GM and Ford have lost market share for 30 years, why ? please read details and add something new?

COST - Japan is building here with an american workforce and mostly american suppliers and doing very well.
WORKER BENEFITS- In Japan it used to be that if you were hired you had a job for life - they changed that and automated to be competitve so could we
QUALITY - Hyundai had problems for years but look at them now

Here's some more problems with GM and Ford:
GM's retirement benefits are killing it. It takes several Billion dollars each year to pay the health benefits of just it's retired workers due to union contracts mandating it to.

GM and Ford's contract with the union also states that a worker cannot be replaced by a machine. So if a line is automated that you work on you get paid to sit in a room all day and do nothing. The wall street journal ran an article on this last November. One man had spent most of the last 9 years coming to work just to sit in a room and read. This costs GM and Ford roughly $900 million a year.

For so many years people bought American because that was what you did. Then in the 80's Japanese quality finally matured and people started driving Honda's and Toyota's. It took Japan 30 years to get there though. Edward Deming (founding father of the "quality movement" in manufacturing) was shunned by big US firms in the 40's and was sent to Japan after WWII to help rebuild their industry. They listened to him (unlike American companies) and look where they are now. It was a slow process, like any good quality plan is--it took 30 years to truly mature--but look at the reputation Japan has now in it's brands.

If American companies want to turn themselves around they need to commit to being the best, find their markets, bring out innovative cars, deliver what the customer wants, and trim out the fat in their organizations. The unions are holding them back right now, but if they know whats good for them they'll give the automakers some leeway or else neither of them will survive.

ps-I'm not anti-union. There is a time and place for unions: and that's anywhere there is bad management. Automakers were there and they needed it. I can't speak for today's managers, but perhaps the unions are past their time.

Reliability and long run life. My last couple of cars hit 180k+ without real issues.

Study the Product Life Cycle Dynamics.
1) Product is first brought to market, few producers, high demand relative to supply, high profit margin.

2) High profit margin leads to higher competition, increasing supply and increase pressure on profit margins

3) Competition saturates the supply driving inefficient suppliers out. Profit margins are razor thin.

4) Eventually product becomes obsolete

The primary reason for the success of the US Economy has been our ability to bring new and innovative products to market and benefit from the high profit margins.

Gas mileage - not one American made car is on the top 10 fuel efficient cars. They're still building bigger and thirstier.

Quality, fuel efficiency and value for money. It takes many years for a car manufacturer to build up a reputation for all three but only a few mistakes to ruin it.
GM and Ford have made their mistakes which have affected customer perception of their products.
Gas efficiency has been a major factor in car choices in the last 18 months to 2 years. As GM have been churning out bigger and more expensive SUVs the public have been looking for fuel economy and smaller vehicles.

Japanese companies have learned how to stay ahead of the market and give the customers what they are looking for.

the auto industry plays a game of catch up instead of innovating, in today's market you must lead not sit on the fence and wait for the other guy to make a move If any of the big three had Any sense we'd be driving multi fuel highly efficient vehicles TODAY

the benefits and pensions that GM ford and chrysler agreed to in the 70's and 80s are still killing them
the lack of flexability, both in planing and design and in the staffing levels they have to negotiate with the UAW/CAW make changes imposible.
they also suffer from a lack of inspiration, now they are folowing the curve, 30 years ago they set the curve.

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