It’s hard to see how Honda is making money on $20k Honda Accords. But when the same guts are used to make a $30k Oddyssey Minivan… they’re making money hand over fist on those. I suspect that that is Honda’s most profitable vehicle.

Ditto the Civic vs. CRV.

Nissan, Toyota, and Honda wouldn’t be pushing into the truck and SUV markets if they weren’t extremely profitable.

I puzzled over this for a while, then remembered going to Kansas City for the first time and being struck by the number of American cars on the road. To a West Coast boy, it looked like a return to the 1950’s. But that’s the Midwest. We see what we’re surrounded by — I see lots of Japanese cars, you see lots of American trucks.

Here are the top selling vehicles in the US in 2008:
Ford F-Series: 515,513 pickup
Chevy Silverado: 465,065 pickup
Toyota Camry: 436,617 midsize
Honda Accord: 372,789 midsize
Toyota Corolla: 351,007 compact
Honda Civic: 339,289 compact
Nissan Altima: 269,668 midsize
Chevy Impala: 265,840 midsize
Dodge Ram: 245,840 pickup
Honda CR-V: 197,279 compact

By manufacturer:
Honda 909,357
Toyota 787,624
GM 730,905
Ford 515,513
Nissan 269,668
Chrysler 245,840

So the Americans are making money on pickups, but the best selling Japanese vehicles are compact and midsize sedans. I see Toyota SUVs, but around here more compacts. I don’t know which are more profitable, you may be right about that but the Japanese are making and selling cars.

So I thought about best in class. My own experience driving them is todays GM cars are mediocre, but I Googled “cars best in class”. Consumer Reports listed 1 American car (a Chevy) of 21. Kiplinger listed 1 American car (a Caddy)of 11. JD Powers listed two American cars (Chevy & Pontiac) of 8. So GM is doing the best of American makers, but Detroit isn’t running away with the honors.

Actually,this makes me a bit sad. I grew up in a Chevrolet family, my parents owned nothing else. I learned to drive in a ‘55 Chevy convertible. I’d love to want to buy American, but nothing I see makes me optimistic. The last American car I owned was a ’70’s Plymouth van — when I realized I was spending more to keep it in the shop than car payments would be, I got my first Subaru. I drove it 10 years, then got my current 1999 Outback which I’ll probably keep another 5 years.

Wrong:

Chevy Malibu, Traverse, Cruze, Camaro

Cadillac CTS, STS, SRX

Pontiac G8

These cars are all best in class.

It’s not easy turning around the Queen Mary. Wagoner was doing it.

BTW, your myth about the Japanese building cars is just that, a myth. Toyota makes its money on trucks. Highlander, RX350, Rav-4, etc. It made an incredibly ill timed bet on the Tundra truck. We’ll see how that works out. But their ballance sheet isn’t great now either. Not GM bad, but maybe not even as good as Ford. I guess it will depend on if GM and Chrysler survive, and if not, where their customers go.

We’ll have to agree to disagree. When I rent a GM car, they’re poorly designed and built, the headrest pushes my head forward and down, the doors are flimsy. Not trash anymore, but hardly world class. A new Chevy isn’t as good as my 10 year old Subaru.

GM being “on the road to comeback” has been the song for almost as long as Wagoner has worked there (since the ’70’s.) During that time GM’s American market share has fallen from over 50% to below 20%. With the other US carmakers, GM spent its efforts on political lobbying against fuel efficiency and cheap tricks like labeling SUV’s working vehicles (for fuel regulations) and selling them as family cars. At the same time Toyota, Honda, Subaru put their efforts into building good cars. GM has been a dinosaur for decades. I’m not sure about the wisdom of rescuing it, but it showed no sign of anything but continuing decline.

If not for the financial crisis, I think GM was on the road to a strong comeback. Now that it is broken up, I don’t see any strategy that will bring GM back. Losing Opel pretty much kills any car development ability that they had.

GM is going to end up like Amtrak, subsidized for the rest of time, not providing a product that anyone really wants.

Anyway, Wagoner was purged for one reason and one reason only: he was against the bankruptcy. Had he been more ammenable, he’d still be there.

BTW, the financial straits of the news industry have nothing to do with their lap dog nature. Their political bias does. Journalism as a profession is a joke.

I hope everyone likes their Newsweek edited by Steven Colbert.

Fair enough. I agree that “Obama is taking a lot of risks. We’ll see how well they play out.” I’m hoping they do, both because I think he’s going in the right directions and for the good of the country. But risks by definition can go badly. As in poker, the aim is not to win the most hands but the most money — hopefully he’ll get the important ones right among the inevitable clunkers.

And yes, there’s been some “heavy handed treatment of managers in the banking and automotive industries” who ran their companies (and in the case of banks, the world economy)into the ditch. I’d say their treatment is both mild and deserved. I doubt that top auto execs are a significant voting bloc, execs in other industries that benefit from a stable and constructive government more than balance them out.

By the way, I’d agree that the media and comedians are playing softball and in the long run that’s not going to help anyone. But they’ve got their own problems — Newsweek just remodeled itself after the National Enquirer, Carlos Slim is bidding on the NY Times and my local paper (Oregonian) is barely thick enough to line the catbox. To our detriment, they can’t afford the reporters to ask a lot of questions.

Yet, I wonder how many of those automotive executives voted for Obama, or would approve of his actions now.

sm2, if you think that that’s incindiary commentry… you need some asbestos underwear. That’s some pretty mild stuff.

Michael, you see “competance”, I see a bullshit artist being covered by a media complex that doesn’t ask a lot of questions. Obama is taking a lot of risks. We’ll see how well they play out.

Okay, now that was incindiary.

First, all of these groups are American Citizens who want to see the country thrive. Obama is moving ahead decisively on several issues of the economy, the environment, international relations. To some extent his rise is boosted because he’s not a destructive embarrassment like W. I think people are seeing competence and are relieved.

We seem to be surviving the financial crisis, at least in the near term. If banks start lending again and credit loosens, business support will go even higher.

Straightening out health care and controlling expenses is a huge issue for small businesses & self-employed people. Obama is seriously addressing this and there’s hope of a rational system. I recently worked on a project with two health care agencies and they can’t wait for a standardized and linked electronic medical records system.

As for directly hurting people, put aside your obsession and give some examples that don’t involve taxes.