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Categories - Shopping - Free Online Business Help - Telecommunications Services - Copywriting Articles: Business - Car Industry Untruths For some reason, the media continues to portray untruthful information about our domestic carmakers. Why they are doing this is baffling when they know better, but, as David Rockefeller said, “If you tell people the same thing over and over gain, even if it’s not true, they will begin to believe it”. Repeated misrepresentations by the media have led to the same bad information being rewritten in blogs like a chant from a lynch mob saying “hang ‘em”, “hang ‘em”, “hang ‘em” over and over again with no one actually having seen the evidence or even willing to step outside of the mob to learn the truth. Now that our carmakers are suffering because of the economic disaster brought on by financial institutions here are a few of the untruths being used to turn the American population against their own and the related corrections:
Untruth: No one wants or buys their
vehicles. Truth: General Motors, Ford Motor Company, and Chrysler LLC sold 8.5 million vehicles in the United States last year and millions more around the world. GM outsold Toyota by about 1.2 million vehicles in the United States last year and holds a U.S. lead over Toyota of about 560,000 so far this year. GM in 2007 remained the world's largest automaker, selling 9,369,524 vehicles worldwide or about 3,000 more than Toyota. Ford outsold Honda by about 850,000 and Nissan by more than 1.3 million vehicles in the United States last year. Chrysler sold more vehicles here than Nissan and Hyundai combined in 2007 and so far this year.
Untruth: They build
unreliable cars. Truth: Consumer Reports recently found that "Ford's reliability is now on par with good Japanese automakers." The independent J.D. Power Initial Quality Study scored Buick, Cadillac, Chevrolet, Ford, GMC, Mercury, Pontiac and Lincoln brands' overall quality as high or higher than that of Acura, Audi, BMW, Honda, Nissan, Scion, Volkswagen and Volvo. Power rated the Chevrolet Malibu the highest-quality midsize sedan. Both the Malibu and Ford Fusion scored better than the Honda Accord and Toyota Camry.
Untruth: They build
gas-guzzlers. Truth: All of the Detroit Three build midsize sedans the Environmental Protection Agency rates at 29-33 miles per gallon on the highway. The most fuel-efficient Chevrolet Malibu gets 33 m.p.g. on the highway, 2 m.p.g. better than the best Honda Accord. The most fuel-efficient Ford Focus has the same highway fuel economy ratings as the most efficient Toyota Corolla. The most fuel-efficient Chevrolet Cobalt has the same city fuel economy and better highway fuel economy than the most efficient non-hybrid Honda Civic. A recent study by Edmunds.com found that the Chevrolet Aveo subcompact is the least expensive car to buy and operate. The most fuel-efficient full-size pickups from GM, Ford and Chrysler all have higher EPA fuel economy ratings than Toyota and Nissan's full-size pickups.
Untruth: They already
got $25 billion. Truth: None of that money has been lent out and may not be for more than a year. In addition, it can, by law, be used only to invest in future vehicles and technology, so it has no effect on the shortage of operating cash the companies face because of the economic slowdown that's killing them now.
Untruth: GM, Ford and
Chrysler should not have invested in pickups and
SUVs. Truth: The domestic companies' lineup has been truck-heavy, but Toyota, Nissan, Mercedes-Benz and BMW have all spent billions of dollars on pickups and SUVs because trucks are a large and historically profitable part of the auto industry.
Untruth: They don't
build hybrids. Truth: Ford and GM each now offers more hybrid models than Honda or Nissan, with several more due to hit the road in early 2009. Ford’s Fusion will be the most fuel-efficient mid-sized hybrid on the market next year at 41mpg.
Untruth: Autoworker
pensions are breaking the car companies. Truth: At the time that the pensions being paid were earned, the carmakers were making plenty of money to pay for them. If the taken the money as it was earned and put it in secure investments like municipal bonds, the pension fund would be running over with cash today to pay the retired workers. Instead, with stockholders demanding more and more, they chose to incur a future liability and distribute the money as dividends. This is exactly the same thing that our federal government has done with Social Security except, in the government’s case, they chose and continue to choose to spend the money on things that they were not and are not supposed to do.
Untruth: Autoworkers
make $73.00 per hour. Truth: The automakers arrived at the $70+ figure by adding up all the costs associated with providing wages and benefits to current and retired workers and dividing the total by the number of hours worked by current employees. The average wage per autoworker today is $29 per hour with another $10 for benefits. That $10 may sound high, but it’s a good deal for taxpayers because it includes pensions and retirement healthcare saving massive amounts in taxpayer funded healthcare and social services.
Untruth: Domestic carmaker problems are a result of bad management. Truth: In the days when the Big Three were making healthy profits, major financial institutions and wealthy investors held large chunks of stock and no CEO would keep his job without paying out healthy dividends. As a result, investments in R&D and new manufacturing technology suffered as company coffers were pilfered. As the abilty of the carmakers to make money was taken from them, the institutional investors, who's only purpose is to make money, sold their stock and got out causing the stock to drop in value and the carmakers' ability to raise needed capital to vanish. The CEO pawns who were complicit in this process also moved on. Now, the institutionally owned media would have you believe that it was the UAW that brought these companies down.
Other truths to think about include that while taxpayers are up in arms over loaning our carmakers money, foreign countries regularly invest in their car companies’ future and our own states are giving away hundreds of millions of dollars of taxpayer money in order to entice foreign car makers to build assembly plants in their states.
Before you throw the rope over the tree, take a breath to make sure that you have the right culprit.
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