[Muck]

Originally Posted by Gatorubet

I suppose your idea - going with the larger profit on increased buggy whip sales - is a good idea too.

You certainly are the king of bad analogies.

Muck - you do know that the industry has opposed and obstructed CAFE standards for almost two decades.

Gator you do know that I don't care? CAFE isn't the problem.

Groups like the Heritage Foundation (and Rush this morning) insist that freedom to buy any vehicle the market wants is essential to the system.

Those evil bastards. Freedom of choice?! Perish the thought.

So I have to ask you, are you opposed to higher CAFE reqs,

Higher CAFE and an additional 2k or so road fatalities a year? Oh what a plethora of choices.

and do you think that we would be in the same fix as now if we had been developing more fuel efficient vehicles the last decade or two?

Of course we would. There are vehicles out there that are more fuel efficient and there have been for the past twenty years. They don't sell as well and changing the CAFE would not have affected that greatly. That extra 5-10% wasn't going to make things radically different.

The only thing that would radically change the public buying patterns is higher fuel prices making larger options less attractive.

I grant you people did not want what high CAFE standards would require as much as they wanted the freaking SUVs - like the one I just bought.

You should probably make it so those people cannot buy SUVs...in their best interest of course.

But here we are talking about something that is more important than consumer preference. I mean, the market would want land yachts that got 7 mpg. Assuming that is what the market wants, you cannot reconcile the need for less dependence on foreign oil with the market forces wanting less efficient vehicles. And in this case, it was the failure of the auto makers to take the long term medicine that was at fault. Had they been in a slimming mode for two decades they may have been better able to compete than now - when their inventory went up a zillion % in response to the high gas prices. Hell, when I bought my used Expedition they were offering 10K off on new Sequoias and about that on the King Ranch Expeditions. Crazy amount of inventory. Local dealers were not taking suvs as trade ins. That could have been avoided with a better product line, albeit forced upon us by the CAFE req.

Bull. Have you checked out Toyota & Honda's sales figures over the past few months? They're not selling like hot cakes either.

Yes the Big 3 made choices that are hurting them somewhat at the moment but they are STILL selling more vehicles than those Japanese/European competitors you believe they should emulate product wise. Furthermore those vehicle they ARE selling (at a higher rate) are still producing a higher profit margin.

The Big 3's problem isn't profit, their main issue is costs and that doesn't have a damn thing to do with evil SUVs.

And - yeah - we need better quality.

Really?

Even though Buick, Cadillac, Chevy, Ford, GMC, Mercury, Pontiac & Lincoln all score higher on JD Powers' quality studies than Acura, Audi, BMW, Honda, Nissan, Scion & Volkswagen?

I researched the Ford product for some time, and it has been getting better.

Actually Ford's quality has dropped somewhat since the late 90's (feel free to thank Bill Ford).