The Auto Writer

I’ve become weary from covering the U.S. Auto Industry, particularly the plight of the Big 3 automakers – General Motors, Ford, and Chrysler. I checked my article summaries for November 2008 and saw that a disturbing pattern had emerged: about three-quarters of the articles written thus far have discussed the misfortunes of the industry, clearly a balance that I want to correct.

After this article, I won’t be touching on auto industry financial troubles all that much, perhaps in passing to underscore why this manufacturer is selling cars at employee pricing or why that manufacturer is cutting back on production. I think that you (and I) would much rather discuss engine displacement, horsepower, cabin configuration, electronic gizmos and other nifty stuff then to dwell on those things that we cannot change.

But, before I move on I want to share with you some of my observations related to the industry. To that end, last week ended with a flurry of activity as I posted an article – GM’s Simple Solution: Move Production to China – which elicited a number of strong responses from readers, but none of those comments appeared here.

Instead, when I submitted the article to Digg and asked people to leave their comments, boy did they ever follow through! And, these comments were nearly universal and passionately against helping GM work their way out of their current financial plight with federal assistance.

What’s more, many people blamed the unions for the industry quandary and some took their shots at management. In addition, a number of responders criticized GM for building the wrong types of cars.

I also read the press release from Automotive News (AN) on Friday which was their personal plea to save the industry. Honestly, I wasn’t impressed by either the substance of the article or the layout of the release as AN used mostly one sentence paragraphs outlining the dire consequences of a failure, particularly one involving GM.

There was also one sentence which seemed to be scolding a number of journalists — Criticize Detroit 3 executives all you want. But the issue today is not whether GM should have closed Buick years ago, been tougher with the UAW or supported higher fuel economy standards. What an odd sort of thing to find in any so-called press release!

About the same time as getting a hold of the release, I was forwarded a six-page result of a poll that was conducted by Peter D. Hart Research Associates Inc. of Washington, DC and posted on GM’s Fact or Fiction website.

I don’t know if GM paid Hart to conduct the survey or what, but the poll seems to make a compelling case for federal intervention. I’ll let you be the judge of that – I skimmed through their findings as I didn’t have time to give it a full review; I’m heading to Los Angeles for the auto show today and time is of the essence.

What is my personal opinion about the bail out? I’m not sure that it matters, but you can find some of my thoughts on Digg. While there, why not digg the article and add your own comments?

L.A., here I come!