Toyota: Home Truth's??

Huw wrote: 

Common knowledge around here! But yes, the article presents a
valuable and pretty much undeniable perspective. Thanks
--

~~Philip

"Never let school interfere
with your education - Mark Twain"

See this story for a non American perspective on their auto industry.

http colon slash slash news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/3084322.stm

Huw




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"Tom Hamilton" <net> wrote >
 
analyst.

It is only ironic if you think there is some surprise or upsetting
perspective to the article. Otherwise it is just a simple commentary
written by someone who might be British but might equally be an
American contributor for all I know.

Huw


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"Philip®" <net> painstakingly pecked in
news:2Ul7b.5182$news.pas.earthlink.net:
 
 


The rot in the British auto industry went deep. Very, very deep.

Government policy was especially appalling, leading to serious and terminal
inefficiencies in capital allocation. Business planning was nearly
impossible as they monkeyed about with leasing laws and the purchase tax,
which was a substantial portion of the cost of a vehicle. The export-or-die
directive after the war encouraged severe overbuilding and overcapacity,
with almost everything being shipped somewhere overseas. Domestically, the
government imposed austerity measures.

The horsepower tax, repealed some time after WW2, meant that the reulting
super-long-stroke British engines were spectacularly unsuited to any sort
of driving environment experienced in America, the Holy Grail of the
British government. This contributed to a colossal failure of the export-
or-die directive, but not before the automakers were forced to dig a very
deep financial hole for themselves while trying. This hole they never
managed to climb out of.

When they did try, as domestic and export markets dried up around 1960,
they did so by laying off staff in droves, eventually leading to the famous
labor strife of the late '60s and '70s.

Starting in the '60s, automakers were forcibly prevented from closing
inefficient or outmoded plants, and were forced to open any new facilities
or expand any existing ones *only* in areas that had locally depressed
economies, whether it made economic sense for the company to do that or
not. Eventually they were prevented from being able to lay off staff as
well. Essentially, the automakers were being used as a source of welfare,
preventing the government from having to do it themselves.

Astoundingly poor accounting and costing resulted in BMC and Rootes losing
money on just about everything they ever built. Impatient managers rushed
cars into production, even before the R&D Departments had completed the
testing they had been told to do on those same vehicles. Parts were
undeveloped and undertested, often failing dramatically in the field.
Dealership mechanics received only the sketchiest training on new models,
and frequently lacked proper documentation and spare parts. Automakers were
glacially slow to retire redundant models (which many have meant closing a
plant), and dealership lines regularly overlapped each other, causing
competition between dealers selling the same cars under different names for
similar prices.

Labor friction saw workers deliberately sabotaging cars on the line,
routinely committing such sins as failing to paint the bottom few inches of
the car, leaving wheel bolts loose, not cleaning sand and metal shavings
from engine blocks after machining, and tossing loose nuts and bolts into
transmissions. They staged strike after strike, wrecking machinery and
destroying production such that even loyal BL buyers bought elsewhere.

Leyland Motors, possibly the last major vehicle maker that was actually
financially viable, was pushed by the government into merging with the sick
man that was BMC, creating one large sick company instead of one smaller
good one and one smaller sick one. They still forbade Leyland from closing
plants, rationalizing processes and products lines, or laying off workers.
Donald Stokes attempted to cut costs the only way he could: Cheapening the
cars. Bad, bad move.

By 1975, when BL was taken over by the British government, the damage was
done. Worker relations got even worse. Management got poorer. Cars became
even more shoddily built, and buyers recoiled in horror. BL imploded in
1982, deep-sixing native British automaking forever.

I have not yet found one other industry in any other industrialized country
where every single party involved botched the job quite so badly and quite
so determinedly as the British did here.

--
TeGGeR®

"Tegger®" <invalid> wrote in
message news:11.168.195... 
terminal 
tax, 
export-or-die 
overcapacity, 
Domestically, the 
reulting 
sort 
export- 
very 
never 
1960, 
famous 
closing 
facilities 
depressed 
or 
as 
welfare, 
losing 
rushed 
the 
field. 
models, 
Automakers were 
closing a 
causing 
names for 
inches of 
shavings 
into 
and 
elsewhere. 
actually 
the sick 
smaller 
closing 
workers. 
Cheapening the 
damage was 
became 
in 
country 
quite 

Nice summary of what happened to BL or whatever you like to call it.
The fact is that the British motor industry is stronger and better now
than at any time in the past but under different ownership and in new
plant with new workers. The same is happening in the USA and the
reallocation of power will leave a stronger business with better
products, though at the expense of old redundant plant and their
workers. That, my friend, is what free enterprise is about and how it
works.

Huw


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"Huw" <hedydd[nospam]@tiscali.co.uk> painstakingly pecked in
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Thanks. One of the saddest industry stories I have come across. A real
shame. It has also made an enormously fascinating study.

 


Have you noticed how healthy the market is for classics and their
maintenance? Those classics are the very same vehicles that the industry
was making when it died. I'll bet there is more money changing hands now
keeping the classics alive than there ever were when the cars were new!


 


How true. Also your government is no longer imposing the sort of insane,
bizarre rules on the industry that it had before, with the result that the
industry is better able to cope with the normal ebbs and flows of business,
and thus stay alive.


--
TeGGeR®

"Tegger®" wrote:
 

Better to say poorly designed.

 

In particular, tax credits for SUVs and trucks and their exemption from
fuel economy and emissions standards, which lured US makers into
concentrating on these models and gave foreign makers their opening.

 

Given that most Japanese cars sold in the US are built in the US, how does
this factor put US car makers at a disadvantage?

On Tue, 09 Sep 2003 09:46:51 +0100, Huw wrote:
 

Yes, but do a "status" on the state of the British auto industry.