Government Motors sales are still slumping and more plants are closing. The Humvee deal with the Chicoms fell apart yesterday. That’s another 3,000 jobs ‘not saved’. Saturn has no buyer. Pontiac is simply being phased out.
Although the entire auto industry is in a bad way, GM is underperforming most every brand out there.
What to do? Use the power of government to smear your largest competitor and appease your UAW friends at the same time, since Toyota is not subservient to the Union.
The full frontal assault on Toyota is underway and its reputation for quality is being challenged. Is this fair? Is it even true?
The Obama administration’s Transportation Secretary is hurling accusations and tellling people not to drive Toyotas.
Toyota’s President Akio Toyoda was hauled before Congress yesterday in the first of an unknown number of hearings (AKA Show Trials), the SEC is investigating Toyota, and Attorney General Andrew Cuomo (D-NY) has jumped into the fray, forcing Toyota to pay for rental transportation and free pick up service for recalled Toyotas. After Congress heard this they forced Toyota to offer this same deal to everyone in the country.
At the hearing on Capitol Hill yesterday, a sob story was pitched by one Rhonda Smith from Tennessee, who claims she was terrified when she experienced this phantom ‘sudden acceleration’, zooming up to 100 MPH. “Shame on you, Toyota,” Ms. Smith testified before Congress.
The woman driver (cheap shot, sorry) was so frightened that she sold the car to some unsuspecting person with only 3,000 miles on the odometer.
That person has put another 27,000 miles on the same Lexus without incident.
An although Toyota dealerships are calling this a ‘witch hunt’, the smear campaign appears to be having the desired effect on some.
I’m wondering if I should keep the car,” said Matecki, 63, a legal assistant from Brooklyn. “I’m seriously considering whether to purchase another car, a U.S.-made car.”
Toyota execs and lawyers are bracing for a flood of lawsuits from every person who has ever been in a wreck in one of their cars. Who could see that coming?
Whether this is a deliberate conspiracy or just a happy coincidence is in question. That’s the problem with allowing the government to enter the private sector. It’s simply too easy to use all of that power to destroy your competition.
If I owned Honda Motors I’d be watching all of this very carefully.
Same goes with Health Insurers if this Obamacare gets pushed through.
P. Henry Saddleburr
February 25, 2010 at 7:09 pm
Oh, and in other great HopeyChangey news, Toyota will close its Fremont, CA plant in April. Just another 4,700 jobs ‘not saved’.
MJSamuelson
February 25, 2010 at 10:43 pm
Wow. I honestly had not thought about this – great post, good points. Scary as hell, but that’s the world we’re living in.
Allan
February 25, 2010 at 10:44 pm
Saddleburr is right, the health insurance companies are next. At today’s so-called summit, the fact that insurance companies make a profit was a cause of considerable consternation to the Democrats (although taxes on those profits are more than welcomed), including our President who thinks he is a free market supporter. If only the insurance companies did NOT make a profit, then all would be right with our health care system.
Alan Smithee
February 26, 2010 at 3:26 am
And if the insurance companies really stop making a profit, then the government will just end up taking them over.