Three Doomed American SUV Plants

Reeling from its financial problems and a collapsing S.U.V. market, General Motors on Tuesday closed its factories in this city and in Moraine, Ohio, marking the passing of an era when big S.U.V.'s ruled the road. The moves followed the shutdown last Friday of Chrysler's factory in Newark, Del., which produced full-size S.U.V.'s.

The last Chevrolet Tahoe rolled off the line here in Janesville shortly after 7 a.m. in the 90-year-old plant, which had built more than 3.7 million big S.U.V.'s since the early 1990s.

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Comments

[ShamballaJones]

It's tragic and the workers, who just built what they were told to, don't deserve it. However, the simple fact remains that the big 3 have spent years lazily building insane vehicles and building them both badly and expensively. And hard reality always gets the last say.

The most damaging thing in the long term is that the executive boards, which ultimately made the decisions that drove their companies into the ditch, deserve it all but they won't be suffering. That means that once the dust clears they'll carry right on in the same way until eventually there is no US car industry left.

[rich misty]

http://pizdaus.com/pics/9fWiZdpJUQ4S.jpg

[pharm]

These plants built SUV`s because there was a demand for them. You can`t blame the Big3 for building what people want, isn`t that the mantra now days? Build what we want, and we will buy. We don`t want SUV`s, at least big ones, anymore, so the companies will have to re-tool. They have been making smaller, more efficient cars, but nobody cared. Everybody has bought into the mind set that American products are no good, when the facts say otherwise. The transplant companies build good cars, but they are not any better than ours. The Japanese evolved from the tinny , rusted out pieces of crap they dumped here in the 70`s and 80`s, to what they are today. I`m just afraid our domestic makers are going to become a victim to their own stupidity, foreign makers hype, and anti-union vitriol.

[johncando]

and now gas going to 13.00 per brl. you think it is over?

[pbfishtaco]

Also, the domestic automakers Boards of Directors made a very specific move--that is to make their bottom line (and stock options) look good in the short term by:

-Lobbying the s**t out of both Republicans and Democrats (like Dingell) to stall CAFE standard increases.
-Passing tax breaks for people who bought huge SUVs, under the guise of them being "commercial vehicles". This allowed ANYONE who bought a Suburban, Tahoe, etc. to write off the entire purchase price of the vehicle in the first year, if used for a business, if it weighed over (I think) 5500 or 6000 pounds. Realtors, Contractors, Self-Employed, really anyone, could drive one of these tanks and get a huge writeoff. Who wouldn't? This fueled (sorry for the pun) part of the sales increases for these behemoths.
-Because these vehicles were so profitable in the short term, why in the hell would they stop making them until they had to?

We live in a plutocracy, disguised by the veneer of democracy.
Of course they'll get a bailout; they're too big to fail,

Right?

[jsarets]

They built SUVs because they manufactured a demand for them. Americans didn't wake up one day and decide that it would be great to take the kids to soccer practice in a watered-down military vehicle with cup holders. Some Madison Avenue marketing guru scrawled "BIG = SAFE" on a conference room whiteboard and a new era of automotive design was born.

They ran 20-second running shots of trucks fording mountain streams in a craggy wilderness and sold them to suburbanites for hauling groceries. There was never a real demand for that. It was artificial. An advertising bubble, if you will, that has burst. Some people really do need trucks. Most people really don't.

The auto industry became a victim of its own spin, caught flat-footed with product lines developed to serve a surreality they created but no longer exists.

[JScott]

And you just know that suddenly 'opinion leaders', celebrities, famous people, 'cool people' all had one, ya just know it was all part of the marketing strategy.

[CologneCitizen]

very good point

The Auto industry has created these monsters. How did Americans haul their stuff before SUV's ? Partly this desease has spread to Europe where you find useless SUV's in big cities which have never ever seen a country road or a tree, not even talking about muddy offroad terrain. Often these vehicles are driven by low lives who want to impress with size.

[pharm]

People are lemmings, right? If that is truly the case, we all deserve to go over the cliff! If they could "manipulate' people into buying SUV`s so easily, why can`t they sell their other vehicles the same way? Same advertising, same companies, same market. That is too simple an answer, people buy what they want, for reasons only they know.

[ming099]

....in the '80's and early '90's Ford made the Bronco II.............2.9 L V-6.....gets around 18-20MPG in town........24-26MPG on the highway.....4WD, room for 5 adults plus cargo space in the back....I own one of these right now....it was well cared for by it's previous owner and I have taken care of it as well.......and it is fun to drive.......if the car companies want to make SUV's ....this is the size they should make.......no larger....along with discontinuing to make cars with V8 engines... pickup trucks and vans should have only V6 engines............any car weighing more than 3600lbs should have a tax on it as a gas guzzler.........

[johnnygoodwud]

where i live SUV"S are merely status symbols. women tooling around, going from the gym to starbucks in their big sleds. folks i have a prediction for you. EXCESS is OUT. no, i don't have a SUV, rather a midsize sedan. i live in the n.w. suburbs of chi. town, and get around in the snow just fine.

[planetjeffy]

All I see in San Diego are women driving giant SUVs - Expeditions, Hummers, Suburbans - with one baby seat in the back. American car companies, especially GM, are stupid and will not change unless forced by much higher CAFE standards (50 - 60 mpg) that the gov't needs to set. No waiver for "trucks".

[johncando]

government sets standards M.V.S.S. and gas too

[SouthJerseySteve]

Can't wait until I no longer have to park next to a behemoth SUV -- so many times I was almost hit by a car who couldn't see me backing out of the parking space! Of course, it would have been nice if the big trucks/SUVs were not allowed to park in a space designed for "normal-sized" cars. By the way, I drive a small SUV so I'm not trashing SUV, just Hummers... lol

[IllinoisTexan43]

I grew up about 45 minutes away from Janesville. It's a small community already hard hit. Between southern Wisconsin and northern Illinois, there are extremely limited job options. As having been laid off due to a plant closure myself, I know how they feel. I know people flippantly say, oh well, just get retrained or go back to school. Well, you have very limited options when you're around that 40+ mark. I'm 44 and the bulk of people being laid off in these plants are around that median age. Not a good time to re-enter the job market with ANY new vocation. God bless us in the coming year.

[Quattro]

Try driving Prius in a foot of snow.

[MajorKong]

Subarus and Audis seem to go through the snow just fine.

[krabby]

So does my Ford, and my friend's Malibu.

[KillTheMessenger]

Good riddance.

Now all we need is for them to open plants that make real cars. But that will probably never happen, now that they are on eternal tax payer life support.

[wdw505]

i like my SUVs..........

[ferrarimanf355]

Uh, the Toyota Sequoia says hi, bro.

Your trolling is getting ridiculous...

[krabby]

Tr0lling from KTM is getting goofy (see krabby profile comments). We drive what we want, and the Big 3 has responded accordingly. I have a 2008 Ford Edge AWD (24 mpg documented on the highway) and I love it. Toyota, Honda, Mazda, and Nissan have all manufactured behemoths in response to the American tastes.

[krabby]

Sorry, I forgot the Audi SUV, the SAAB SUV, the BMW SUV, the Mercedes SUV, and Subaru. I'm sure I left out a few.

[krabby]

Don't forget the Land Cruiser, or the Nissan Armada! 18 mpg!

[JScott]

Just think if GM and Chrysler had worked on designing a car like the Honda Fit or Nissan Versa instead of their SUV's and built them there this probably wouldn't be happening.

[Perry Clease]

I can't help but think that we have the engineering and scientific talent to build a SUV that has enough horsepower to do the job, but gets 50 or more MPG and is cheap enough the rest of the World wants to buy them. Better yet, an SUV that uses easily obtainable renewable energy.

[quindy]

The rest of the world doesn't have the US-size highways. The rest of the world was build before the cars were invented. You will not see many SUVs on the streets on other continents. There is very limited need for them. I think the auto industry has to come up with a concept of efficient, smaller car that people can afford. And it should last long.

[krabby]

Exactly!

[KillTheMessenger]

Many American SUVs have the horse power of a freight truck. Nobody with exception of truckers who have to haul a shipping container (or two) across the continent needs 380hp. An economically useful small business transport vehicle is between 60-100hp, at most.

[MajorKong]

Size means mass. More mass requires more energy to move. It takes more fuel to generate more energy. That's not even taking into account that these vehicles have the aerodynamics of a garage door.

[Perry Clease]

Well so much for the talented engineers and scientists, I guess that they don't exist. No wonder we are stuck in a rut, we have no engineering talent and no end user optimism.