They do. They typically do more than badge engineering. The lexus ES and Toyota Camry are on the same platform, but are very different cars.
Dont even go there, not even close to as bad as the fucking jokers in this country
but by only manufacturing one car instead of ten different models with different headlights, take the money you’re saving and make the cars you are producing MORE reliable. This is the whole point of it. It’s to turn them into a competitor. Not that I care. The better Toyota does, the better I do.
And demographics have shown that the Prius was being bought by people making MUCH MORE than $50k/year. And Toyota’s put on hold the start-up of that domestic Prius factory, last I heard.
Edit: To wit
71 percent of respondents earned more than $100,000 per year
http://www.hybridcars.com/hybrid-drivers/myth-hybrid-premium.html
:word:
No one cross shop’s them. If you’re buying a lexus, you’re not going to look at camry’s.
EVEN IF JOBS ARE LOST IT WILL NOT BE AS BAD AS A TOTAL COLLAPSE!
HOW HARD IS IT TO UNDERSTAND THIS!!
My company chopped off all of it’s eecutive staff just to make our payroll fit the economy. My dad was the Director of Marketing, told he would have a job in the end, and still does… at another company. Jobs and people are still just overhead to a company that can be sacrificed to acchieve stability. An employee is a person that you bring on to perform a service for compensation. The company determines the compensation based on a percieved value of what the employee has to offer. Employees should never be able to dictate what they make in an assembly/factory environment unless they are unreplaceable!
Nope, it’s moving right along. Toyota’s plan is to actually branch Prius off into its own subsidiary. Making an SUV, car, truck and compact. (Prius, Camry, Highlander, Tundra)
read me
Shit, I’m late for my date. :mamoru:
READ ME:
by cutting costs, they can make a better product! Be more competitive. No one who drives an Envoy is going to pissed off they only offer the Trailblazer next year if its the same truck. If they do, the number is so small anyways, it wouldn’t hurt at all.
http://www.reuters.com/article/etfNews/idUST27151720081114
TOKYO, Nov 14 (Reuters) - Toyota Motor Corp (7203.T: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz), facing a deep slump in the U.S. auto market, is considering postponing the start production at a plant it is building in Mississippi until 2011 or later, the Nikkei business daily reported.
Rumors from LLN that a separate Prius brand are “a go” are actually nothing more than a maybe.
Might wanna toss out all those $30 an hour +full benefit jobs too…
That would help.
your solution is a long term solution, which may indeed be a viable one.
however, what about cash flow? your solution addresses no issues related to immediate cash flow concerns. how will GM continue to meet their short term obligations? interest payments on debt? bueller? beuller? beuller? bueller…?
Well, in Chapter 11, they could kill brands and not worry about that - but that’s the only way. And Chapter 11 has its own issues, most notably - how would they secure debtor-in-posession financing in this crappy market. The only viable option at that point is the US Government itself - and that’s what may have to happen.
If you cut everyone’s wages tomorrow by 50%, and dismantled the unions you’d save BILLIONS of dollars within a 6 month period. Use that money to get out of debt and pay loans.
0% for 72 months, and employee pricing for everyone isn’t going to help. The problem is internal, not external (the buyers).
The trick is doing that without triggering a UAW strike, which would cost ALOT more. The last one cost GM about two billion, and that was just at American Axle.
cough Toyota/Honda cough
If Toyota purchased GM, I garuntee you that you’d see an increase in sales right away. 50% of people who buy GM’s would rather drive a Honda/Toyota, but because they put payment before product…they don’t.
They’d have to tell the union workers to fuck off. I’d go work in a plant making $50 an hour (half of what most are making now). I have a pretty peachy job as it is.
There can be no UAW strike if there is no leg to stand on. In chapter 11 all contracts for the Union go out the window. If the workers walk out, they are terminated.
Chapter 11, followed by a purchase by Toyota and then a dismemberment from the union and 3 or 4 GM brands and you’d have a perfect automotive based economy. Let Dodge die on its own.