Big US Automakers Dropped the Ball, How Much Sympathy Should We Have?

How much sympathy should we have for the big US automakers when that lack foresight and innovation. Both Ford and Chevy had opportunities to become leaders in hybrid and electric car manufacturing. Instead they scrapped their programs when California changed their environmental laws. Now the jokes on them. Toyota and Honda are leaving them in the dust in a time when fuel efficiency is only going to become increasingly more and more important.

Ford pulls plug on electric car - Aftenposten.no



http://www.evworld.com/news.cfm?newsid=7885

GM pulled the plug on a progressive hybrid program in 2002 and now regret it.

It is really hard to have sympathy for U.S. auto manufacturers because they have lacked a vision for the future and a long term game plan. They are getting pounded left and right by foreign car manufacturers. GM had a very forward plug in hybrid program that they completely scrapped in 2002. Toyota and Honda on the other hand, have to be laughing at the lack of foresight by GM. It was obvious that hybrid and other non-gasoline technologies would eventually be the wave of the future. Now GM has will be releasing a hybrid another plug in hybrid prototype in January, but instead of being ahead of the curve, GM is now behind the curve.

This isn't limited to U.S. car manufacturers. It extends to companies who have the strategy of defending the now. What I mean by this is, companies who have a good market share now, and are satisfied with defending that territory instead of looking toward what the future and making plans to embrace and adapt to those future technologies.

The U.S. government has been governing our country with that same philosophy. The world will change around us, we don't have to adapt to a changing world. That is a dead end road.


http://www.cnn.com/2006/AUTOS/11/10/bc.autos.gm.reut/index.html?eref=rss_topstories