So I've just been in the USA for a week. One of the big news stories was Ford's decision to really rationalize its product lineup. There has then followed much blogospheric and journalistic anaylsis of the problems faced by the US automotive industry. European commentary seems to miss the point in what are generally simplistic analyses of the US automotive landscape with its monster trucks etc.
My only deep comment is that I think the US motor corporations have completely failed to lead the market and played catchup for the last two decades at least. Chrysler has (occasionally) been innovative, but in general Detroit has simply copied what the Germans and the Japanese have done. Furthermore, despite having relatively successful operations in Europe neither Ford no GM has really looked at the European market and seen what would be worth borrowing and introducing with a fanfare into the US. With slightly more excuse they have also ignored Japan, China and Korea. Indeed in most respects GM and Ford keep their North American and European arms completely independant with very limited sharing of designs and body types. The successful global German and Japanese brands have, in contrast, tended to take one design and roll it out (with some tweaks) all over the world. Ford, IIRC, tried the same thing with the "Mondeo" and after a lot of marketing hype about how revolutionary this was, quietly gave up.
I've recently had some contact with the car industry, an industry which is extremely conservative, and it is clear to me that two companies really "get" the consumer desires - Toyota and BMW. Neither is perfect but both are able to innovate and to provide cars that consumers are keen to buy. Indeed BMW is so successful that it manages to provide merely good cars at premium prices throughout its range (Toyota does the same with its Lexus range but still has cheapo cars too). Perhaps more to the point both have thought about the whole manufacturing sales and service process and pay attention to things like quality control so that the brand is actually meaningful.
All of this is the sort of thing that other American companies (Coca-cola, Nike, IBM, Microsoft, GE etc.) seem to be able to manage so it is truly a mystery that Detroit seems stuck on marketing and short term giveaways. I have no doubt that unions, pension schemes and so on help make American car companies less profitable than their competitors, but surely they could fix some of the more fundamental design and process factors? As it is they mostly seem to try to use marketing to disguise the underlying problems.
PS Why is it that American cars are so UGLY? Even if an American car were equally priced, with comparable features and reliability, I still wouldn't buy them because they are so aesthetically displeasing. They aren't completely alone in their move to ugliness - Fiat got their first and Nissan is doing their best to catch up - but over all I find Detroit to make the worst looking cars and that surely doesn't help.