Ford slashes 10,000 more jobs, 2 plants

[pchang]

The BMW, Honda, and Toyota plants are in different states. The workers would have to move. I believe those plants are non-union as well.

[Dinner]

They are indeed. The UAW have been trying to unionize them for year without much success.

[DRoseDARs]

It's so sad to see the automotive company that started it all (for better or worse...) is circling the drain, just waiting to be flushed down into bankruptcy. If only they'd kept the innovative spirit of so long ago and started much earlier developing the hybrid/alternative market (and don't give me that bullsh*t about the technology not being there - Detroit wasn't interested in forking out the necessary RnD money when they should have in the 70's and the Oil industry wasn't having any of it anyway), they'd be killing the competition right now. Instead, they reek of carrion and it's only a matter of time unless they get their act together in the next 3 years.

[CerberusIV]

Curiously enough, Ford in Europe is profitable overall so someone knows how to run a car company. Makes me wonder if the fundamental problem is that Ford in the USA have never faced up to the fact that Americans will buy "foreign" brands rather than mindlessly handing over their dollars to American companies.

[atawa]

Originally posted by One_more_turn


Ford and GM have too many models. They have less R&D dollars than Toyota and yet have to spread them over a much bigger range of models. The end result: very few models are winners.

In the late 90s when oil got really cheap,Ford and GM's clueless management thought this would go on forever while the Japanese focused on developing the hybrids. 8-10 years later, they get to reap the harvest.

Cheap oil will definately screw over your auto industry. I'm often amazed at fuel consumption of American engines, it seems that instead of making engines more efficient over the years they just made them bigger.