Fixing Detroit: Experts have wide range of ideas

And — I mean because we’re facing a national crisis — not just an economic crisis, but a crisis of the polar ice caps are melting. There’s only so much oil left under the Earth.

We’re going to run out of that, if not in our children’s time, our grandchildren’s time.

There’s got to be a plan set up to find other ways to transport ourselves or other ways than using fossil fuels.

UAW union President Ron Gettelfinger

To fix the U.S. auto industry, the U.S. government needs to act now.

Given the current problems facing our national economy and the auto industry, inaction is simply not an option. Without immediate assistance, we could see a collapse of one or more of the domestic auto companies by the end of this year.

The costs that would flow from this are simply too great. You've heard the numbers: 3 million jobs; we have a million retirees, spouses and dependents that would be losing possibly their pension and/or their health care benefits.

The federal government would be saddled with huge pension and health care costs. Thousands of other businesses, suppliers, dealers and others who depend on the auto industry would be in trouble. The current recession that we are in would be made much worse with revenues to federal, state and local governments dropping, forcing cuts to public programs. To prevent those devastating consequences, the Bush administration and Congress need to act now to provide an emergency bridge loan to the domestic companies.

Getty Images file UAW President Ron Gettelfinger.

This is about a young family that is counting on these jobs so that they can provide for their children and perhaps have an education for their children in the future. It is about retirees who worry everyday about whether or not their pension check is going to come in.

I just hope that one of the things that we haven't lost here is the impact of a bankruptcy on the part of any of these companies.

Peter Morici, business professor, University of Maryland

Everyone knows the Detroit Three make great trucks, but their sedans and crossover vehicles have not measured up well to Japanese companies making vehicles here in the United States. Consumers simply do not find them as attractive, and those vehicles are sold at discount prices relative to Japanese brands.

The problem is not good engineering or manufacturing know-how. Ford has pulled up the reliability of their sedans and crossovers to levels comparable to Toyota and Honda, and GM is doing a heck of a job competing with Toyota in China.

The Detroit Three need to bring down their platform development costs and align their blue-collar labor costs (including real-time wages and benefits, layoff costs, retiree costs and plant productivity) with Toyota and Honda plants in the U.S. Southeast.

Like their foreign competitors, U.S. automakers need to provide an assortment and freshness of vehicle choices. They need to produce vehicles that compare in price to those of their foreign competitors that have the same overall vehicle content (drive train refinement, interior/exterior dimensions, quality of interior materials, durability of original equipment tires and brakes, quality of climate control systems, etc).

Only when they make these changes will the Detroit Three be competitive. Their challenge is to better manage vehicle development and finally get the right contract with the United Auto Workers union, which they simply don’t yet have and will not have in two years as the Detroit Three claim.

The U.S. automakers are making a lot of progress, but their labor and other costs need to come down further. That is why Toyota and Honda can make some money in this economic environment but GM, Ford and Chrysler cannot.

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