Posted on 01/29/2007 11:22:19 AM PST by .cnI redruM
The Big Three are hemorrhaging money, and struggling to stay competitive with foreign rivals. Fortune's Alex Taylor crunches the numbers.
NEW YORK (Fortune) -- An enormous gap still separates the performance of Detroit automakers from their foreign competitors - and it isn't all their fault.
The stupefying $12.7 billion loss that Ford Motor Co. reported Thursday for 2006 comes one year after General Motors' equally horrendous $10.6 billion loss for 2005.
But for all the bad decisions these companies have made by not listening to their customers, they aren't entirely to blame. Structural inequities between the U.S. and Japan - notably in labor costs and currency - account for a big chunk of Detroit's problems.
The evidence can be seen in a report prepared by the Detroit consulting firm Harbour-Felax, first released back in October and updated for Fortune. For anyone who makes a living from the domestic auto industry, it is depressing reading. An enormous and persistent gap separates the home team from the import companies - large enough to question the continued survival of the U.S. companies.
(Excerpt) Read more at money.cnn.com ...
A lot of them SHOULD be emptying the trash buckets and don't deserve the millions they get, sorry.
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