It's quite clear that their audience (the government) is all about theatrics. Substance - not so much. So it's only understandable that they want to make some kind of symbolic gesture to impress them.

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Well since the US is largely based on Christian values, theatrics will always be popular in a highly interpretative society.

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I can tell you with all certainty and experience that these types of stunts DO NOT impress law makers. In fact, they do just the opposite - it upsets the citizens of DC as it makes a mess of traffic for those who work on and around the Hill. Law makers have other, much more effective tools to gauge public opinion. These types of things serve no purpose. It just speaks to the absolute inemptitude of the American auto industry's executives.

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"They should have been doing it 5-10 years ago"

How do we get past this misconception? THEY WERE, but no one will believe it. Ten years ago, they had cars that were EPA rated in the 40's on the highway.

Everything that people say the big 3 should have done, they did do. The problem with the big 3 has never been the product, but the popularity of belittling the big 3.

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You say "Its irrelevant that the Big 3 are now making efficient cars. They should have been doing it 5-10 years ago, like all their competitors"

People are so fickle. Just a year or so ago, SUV and pickup truck sales were huge and customers bought them to go with their monster-sized homes in the suburbs so they can carry home their 52" plasma TVs. Now the same people are bashing Detriot saying that it doesn't listen to customer needs. Hello??? They were! The Japanese just started to jump on the oversized vehicle bandwagon where they should have been 5-10 years ago. Titan, Tundra, Sequioa anyone?

If fuel prices suddenly tanked to 50 cents per gallon (rather than jumping to $4 per gallon), Detroit would be considered SO SMART, while the import companies with their portfolio emphasizing mostly fuel efficient "irrelevant" cars and just a few first generation SUV options would be the ones being hung out to try.

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IMHO, the blame in this statement is completely 100% misguided. Things were hosed at Ford long long before Mullally came along. His leadership is actually pointing Ford in the right direction, with his commitment to bring better European cars over to the US lineup and making the hard choices to drastically retool their American operations. Chrysler was doing fairly decently until Daimler-Benz bought them out and ruined their product lineup by introducing vehicles with terrible interiors, then-previous-gen Benz components, and going truck heavy. Wagoner hasn't been great, but he inherited some huge fundamental problems from his predecessors. There were disasterous delays on products in the 80s when they start facing stiff competition from Japan, and in the early 90s when GM management focused more on marketing than making a good product, they nearly ran the company into the ground. All three of the above named CEOs had their work cut out for them when they took the reigns of their respective companies. Maybe the best steps haven't been taking during their tenures, but they're hardly at fault for all of their problems. They've been doing quite a bit to fix their respective companies, but there's 2-3 decades of bad decisions to work through.

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""Wagoner, Mullally and Nardelli have done nothing to improve the now "Pathetic Three" in any way or form. Their recent achievements have been overshadowed their horrible decision making. They are among the worst executives in the history of the automobile industry. The only thing that they have been consistent at is ruining the once proud American marques. Every American should be ashamed that such imbeciles have tarnished such a beloved part of their culture and history.""

Seeing as how the new top executives like Bob Nardelli and Jim Press have been at Chrysler for less than 18 months, how exactly do you figure that they are responsible for Chrysler's current state?

How exactly do you figure that Jim Press suddenly became an incompetent boob when he left his post running Toyota USA to take the posts of Vice-Chair and President at Chrysler? He is in fact one of the most successful auto execs in history. Same for Allan Mullally, one of the most competent execs going who did a great job at Boeing, and who by most accounts is doing very well at Ford.

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You're right about Mullally, I take back what I said about him. He was very successful before he came to Ford and I hope he makes proper changes at Ford. So far, most of Ford's "new" products are simply heavily facelifted versions of previous body styles and not all new, examples of such are the Mustang, MKZ, Fusion, Milan, Taurus, Sable, Expedition/Navigator, Explorer/Mountaineer, F250/350/450. In Chrysler's case, they got themselves into the Daimler-Chrysler mess on their own merit. It was there that they started producing poor products. I agree that Daimler-Benz did a lot of damage to the Chrysler group, but so far most of their product plans are up in the air and have not been quick enough to fix their worst products. Cerberus took on the responsibility of running Chrysler, so far Chrysler is in its worst state since its near collapse in the early 80s. Wagoner has held an executive position in GM since 1994 and has still has not been able decide a direction for GM. Other than hybrids, GM still cannot decide what path it's brands will take in the future. GM is always changing its plans and making broken promises to the public. While it has been made some significant strides in engineering and quality, and has produced some world class vehicles, they still produce such mediocre products as the Aveo, Colorado, G5, Torrent and G3.
GM, Ford and Chrysler did produce the world class SUVs and pickups that the public demanded, they did not concentrate their efforts on their mainstream compact and mid size sedans. They were, for the most part, below competition standards in every way. The foreign competition, mainly the Japanese and German marques, never lost sight to their core products, which was their mainstream sedans and coupes. They continually made improvements to the quality, engineering and desirability of their sedans and coupes while still offering the public SUVs and Pickups. The reason why GM, Ford, Chrysler are suffering is because they lost the sedan/coupe battle in the 90s and early 2000s with mediocre products and have lost the trust of the buying public because of those products. While they are currently producing their best cars in decades, the public is having a hard time trusting that products from GM, Ford and Chrysler are world class.

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You know what's weird, I had long forgotten that I've actually met and talked for like an hour with the guy who did the Daimler and Chrysler merger-a corporate lawyer guy who sounded kinda like he was a less than studious jock whose parents got him into Columbia.
In retrospect this might explain the idiocy of the merger.
Then again I wouldn't mind having the cash that guy had *sigh*

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"The foreign competition, mainly the Japanese and German marques, never lost sight to their core products, which was their mainstream sedans and coupes."

Do you mean German marques such as Volkswagen, with one of the worst quality ratings in the world? Japanese marques such as Nissan which ranks just above Pontiac in long term reliability and still can't touch brands such as Mercury, Cadillac, Buick or Ford in long term reliability, and for 2007 ranked even below the "horrible" Chrysler? How about Mazda which despite improvements from 2007 when it ranked below Saturn, Chrysler and Dodge, of all terrible US brands, still ranks below Pontiac. Or Scion, from the beloved "king of quality" Toyota which lost its position below Pontiac in 2007 at 220 problems per 100 cars and made a whopping plunge to 243 problems per 100 cars this year. One thing is consistent for Scion, the brand still ranks below Pontiac and Chevrolet, however this year they even rank below Chrysler and Dodge.

http://www.jdpower.com/corporate/news/releases/pressrelease.aspx?ID=2007130

http://www.jdpower.com/corporate/news/releases/pressrelease.aspx?ID=2008115

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I did not say that new cars from GM, Ford and Chrysler were below the competition. As I mentioned above, I am aware that they have significantly improved and have world class products. What I was trying to point out was the fact that for the most part of the 90s and early 2000s, the Germans and Japanese lead the automobile industry in design, engineering and overall desirability. Though German manufacturers did not necessarily improve their reliability, their luxury marques set the standard for design, engineering and technology in the luxury and near luxury segments. The Japanese manufacturers, more specifically Honda and Toyota set the standard for reliability and quality among mainstream cars, SUVs (compact and mid-size) and compact pickups. Though Nissans are not as highly rated for reliability as Toyota or Honda, they have become more desirable because of new design, quality and technological advances. Regardless of the poor reliability ratings of some of their products, both German and Japanese marques have done a great job at convincing the general public that their cars are superior to those of the rest of competition.
Detroit is making its best cars in decades, but its not getting the attention and sales that in needs because of its past failures and inconsistencies in their decision making. Unfortunately they are still paying for their mistakes and will continue to do so until they prove to the public that their products are world class, that they can be consistent with their product improvements and decision making.

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