Toyota will be introducing a 2006 Camry hybrid gasoline-electric car. Their hybrid Prius has been selling very very well---there is a long waiting list. Apparently average people believe in Peak Oil and global climate change.

Today, Ford and GM credit ratings have been reduced to junk: below investment grade.

Toyota Motor Corporation has a top-rated AAA credit rating, the best.

Ford and GM, dependent on sales of huge SUVs and trucks have been losing lots of money, because they can't make a decent passenger car and sell it at a profit.

They blame unions and their health costs (true to a small extent) but it doesn't take much effort to find the real cause: go sit in a Toyota and then a GM car priced (without incentives) at the same level.

Ford licensed Toyota's *first generation* hybrid electric for their Escape (a SUV!). The current Prius has the 2nd and their cars will soon have the 3rd.

GM? In the stone age.

GM has a new line of hybrid trucks that are cost comparitive to non hybrid types... they get all of 2-4 mpg better than the non hybrid... OOOOhhhahhhhh
big wup...

I presently work in the american auto industry, and can tell you that the problems are what you indicated totally...
GM has so many retirees, that all get benefits... that is expensive... they basically have the same problem that the SS system does...
they are in trouble big time...
then add the cost of the unions...
our unions can never compete or even come close to the cost of building a japanese car... they pay less for labor, plain and simple... our unions are one of the richest manufacturing jobs to be had.
I know a highschool dropout alchoholic that works for GMs vendor of car seats... he makes $22 an hour and gets paid overtime when they are busy, and gets paid for not working when they shut down the line for overstock reasons. The comparable japanese worker (or american working for an american/japanese company) gets probably less than half of that...

get ready... becuase the chinese will soon be allowed to import cars (thanks to the kiss chinas ass policy of the present and previous administrations)
and the only saving grace will be that all the laid off union workers, will at least have cheap cars to drive to thier new jobs at the conveinance store...

this is a growing problem, and only a fresh non-union american car manufacturer can give us any hope...

this would be a good time for a new company to appear, and produce only alternative fuel cars (including hybrids) because GM and ford have little hope...

Japanese union members?

Are you sure that Japanese union workers are paid so much less???

I really doubt it. Things are not cheap in Japan, and they have strong industrial
unions too. The difference is that Toyota knows how to make damn good cars.

If it were just costs then US cars would be good but too expensvie. They aren't. They're crappy and too expensive.

Now Chinese, yes. They do have cheap workers.

I think management likes blaming the unions because it goes better politically in this country, especially to right wing politicians of their persuasion, rather than saying "We're morons".

Yes, the japenese equivalents of American union workers make less...
also, they don't have the huge backlog of benefits for megabunches of retired workers...
really...
GM is in worse shape than our own Social Security system due to the huge amount of workers that they retired. it is like paying for a million employees that do not work...

and our cars would be much more expensive if they were made to toyota quality...
they skimp where they can, and that includes R&D for new alternative power usage...

the Auto unions should have been more resonable... but considering who runs them, reason and logic isn't a factor...

John Galt would burn GM down