Comments on: American Auto Industry: Where were your Values?

By: Ernest Greene, Jr.

Ernest Greene, Jr. — Sat, 11 Apr 2009 16:53:27 +0000

When Henry Ford started his company, one of the first things he realized was that:
1. He needed to make the auto affordable so that a greater number of people could buy them.
2. He knew that he would have to put people to work at a decent wage.
There was not a great concern about stockholders and mergers, etc. That all came about when large shareholders became greedier…
When the Big Three began to compete for profit (for their major stockholders) they brought in automation, laid off most its workforce (a large part of its consumer base when you consider total participation), began to mismanage, blaming the unions (which accounted for 10-15% of vehicle cost) and proceeded to go down hill from there.
Has anyone besides me noticed that robots (automation) don’t purchase the products they make??
People do… Unless they are laid off and now have no or low income. Which is why Toyota and others gained ground on the B-3. When or if they realize this and put people back to work at the aforementioned decent wage. Then they will regain their “glory”.

By: Tom

Tom — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 18:04:29 +0000

There are many reasons why a corporation decides to offer a specific product mix to the marketplace. Usually its a combination of greed, government regulation, labor, competition and the consumer. Its great to see young companies like Google taking a more value approach to the marketplace early on in its development. I don’t think Henry Ford thought about a value approach to setting up the Ford Motor Co. product mix when he started out. Quick change will only come to capital intensive manufacturing companies like the auto industry through economic melt downs like we are going through today. Even then it won’t happen unless the government and the consumer demand a new product mix. If not they will continue to milk the cash cow that will provide them the highest share price.

By: Ankur

Ankur — Sun, 30 Nov 2008 15:43:58 +0000

GM had been in the process of making a number of green changes which themselves couldn’t have been cheap. They’ve been touting their attempt to move to fuel cells for several years, starting with fuel cell busses already estabished in some markets on the west coast. They were spearheading the cross-over market and then there was the very non-profitable Chevy Volt. This may all have been greenwashing while they offered thousands of dollars worth of cash-back incentives for their biggest SUVs, but at least they were diversifying.

By: David

David — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 17:29:25 +0000

I don’t disagree but for an old line well established company like Ford, moving from their traditional profit focused approach to non traditional values approach has to be a daunting challenge. Are there any well established companies who have done this ?