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Backseat driver: GM's slide from top long expected

So GM has lost the top spot to Toyota, which sold 2.35 million cars and trucks worldwide in the first quarter; that was about 109,000 more than GM.
It was a long time coming, but was there any doubt it was coming?
Hell's bells, the late David Halberstam pretty much predicted it in his book 'The Reckoning,' which was published in 1986.
For decades, Detroit's Big Three - GM, Ford and Chrysler - have been blinded by short term sales and profits and have ignored the bigger forces at work. While the rest of the world pays astonomical prices for gasoline - $7 a gallon in Europe, for example - Americans pay next to nothing thanks in large part to the anti-gasoline tax lobby promulgated by the Big Three.
And while the Big Three kept on ignoring those signs, it opened the door for Asian manufacturers to start nibbling at the lower end of the food chain. Sure the small, fuel efficient cars were less profitable but once oil prices lost their moorings with the first OPEC crisis of 1973, Americans starting turning to the smaller cars and have never looked back.
I can think of another company that became incredibly successful by building market share while flying under the radar (excuse the pun): Southwest Airlines. Birthed in the shadow of American Airlines and Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport, Southwest started operating as a puddle jumper from Dallas' Love Field Airport. Slowly it nibbled away until it is now one of the largest and most successful airlines in America.
How did it do it? Good management was one essential key, and the same applies to the Asian auto makers. If you're going to lead, know where you're going!
The management running the Big Three have proved themselves clueless time and time again. They tried every trick in the book including persuading Congress to implement import quotas against Japanese auto makers in 1981. They responded by moving up the food chain and building bigger and more expensive cars. And so it went on, with the Asian manufacturers gaining one segment after another and not giving it back.
Talk about being hoisted by your own petard.
In this sense, the recent introduction of Toyota's Tundra full-size pickup truck represents the final step to the top of the food chain just as its worldwide sales finally moved ahead of the heretofore iconic GM.

Posted by   at 12:52 PM to Auto industry , Companies , Sales | Permalink | Comments 0

Facing the prospect of $4 a gallon gasoline

The Associated Press’ report last week that $4 a gallon gas was on its way should send a shudder through every reader of TheCarConnection.com.
As thecarconnection.com's blog states: "While we’re not global-warming enthusiasts like some of our readers and colleagues, we do believe that using less gasoline helps lower prices and will one day disentangle us from dealings with medieval dictatorships in the Middle East, South America and western Africa. And frankly, the specter of $4 gas makes a $50 fill-up for our Prius a little frightening."

Posted by   at 12:24 PM to Gas prices | Permalink | Comments 0

Calif. to sue EPA for permission to regulate automobiles

California will sue the Environmental Protection Agency if it does not act soon on the state's request for permission to regulate automobile emissions, according to the Associated Press.
The state applied in 2005 for a waiver that would exempt California from the federal Clean Air Act, allowing it to more aggressively regulate greenhouse gases as air pollutants. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said he called EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson on Wednesday and told him that his agency was moving too slowly.

Posted by   at 12:10 PM to Environment | Permalink | Comments 0

Ford post smaller loss, auto division still struggling

Ford posted a first-quarter net loss of $282 million, a vast improvement over the $1.4 billion it lost in the first quarter of 2006, according to the Associated Press. It was the company's seventh consecutive quarter of losses, but the automaker said the smaller deficit reflected its restructuring efforts aimed at cutting costs in the face of fierce competition from Asian automakers.

AP said that despite the improvement, Ford is still having trouble in its core business in North America, where the company said it had a pretax loss on automotive operations of $614 million for the quarter, wider than the $442 million it lost in the first quarter of last year. Ford also posted a pretax loss in its Asia Pacific and Africa operations, but it made a pretax profit in Europe and South America, and in its financial services sector.

Posted by   at 12:07 PM to Companies | Permalink | Comments 0