American Car Companies Deserve To Go Broke

Ford Motor Company has announced it will sell it's 1/3 share in Mazda. It says "Mazda plays no part" in it's future plans for the American market. Ford could use its ties to Mazda to build automated plants that produce the kind of cars sold and driven all over Asia. Is Ford insane?

Like all Japanese car makers, Mazda is active in producing the micro mini class of cars for Asian buyers. These cars are limited to 660cc of engine displacement. These cars can be had with super economical overdrive manual or CVT transmissions. They can function as city cars or cruise the freeway at speeds well in excess of posted limits. Rapid acceleration can be busy with the manual but still plenty zippy. Four 250 pound Americans would probably bog it down but for most people, in most conditions, there would be no problems keeping up with traffic. These cars produce very low emissions. They get 55+ MPG in mixed driving conditions. Conventional wisdom is that cars like this aren't suitable for or saleable to the American public.

I have always driven and been fascinated with small vehicles. I like 5occ motor scooters. I liked the little Honda and Mitsubishi cars that they sold in America for a few years in the middle seventies. People bought them. You used to see a lot of them and compared to today, gas was cheap. People weren't as concerned with issues of ecology but bought them anyway.

The truth about small cars is this. They have just as many parts as a big car. The manufacturing process is just as expensive, sometimes more. The only real fabrication savings is in the raw materials used and since small cars need light, strong parts, there's often not much of a savings or any to build them. Big cars can be sold for bigger money and produce bigger profits. This is why Detroit sells us big cars. They don't believe that Americans will pay the same money for a small car. They are clearly wrong. A five year old Toyota Echo will cost you more, on the used market, than a loaded up Camry and the Camry is one of the best selling cars in America.

Ford is stupid and deserves to go broke. GM is even stupider. Neither of them makes a decent small car that is competitive quality wise, with the Japanese. They have built up a well deserved reputation for producing terrible small vehicles. I once owned a Chevy Vega. Chevy Vega engines lasted about 24,000 miles, none of them made it to 40,000, ever. They could have made durable small vehicles. World War II surplus jeeps were a common sight on American roads for 30 years after the war ended. They had a real nice little 4 cylinder engine. Detroit just dropped the ball, over and over again. They are still doing it.