It appears that the Detroit auto makers will be given some kind of loan to help them through their hard times. Considering the possible consequences if there is no aid, Congress has little choice. In the long run all three of those companies will have to change in very significant ways. If they do not, they will have to be allowed to die.
Every Friday the Los Angeles Daily News has a section entitled DRIVE. It is all about new and unusual vehicles. This past Friday’s edition reviewed the new Ford Flex. The car reminded the reviewer of an old panel truck. The difference is that it looks somewhat like an old station wagon. For those too young to remember, a station wagon is really an SUV on a car chassis. The result is that station wagons provide the ride of a car along with the space of an SUV.
I have owned two station wagons. The last was a 1983 Chevrolet Malibu. The Flex’s V6 engine and the space for five reminded me of the Malibu. What really caught my eye was the gas mileage. The Flex offers 16 city and 22 highway miles per gallon. That was the mileage I obtained on that Chevrolet. This lack of innovation is the reason that the Detroit auto makers now sell less than 50% of total car sales in America. How many billions of dollars will the United States government spend on this incompetent industry? Perhaps the lack of innovation is the real reason American manufacturing has been in decline for the past 30 years.
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