Speedzzter

Foreign Carmakers More Domestic than Detroit's Big Three

I agree that this article is very misleading. The Detroit 3 clearly provide more American value-added content (i.e. design, engineering, testing, management, marketing, manufacturing, parts and components) than any of the "invaders." Unfortunately, the "domestic content" labels are too narrow to reflect this.

But with respect to the narrow measure of assembly, Ford is poised to assume the honor of building more vehicles in America than anyone else (and but for the arcane and obsolete "two fleets" CAFE rule, undoubtedly even more vehicles would have been built here).

"Ford . . . will rank first in 2009 with 1.9 million units, according to data from forecasting group IHS Global Insight, which released its North American light-vehicle production forecast this month."

"GM . . . is idling most of its plants over the next couple of months and will produce an estimated 1.7 million vehicles this year" which is good enough for second place.

What about predatory foreign invaders like Honda and Toyota? PLEASE! They'll still be behind Chrysler (which is in the midst of a total production shut-down during its bankruptcy) when the 2009 counting is done. And the domestic content of Honda and Toyota still lags far behind the Detroit 3.

"[A]mong the most popular U.S.-built cars and trucks, the models with the highest domestic content ratings come from Detroit automakers. Of the 35 most popular U.S.-built 2008 and 2009 models — based on sales through May 31, 2008 — 43 percent of GM, Ford and Chrysler contenders had domestic content ratings of 75 percent or higher. In comparison, just 25 percent of the Nissan, Honda, Hyundai and Toyota models on the list achieved that."

Ford is quietly emerging out of the Obamanomics chaos as the only true AMERICAN CHOICE.

Former GM Board Member: 'I Told You So'

With the global auto market depressed as it is and even the unreasonably venerated Japanese invader/predatory exporter auto companies slashing costs and begging their home government for bailout funds, it would seem that nearly every automaker is building "vehicles that no one wants to buy."

Certainly, GM's soulless, "appliance motorist" bean counters crushed most of what was left of GM during the past thirty years. But the lion's share of the blame rests squarely upon federal policies which bled the Detroit 3 to near-death from unfunded mandates and favoritism toward the predatory Japanese invasion of the U.S. light vehicle market.

Perot, York, and DeLorean were all clueless as to how to truly fix GM. Perot's massive ego gave us two terms of Clinton. York is a wantabee who has lost a truck-load of money for his employer. DeLorean couldn't even build a sports car or manage a simple drug deal, much less run a Fortune 5 corporation.