honda's Pilot SUV (Yep, same company), get better than a 15 City/20 Highway EPA MPG rating, or trim some weight off of that 4524 lbs curb weight?

[Jon H]

"Will those little dancing ASIMO robots help Honda's Pilot SUV (Yep, same company), get better than a 15 City/20 Highway EPA MPG rating, or trim some weight off of that 4524 lbs curb weight?"

It just might have new technology that is useful in the cars. Power management, for one thing.

The Pilot was probably a bad marketing-driven decision, a case of someone at Honda trying to serve the supposed American interest. Maybe a hire from Detroit made that decision.

The point is, Honda and Toyota are making the effort, sincerely. Honda didn't drop the Pilot on the market as a lame token gesture towards fuel efficiency, the way Ford did with their Escape. Honda has other hybrid cars on the market.

Like it or not, the American manufacturers are stodgy, slow-moving, defensive companies who have to be dragged kicking and screaming into doing anything new. Their response to calls for fuel efficiency has long been to mock the very idea or to denounce strawman 'econoboxes'. They'd rather milk 1985 (or older) technology into the next century.

That's not the case with Honda and Toyota. They haven't shifted their entire product lines to hybrids, but that would be stupid. They're serious about hybrids and have been serious for a decade, doing the research and development that the Big Three can't or won't do.

Meanwhile the US companies have spent more effort lobbying Congress to avoid having to do any work, and calling for hydrogen cars that only give them another decade or three to slack off.

[Jon H]

mmack, I think your number for 2006 Prius registrations is significantly low.

Nationwide hybrid registrations for 2006 were 254,545, with the Prius being 42.8% of that (108,945).

Ah, edmunds. The 48,156 number is for just the first six months. By comparison, Ford sold 10,190 Escapes in that time period, and Mercury sold 1,461.

The Camry number you provide is for the full year. Seems to me, 108,945 Priuses is a pretty good full-year number compared to the Camry number, considering the supposedly onerous price premium of the hybrid.

(Nobody ever notes that the fat profit margins on the SUVs the Big 3 like to sell mean that those vehicles carry a significant price premium, and could be cheaper. At least with the hybrid you're paying extra for new technology, not overpriced old technology.)

[Brian J.]

Bugmaster, there's one big problem with gasoline cars that you exclude- it is FAR more energy-inefficient to generate power from millions of individual internal combustion engines than to generate the same amount of power from one power plant (coal, nuclear, natural gas, hydro, whatever). And, of course, it takes a lot of electricity to refine gasoline from crude oil. All that inefficiency is an externality that doesn't show up on the price of a gas-powered car. It's a false profit, basically, that we pay for with more CO2 emissions and pollution.

As for Toyota, MMack, they're sponsoring that measure in Congress just to make damn sure no one in Detroit ever does grow a brain.

The future is going to look like those Mazda commercials that aired earlier this year. The big three will be Nissan, Toyota, and Honda. The American auto manufacturer will be as extinct as the American toymaker, the American family farmer, the American textile mill, the American TV maker...

[Alexis]

I was pretty disappointed to hear that Toyota was lobbying against CAFE, though from a business standpoint it's not at all surprising. One interesting suggestion I saw is that they are doing it in part to hamper their American competitors, knowing they won't increase their CAFE numbers unless they have to. But I think it's more likely mostly self-interest. Still, I was sad to hear that Toyota would rather make their profits off the Tundra, etc than figure out how to make decent profit off their greener cars.

[--susan]

KnightHawk, are you serious when you say that you were unaware that American cars have a bad rep compared to foreign cars? I'm flabbergasted.

Maybe KnightHawk grew up in a family like mine, who revere American manufacturing and have lingering resentment/prejudice against buying "unreliable" British cars, "overpriced overhyped and besides there's the Nazi thing" German cars, "flashy" Italian cars, or suspiciously cheap "rice-burners or Jap Crap" from Asia.

[--susan]

Ack! Closing tag, sorry.

[mmack]

(Nobody ever notes that the fat profit margins on the SUVs the Big 3 like to sell mean that those vehicles carry a significant price premium, and could be cheaper. At least with the hybrid you're paying extra for new technology, not overpriced old technology.)

John H, did you ever consider the Japanese automakers build SUV's for the exact same reason?

Hmmm, now just why did Toyota decide out of the blue to build the Tundra, Sequoia SUV, and 4Runner? 4WD (Around since 1903), full ladder frame (around since the days of the Model T [circa 1908]), V8 engine (since 1915), body on frame construction (again, around since the days of the Model T).

Well, maybe it's because the Tundra and Seqouia share the same mechanicals (frame, drivetrain, suspension) the cost of which can be amortized over a larger number of vehicles. And it's cheaper for an auto company to stamp out new sheet metal than tool up frames and powertrains. Gee, just like our dumb American automakers who hang on to old technology and outdated business concepts.

The Camry number you provide is for the full year. Seems to me, 108,945 Priuses is a pretty good full-year number compared to the Camry number, considering the supposedly onerous price premium of the hybrid.

Yep, pretty nice sales indeed. Now let's take a look at April, 2007:

Following is a breakdown of April 2007 monthly sales by International nameplate:

Toyota

Combined Toyota Motor Sales, U.S.A., Inc., for April reached 210,457 units, a decline of 4.3 percent over last April. Year-to-date, however, the automaker is up 6.7 percent.

Toyota division sales in April dropped 5.5 percent over the same month last year on sales of 184,462 units. Passenger cars for the Toyota division dropped 9.1 percent over April 2006 on sales of 104,239 units. Camry, which posted April sales of 37,911 units, was the volume leader for the brand. Sales of Camry Hybrids reached 4,410 units in April. Corolla sales reached 32,289 units for the month. Prius hybrid sales posted best-ever April sales of 13,056 units, up 58.6 percent over April 2006. Yaris subcompact also had best-ever April sales of 7,232 units, a rise of 13.1 percent. Despite rising gas prices, Toyota light trucks remained relatively on par with last April numbers, off just 0.5 percent for a total of 80,223 units. Tundra posted best-ever April sales of 14,200 units, an increase of 60.7 percent over last April. Light truck sales were led by the RAV4 compact SUV, which reported sales of 14,495 units, up 4.6 percent. Highlander and Highlander Hybrid posted combined April sales of 10,122 units.

Good thing those 13K Prius sales offset those 14K in big dumb old technology Tundra sales. Note also how close Toyota's truck sales are to their car sales.

The future is going to look like those Mazda commercials that aired earlier this year. The big three will be Nissan, Toyota, and Honda. The American auto manufacturer will be as extinct as the American toymaker, the American family farmer, the American textile mill, the American TV maker....

So then somebody tell me, before I drink the "All foreign automakers are perfect and never make any mistakes" Kool-Aid, what are we supposed to do when we don't manufacture anything of our own in the US anymore? Do we just go around and sell houses to each other?

OK, bad example.

I suppose we can be like the Brits and let the Japanese and Germans buy out our native automakers and be content to build cars that they design in non-union plants and remember a time when we used to have an auto industry.

I was going to mention to Google the Chevrolet Volt, but it's late and does anybody know where I can get that Kool-Aid?

P.S. For those of you who revel in Japanese engineering prowess, you do know Toyota's going big time into NASCAR racing, right? That would be the racing series with pushrod V8's and carburetors and rear wheel drive. NASCAR just decided this year to use UNLEADED gasoline.

[Michele]

Can I turn off the italics?? yes?

[Michele]

Oh, mmack beat me to it - ah well.

[Bugmaster]

@BrianJ:

You are absolutely right about efficiency. However, efficiency doesn't matter if you can't get the energy to where it's needed. So, even if you do generate all your power at a single power plant, that power is useless for cars if you're using batteries to transport it, because you can only transport a very small amount. So, your cars will have weak engines and short ranges.

Note that, in many cases, this is ok. Golf carts have been using batteries for a long time now, and they work perfectly. As NiMH batteries become cheaper, it will become feasible to release smaller cars for short-range city driving - kind of like the Smart car, only electric. In fact, there are several companies working on such designs right now.

However, battery storage will never become anything more than a niche solution. Batteries are simply not a very good storage device, regardless of how efficient the electric engines might be.

[Ecks]

Going to the health care tie in, there's a reason Windsor has a big auto industry. Guys in Detroit are realizing that if they pop their plant on the other side of the border they may have to pay slightly higher taxes for their workers, but those higher taxes cover health care, and this costs a whole butload less than American tax + private health insurance.

Oh wait, sorry, I forgot, everything the government does is inefficient. Oh how much money we Canadians would save by privatizing our health care...

Ideology: blinding people to the obvious since 1728.

[djustn]

I'm new here and I would hate to earn the reputation as a "free-marketeer" but when it comes to automobiles that invisible hand on the gearshift has proven (for the most part) more powerful than any lobbyist. When people collectively decide "hey, maybe I don't want to die as a result of a minor fenderbender," seatbelts and airbags get sold (and we're told that it's because they care about our safety). When people decide that "maybe we DON'T want our cars to rot out after five years," the sheet metal seams get reversed.
I would love for there to be newly mandated CAFE standards, but the immediacy of climate change has yet to grab our national attention in the same way that a face through a windshield does. And while there are many problems with the Prius, Civic etc. until we start proving that those are the cars we want to buy we won't get them. Hersey's makes chocolate bars not carrots for a reason.

[djustn]

Incidentally, here in Portland I saw a Prius with an honest-to-God "W" sticker on it. So either irony is reaching it's tipping point or we're making inroad.

[MikeJ]

When people collectively decide "hey, maybe I don't want to die as a result of a minor fenderbender," seatbelts and airbags get sold

Huh? I don't understand your argument. The free amrket had nothing to do with seat belts or airbags. It was government intervention.

I personally think seat belts should be illegal. Mandate a big metal spike in the middle of the steering wheel. After six months there will be no reckless driving.

As to the CAFE standards, we both agree, they should be raised. And the standard should be raised for the reason you argue they shouldn't: because not enough people pay attention to mileage. Raise the standard, it won't matter if people pay attention to mileage or not, they'll still wind up with a more efficient car.

[damnedyankee]

If there's a foreign model equivalent to the joke acronym for FORD ("Found On Road, Dead"), I'm not aware of it.

Detroit shouldn't be complaining about the hole they're in now, cuz they done dug it themselves.

[wintermute]

If there's a foreign model equivalent to the joke acronym for FORD ("Found On Road, Dead"), I'm not aware of it.

Fiat: Fix It Again, Tony.
Acura: Asia's Curse Upon Rural America
BMW: Bring More Wrenches
Toyota: The One You Ought To Avoid

[MikhailBorg]

@MikeJ: I personally think seat belts should be illegal. Mandate a big metal spike in the middle of the steering wheel. After six months there will be no reckless driving.

I wasn't driving recklessly. A piece of debris in the road destroyed my tire, and I ended up in a hillside. (My friends have called the incident my "failed Buckaroo Banzai imitation".) So, without a seat belt, I'd be dead even though I wasn't driving dangerously at all.

And of course, the spike will be just as damaging if *I'm* being good but another idiot rear-ends me.

I'll pass on your idea, thanks.

[Jon H]

mmack wrote: "I was going to mention to Google the Chevrolet Volt, but it's late and does anybody know where I can get that Kool-Aid?"

I'll be surprised if the Volt ever reaches production.

[wintermute]

I personally think seat belts should be illegal. Mandate a big metal spike in the middle of the steering wheel. After six months there will be no reckless driving.

Just like there was none before the introduction of seatbelts, airbags, crumple zones and collapsible steering columns? If you're right that these technologies encourage dangerous driving, you'd be able to look at historical accident rates (rather than fatality rates) and see a massive increase whenever cars became safer, right? Why don't you let us know how that works out...

However, battery storage will never become anything more than a niche solution. Batteries are simply not a very good storage device, regardless of how efficient the electric engines might be.

20 years ago, no-one could build a battery that would power a mobile phone for more than 20 minutes that weighed less than a brick. The explosion in portable electronics led to technologies that made batteries an order of magnitude more efficient. Of course, it helps that modern phones use a fraction of the power of the earliest models, too. But the point is that "never" is a long time, and if there's a commercial incentive to invent new types of battery that are efficient enough to power cars, they could well appear sooner than you think. Not that I think you're wrong, just overly certain ;)

[twig]

This is, of course, bullshit. The electric cars were very popular. When GM bought up their remaining stock, people were clamoring to buy them at ridiculous prices. Instead, GM crushed them to bits.

Ayup, and foisted on us the impossible dream of hydrogen-cells and hybrids because, oh crap, forgot to mention that electric cars needed no oil changes, along with about half or more of the stuff that makes dealerships money.

I'm also from Michigan, so GM sank my state along with their profits. Fuck 'em.

[Chuck]

Brian J.: The American auto manufacturer will be as extinct as the American toymaker, the American family farmer, the American textile mill, the American TV maker...

Well, the American toy designer (and specifically, game designer) is certainly alive and healthy. And the American family farmer might be endangered, but they're definitely not extinct--I went horseback riding with one of them just this past weekend.

I'm impressively cyncical, don't get me wrong, but you serious push the envelope, dude.

[mmack]

One issue with an all-electric car is that the batteries have to do more than just provide motive power. If you want your car to have lights, a radio or CD\MP3 player to sing along with as you drive, air conditioning for the summer, heat for the winter (on an internal combustion engine powered vehicle the heat is provided by running the heated engine coolant through a heater core where a fan behind it blows the heat out), a defroster for the windows, and even the onboard computer to control the operation of the motor, all of those things draw electric current from the batteries. Regenerative braking returns some kinetic energy as electricity to the batteries, but there's still the issue of the batteries providing ALL the energy in the car, motive power and otherwise. And those accessories can be power robbing, either on an internal combustion engine or an electric motor. Rob power from any system and you decrease its range.

The issue facing all auto manufacturers, domestic and foreign, is which technology do we choose going forward? Hybrids, electric, fuel cells, flex-fuel? Guess the most profitable technology and you'll have a license to print money. Guess wrong and you'll make the Edsel look like an incredibly well marketed product.

DamnedYankee, you are absolutely right about Detroit. They are reaping what they sowed in the 1970's and 1980's. Now they're facing a second generation of car buyers who had parents that never owned or drove a domestic vehicle. Do you think they'll just bop on down and buy a Chevrolet or Ford?

Ecks, our 2006 Impala came from a Canadian auto plant. Outside of the door-ajar chime playing "O Canada", you'd never know it wasn't built in the US. :^)

And Ursula, may you have many happy, trouble free miles with your Echo.