When I was growing up in the suburbs of Detroit, my family only bought American cars. We were not particularly patriotic. We never had a flag pole in our yard. But we only had American cars in our garage. I wonder, as GM executives arrive again on Capitol Hill, how many families are left who still adhere to American car patriotism? Not many, I suspect. And this leads me to a strong, if not sobering prescription for GM.
To succeed again, GM must do more than build good cars. GM must find a path from 'buy American' to 'buy green' and then it must become that path. It must not only find a way to market itself as a premier car company for transportation invested in environmental stewardship, but also create the means for millions of Americans to identify anew with their products as the country embraces a more sustainable economic and cultural story.
GM of all companies has probably benefited the most from this kind of automotive nationalism. At one point, the main focus of their TV marketing was swapping the word 'Mom' for 'Chevrolet' in the jingle, "Baseball, Hot Dogs, Apple Pie, and...Chevrolet."
Personally, I think American car patriotism is not such a bad idea, but I can see why fewer and fewer people go in for it these days. Try asking any potential car buyer under 40, for example, if they would buy an American car. Irrespective of their political persuasion, that under-40 potential buyer is likely to offer up something about going green--the environment and trust. Deep down they may have memories of buying American cars when they were kids, but times have changed. Buying American is what our parents did. Buying green is what we do now. Or is it?
What if, for example, President Obama were to use the bully pulpit to rekindle American car patriotism? "American car companies are building the cars that Americans need," he could say at his next press event. "So if you need a car, buy one from GM, Ford or Chrysler." Even if Obama did say that, though, I doubt the resulting media stir would translate into car sales.
The problem is the new frame that defines our thinking on car sales. The big story on buying cars has shifted in the past few years from 'buy American' to 'buy green,' but GM has not shifted with it. Ford is already well under way towards refocusing their brand and they are not taking bailout funds at this point. Plus, Ford has a prominent executive who bears the company name and is genuinely a leader of new green thinking. But GM? Not so much.
Take a look at GM's website and you see a company that talks big change, but is oddly out of sync with the new vernacular. GM speaks a different language than a country of consumers seeing the world anew threw green tinted glasses. GM may throw around hopes of new fuel cells and adding a few more miles per gallon to current models, but they also talk about the enduring need for trucks. They sound like a company weighed down by nostalgia far more than they are buoyed by innovation. And this says nothing about the quality and value of the cars they produce, which is higher than at any other time in the company's history.
GM is suffering from a brand-identity problem, and a severe one at that. When I close my eyes and think of the most "un-green" large-scale manufacturing company in America, for example, GM is right up there in my list of three or four. Is that fair? Probably not. God knows I would still give my left kidney for a 1978 Corvette. Still, the fact remains that when most people today think of GM, they do not think of sustainability.
While GM is busy trying to convince the country through PR that it is poised to become a major player in the new era of sustainability, more and more Americans look at GM as the company that symbolizes the old era of gas guzzlers and SUVs.
All this means that the path to survival for GM--not to mention prosperity--is more than a matter of finding a way to put high-capacity batteries into production vehicles in the next 2 years. Given enough cash, they could probably do that. For GM to thrive again, the company must drop its past reliance on American car patriotism and embrace the new 'green' ethic that is pushing Americans to reinvent themselves.
What might this look like if GM actually underwent such a radical transformation?
Imagine, for example, if tomorrow GM announced that it was changing the mission of its company to something like this:
Now, if I were to sit down with a GM executives tomorrow, and advise them to change their mission statement to emphasize transportation and water stewardship (just one possibility of many) instead of just selling cars, they would tell me that I was being unrealistic and that I should find a way to 'balance' the economy with the need to protect the environment. And that is what makes GM a company of the past--a company hiding from change behind a cloak of American car patriotism that is rapidly diminishing.
Ford has already made the shift from 'cars' to 'transportation' and from 'earnings' to 'stewardship' in their corporate vision. GM has not even begun.
And yet, for a company of GM's size to benefit from the kind of economic investment and recovery the Obama administration has set in motion, it must do more than just take buckets of government money and apply it to the holes in its rickety financial roof. GM must reinvent and revolutionize the very meaning of "GM" in the American mind.
To all those GM executives who would respond to this challenge by saying, "We have already done it!" My answer is: Sorry, but...no you have not. The truth is in the hearts and minds of the American consumer when it comes to GM, not in the damage control of the GM PR machine.
I am optimistic, if not a bit nostalgic. If GM would start tomorrow to build that path from 'buy American' to 'buy green'--the next 5 years could be the most exciting time the American consumer has ever known. The innovations that could hit the market as a result of a completely reinvented GM would be virtually limitless. The Detroit Auto Show could become the biggest world stage for green technology ever known. Michigan could become the center of a new green manufacturing movement. The result would be a radical shift in how we experience and how we think about American cars and how we think about being American.
The choice is up to GM--the real choice. I hope they make it.
Crossposted from Frameshop
Since then, I have owned a Mazda Protege that has been in the shop for an unscheduled repair / maintence exactly once - when a belt broke and I had to get it fixed. That car has been with me for almost 6 years and I will keep it at least another 2 or 3.
They ONLY American made and manufactured car by the (formerly) Big 3 that I would consider buying would be a Ford Focus. And that would lose out to another Mazda all other things being considered.
GM has a lot of work to do if they want to get back the demographic that includes this 43 year old.
I was in a Honda dealership last night & looked at the sticker for an Accord on the showroom floor. US/Canada parts content: 60%. Assembled in Ohio.
The night before I read the sticker on a new Ford Fusion also on a showroom floor. US/Canada parts content: 35%. Assembled in Mexico.
Buy American, my ass.
P.S. I bought my Camry used, it's old enough to vote, so it probably wasn't made in the US. OTOH, if I bought a new Toyota, it would probably have more "American" parts and actually be assembled here than any GM product.
You want to "buy American"? Look at the label.
http://www.gm.com/corporate/responsibility/environment/principles/index.jsp
Now, I'm not a GM apologist. They have over the years dropped the ball and negated strong opportunities for change and failed to fully take into consideration the ability to make chages that benefit the environment. But, like any other business organization, it must operate in a business environment that seeks to maximize its profit and earnings. As a quality issue, GM cars used to run to about 100K miles and then kaput. As the Japanese employed statistical and total quality management, a la Dr. Edwards Deming, quality changed for the better and cars ran longer with greater reliability.
In profile it's hard to tell one from the other. None of which is to say that American cars look so great but there are quite a few nice ones with inspired styling, eg. Mustang, 300C, Malibu, CTS, Solstice, Saturn Sky, 'Vette, MKS, G8, to name a few.
I think that the people who run Pontiac forgot about this trait which made their cars totally distinguishable from the rest of the pack.
That being said, Acuras, Camrys, et al are not designed to be the most aerodynamically (read: fuel efficient) vehicles, they are designed to be the most fuel efficient vehicles that people will actually buy. People like "style" it's a primitive need for status. We live in an odd, primate society where status is derived from what a person owns as opposed to what a person does.
Style. Fashion. It's one of the things that humanizes us.
Don't believe me? Ask Toyota about their humongous Tundra truck plant in Texas. Ask Honda about all their SUVs and crossovers. Ask Porsche about their ugly-as-sin SUV. These manufacturers understand that what Americans say and what they buy are two very different things. The best way to kill the domestic automakers is to allow a bunch of bloggers, pundits and politicians select a vehicle mix.
Wishing that everyone wants a green vehicle doesn't make it so. (And Toyota's 300,000 Prius sales is a tiny drop in the bucket, no matter how you look at it.)
its time to put 20% down MANDATORY for home sales, car sales everything. if you cant afford downpayment, buy a used car.
Japanese and European cars are built in the U.S., just as are GM and Ford.
U.S. Suppliers supply the parts for all.
U.S. car makers have made a point of making cars that do not sell. And, complain when consumers don't want to support them. Executives at the carmakers act a lot like Bankers - they are owed something.
In fairness, U.S. carmakers have overcome the technical quality issue.
They have not, however, overcome the design and value issue. An Accord or Camry is just a significantly superior value.
In my industry, I don't get any particular value from the carmakers. I'm in computers, and they outsource their development to India and Singapore all the time. If they can't or won't buy American in my industry, then I just don't see why I should buy American in theirs.
Watch some foreign car shows. Everyone outside the US widely acknowledges the fact that American cars are cheap junk. Yeah, they may be fast, but it's cheap junk just the same.
And notice how much time and energy they put into making sure GWB was elected so they could destroy any kind of fuel efficiency standards. And, hoisted on their petards, they moved heavily into the gas guzzler market when market demand was solidly FOR fuel efficient vehicles.
Just like everyone the conservatives were owned by, these guys spend eight years getting literally everything they wanted... and all it did was lead the nation into disaster. And NOW they come begging for a "fiscal conservative" hot cash injection from Unkie Sam.
I'm not saying we shouldn't help out the auto industry, because to a large extent most of their current woes are cause by the malfeasance of the banking industry (if you can't get an auto loan, you can't get an auto).
This is the failing of conservative ideology- like in the fable "The Ant and the Grasshopper", instead of using the good times to stockpile for the future, conservatives always squander opportunity and delude themselves into believing the good times can go on forever.
So do you have to be small to be a hybrid?
What we need is a fleet of smaller cars. Preferably next generation hybrids and plugins. The party with the truck theme is over.
Now, if someone wants to be patriotic, they should join the army or the marines. But buying something that was mostly manufactured in Mexico is not.
people should know that by now !!
:-)