by Christopher Juncosa

Created on: May 18, 2009

The US auto industry is in fact dying, but the disease it is suffering from is very much curable. Automakers need to take a real hard look at the problem and stop wasting their time and resources on remedies and solutions that make no sense. Fuel efficiency, size, look, power output, reliability etc are each individually pieces of a puzzle that needs to be put together but Detroit needs to step back. The Big 3's micro approach to car production (assessing for example only fuel efficiency) leads to producers not seeing the forest through all the trees! There are plenty of ways to be successful in the market without having satisfied all the conditions in one huge package. Detroit needs to focus on bringing back the pride in owning an American car and that pride cannot be simply from the idea of supporting American industry. There needs to be an enlightening visceral experience brought back to American car ownership.

Detroit has focused so whole heartedly on not just big cars like SUVs but only satisfying the micro needs of the vocal American car detractors. Take for example the gripe against Detroit's fuel efficiency standards. The Chevy Cobalt, the Ford Fusion, the Chrysler Sebring (and many others) satisfy very high standards in fuel efficiency including city mpg in excess of 30mpg! That in and of itself should silence the detractors, but it still does not sell cars. Why? Because the focus is only on the minutiae. The Ford Focus for example comes with a SEVEN color selectable light ring surrounding the cup holders! Is that the crumbling remnants of Ford's great ideas? There is no inherent attraction built into the cars anymore. Focusing solely on satisfying weak demands will not lead to success. Whats worse is that when you buy a Ford Fusion you actually are supporting the development costs of cup holder light rings and encouraging the problem! Also an option in a Ford Fusion is a 4-way manual front seat, a 6-way power front seat and an 8-way power front seat. Having redundant offerings like this (6 or 8 way) is ludicrous! There are development costs associated with this, R&D, testing and worst of all the assembly line has to be modified for yet another selectable option. Reducing the fluff in your auto offerings would save more money than probably imagined. Fluff that doesn't get most consumers excited, believe it or not.

BMW, for example, is a privately owned car manufacturing company focussed solely on a single car lineup. The

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