riredale

Am I correct that the auto industry has been roaring along for the past half-dozen years? If so, then maybe it's time for a correction.

As for Ford tightening up, to the extent that they feel there will be a strong incentive in Washington to boost domestic production (and tariffs are a step in that direction) then I would imagine layoffs will primarily happen overseas.

Toyota and others can profitably build cars in the US. If GM and Ford have profitability difficulty because of union obligations, well, this has always been the other side of the union coin. Outside of outright government payments, the strong will thrive and the weak wither.

mmarshall

Well, you recently bought an old 4Gen ES, didn't you? That wasn't a case of buying new and having depreciation eat up its value. With that car, depreciation had already taken out most of its actual monetary worth. Not that there's anything wrong with that, as a number of us think that the 4Gen was probably the best ES ever done. But that was a clear case of little investment, little depreciation.

ArmyofOne

I was talking about my truck, which i unwrapped from the plastic and backed off the transport truck myself.

mmarshall

Don't want to take the thread too far off-topic, but I undid the shrink-wrap myself, a couple of times, on vehicles I test-drove or reviewed. They were the first of their shipments to arrive at the dealership, and the PDI guys hadn't gotten to them yet. The PDI guys often forget to bleed the tire PSIs down to recommended (they are almost always too high during the transport, to protect the wheel rims). I can't believe how naive some salespeople are. Some of them did not even know that you should not drive the car until you take the protective covers off the wheels...they block the cooling airflow to the brakes, and can overheat them. Unlike you, though, I haven't had the honor of backing one off the transport....don't think I'd want to, in case anything happened.

Sulu

GM and Ford and FCA are facing over-capacity problems. It takes money to run large assembly plants and if an automaker does not produce enough vehicles in each plant, that plant becomes a drag. There is the over-capacity problem for the Detroit 3 automakers in Canada and the USA; and there is a known over-capacity problem in the EU. That is why GM sold its European subsidiary and why Sergio Marchionne kept talking about the need to consolidate and reduce the number of automakers, especially in Europe. There are rumours that Ford of Europe may have to do something drastic also.

In the EU, it is much more difficult to close auto plants, and not just because of unions (unions have become the scapegoat for a much larger problem and so it has become very easy to blame the unions); protective regulations in the EU countries make it difficult to close plants and throw thousands out of work, which is why there is so much talk and action around consolidation.

Here in North America, the automakers still have a low-wage, low-cost manufacturing centre -- Mexico -- where they can set up shop. But don't blame the unions for the move to Mexico. Even if we in Canada and the USA were to get rid of all auto unions tomorrow, we would still be a much more expensive manufacturing centre: Compare the (much) less than $8/hour paid to the Mexican autoworker to the $20+/hour paid to the Canadian or American autoworker; getting rid of autoworker unions is not going to drop wages to a third of their previous value. And no automaker in Canada and the USA would be allowed to pay its workers so low -- no one would be willing to work for poverty wages and that wage would be below regulated minimum wages.