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Nailed it.
You’re dead on. I have no idea how Detroit automakers are taking the BYD news, but unless they do something pronto, they’re doomed. Or they’ll be a U.S.-only industry with competition blocked from entry via tariffs.
Mr. Arthur
Ann Arbor, Michigan
Tectonic recalculations needed.
The tension and angst in the “Grand Transition” is partially explained by a fundamental conflict between rational need vs emotionally generated want in personal vehicle choice. Such tension has always been the case in the marketing and sales of automobiles in the lives of Americans. This dissonance is founded and famously perpetuated in decades of genius conditioning of the American consumer mindset through clever marketing and advertising matched with product. This epic campaign in itself is at least as noteworthy a feat of contemporary psychology as the automotive products themselves born of technological innovation and manufacturing accomplishment. The rational transportation needs of the public do not require mass possession of 4WD ¼ ton pickup trucks yet they are the mainstay and underpinnings of the profits that sustain GM, Ford and Stallantis. They and their profit accomplices, full size 4WD SUVs, are only used off-road or in other challenging driving and traction conditions less than 10% of their life use cycles. The public is conditioned emotionally to desire, purchase, own, insure, license and maintain an excess capacity that is far beyond rational need. This is why the ICE F-150 and competitors together with SUV derivatives are the largest selling revenue and profit driving products in the North American portfolio. Mass electrification of them in their current iterations is simply not feasible according to the laws of physics, finance and economics. Mass electrification along historical North American product categories in cherished legacy brands that can sustain profits for US automakers will require a major (likely generational) reset of the consumer vehicular mindset. This means a tectonic recalculation and recalibration of wants vs. needs that must be reflected in the product no matter how they are branded or where they are made. How they are priced will matter. Bigly. Other parts of the world are far ahead of us, and their attitude is tariffs be damned.
Dr. John
Phoenix, Arizona
Glorified consumerism.
America is no longer the standard of the world. The shining light on the hill. The beacon to which all that are free seek. We have flushed our education system down the crapper in the pursuit of votes. Dumb people vote for dumb candidates. We have glorified consumerism in the name of economic progress. At the same time offshoring all jobs possible. And they tell us BEVs are the future but continue to only offer giant SUVs as choices. So, is it any surprise that the Chinese have built a car that charges quickly and sells for a price we can afford? It’s like they know what the consumer NEEDS. As we watch our president change the name of a body of water, play golf, attend the Super Bowl/Daytona 500/College National Championship/UFC/WWE/etc., the rest of the world is moving on from us. And honestly at this point, who wouldn’t?
JRR
Plymouth, Michigan
Give us some sensible stuff.
Dr. John hit the nail on the head about consumers being conflicted between emotional wants in a car vs. rational needs. Nobody needs a 10,000-pound vehicle as a daily driver, only to show off the "biggest tool in the shed" thing and until the US carmakers understand that rational need is really the answer to long term success, they're pretty much doomed to be overshadowed. Sure, keep churning out your 1,000 HP Vettes and your other vanity vehicles, your humongous electric Caddies, etc. But give us some (honest, instead of "under ideal conditions ") 450-mile range, 10-minute to full charge sensible stuff if you really want to survive long term. And ignore what's happening in China at your own risk.
Ted R
Raleigh, North Carolina
PS: My own want/need thing is nicely solved by my Civic Si. Works great for me both ways, and I'm hoping for an Si hybrid at some point.
From the "Dustbin" File.
Yet again PMD, you provide the automakers with the unvarnished, unfiltered truth. I’d also lump VW group and Mercedes in the same boat with GM. Their bureaucracies are just too slow to compete with the startups, both homegrown and Chinese. If they don’t learn to change course, and quickly, they’ll all be left in the dustbin of history.
RJM
Knoxville, Tennessee
It didn't work there, either.
Anyone who thinks tariffs and protectionism is the answer for saving the American auto industry, just take a look at what happened in Australia.
SWM
Vancouver, British Columbia, CANADA
Not. Very. Good.
The 'Grand Transition' for the used-to-be-Big 3, is to quit making anything remotely affordable, unbelievably heavy and requiring ex-Lockheed Martin satellite techs to work on them, and to stay out of the car business and make only trucks and SUV's.
Congratulations, you're cutting your own throats every day.
J Wilson
Nashville, Tennessee
