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Are the Big 3 producing good cars -- no! SAAB was a great manufacture that has gone downhill ever since it was bought by GM. European car buffs were mystified by a recent New York Times review of the new US model Ford Focus, which protested its use of drum brakes. This car which is based on the outstanding Ford Focus II, which in Europe received 5 stars from Jeremy Clarkson, a very harsh reviewer, had all-round disk brakes when originally launched in Europe a decade ago! Why does the US version have drum brakes? The biggest problem that effects the US manufacturers is a mentality (they share with Republicans) of in general, building down to a price, rather than up to a standard. This is how you see a very good European model turned into frankly crap for sale in the US. This is why you see GM build a PoS like the Chevy Chevette to compete with the Volkswagen Rabbit and Jetta -- did GM management remotely realize that the Chevette was so much worse, my family had one of each at the same time! (By the way in law school I posited a question vis-รก-vis these two cars (normalized fatality rate for the Jetta 0.35, for the Chevette 2.1, does that mean that in any fatal accident for a Chevette, GM is 6/7th liable?))
Can the Big 3 produce good cars -- why not? Skoda produces great cars, but was the butt of jokes only a few years ago; Fiat is very healthy even now, but 4-5 years ago every though it was dying, too sclerotic, with poor products. Ford has actually made Volvos much better cars, with better engines, aerodynamics (they used to be as aerodynamic as a low-flying brick) and comfort and indeed more economical (the XC90 in Europe does not come with the ludicrous 4 cylinder V8, but rather a seriously good 5 cylinder 2.5 liter CDI diesel.) Even Opels/Vauxhaul are not that bad (or at least better than anything GM sells in the US.) GM spent decades without creating an all new engine, European companies and the Japanese replace their engines every few years.)
Frankly, from Europe (where I am sitting this week) the view is that the Republicans are insane, and Europe has a fairly healthy auto industry right now, including Renault (largely owned by the French state, which took over effective control of Nissan a few years back), Volkswagen (where a German lander owns a big chunk) and others. Certainly British Leyland/Rover was decades long fiasco, but many other rescues across Europe have not been the mess that BL was. Most sensible economic commentators take the view that what doomed BL was the UK's antitrust authorities allowing of the formation of its private monopoly predecessor BMC, while France, Germany and Sweden blocked such combinations.
Finally, Republicans like the shibboleth that government never came up with anything good -- really? What about the jet engine, nuclear reactor, Penicillin, GPS, etc., etc. Most of the modern world was built by direct government investment or by government sponsored projects. I see no reason why government can, give competence (and as recent years have proven the Democrats have a monopoly of competence in government (we don't know if governmental incompetence is a Republican monopoly, but it sure looks that way)) run a bailout that also drives the US auto-industry to massively reduce US dependence on oil.
