Car Wars

Good versus Evil. Is there a better story line? We've loved it since the Garden and aren't likely to tire of it soon.

So, it's good to see a big time columnist like Derrick Z. Jackson of the Boston Globe and a top-flight corporate communication executive like GM's VP of Global Communications, Steven J. Harris frame up their respective arguments about the worthiness of GM's vehicles in these Biblical terms.

Nothing like a little nuance to help readers get the full picture.

First, Jackson writes a column saying that "everything you need to know about American automakers" could be gleaned from reading, "four recent newspaper clippings." In some journalistic circles, this is called "investigative reporting," in others, it's "dereliction of duty." Polemicists can always find simple sources to affirm their points of view, and Jackson's no slouch in the polemics department. Listen:

The Wall Street Journal reviewed the Chevrolet Suburban and 3-ton Ford Expedition Extended Length. ``With their big gas tanks, a fuel stop can be jarring," the Journal said. ``It cost $97 to fill the Suburban, making it necessary to fish out a second AmEx card when we exceeded a station's $75 charge limit per credit card."

You must be kidding. For the fourth straight Labor Day, American soldiers are dying in a botched war in an oil-rich land. Big oil is exploiting wartime uncertainty by gouging Americans at the pump for record profits. Real wages for Americans have dropped since the invasion of Iraq.

What is Detroit's response? Cars that get 17 miles per gallon  on the highway and cost nearly $100 to fill.

American soldiers dying in a botched war,  big oil exploitation, real wages dropping. Why are these things happening?

GM's making Chevy Suburbans, that's why.

That, my friends, is a polemic. Or at least, the beginning of one. Jackson goes on to skewer Detroit executives for, 1) inadequate passenger room in the Cadillac Escalade ("How could it be that General Motors makes two metallic mastodons that are each over 5,600 pounds, nearly 17 feet long, 6 feet tall, and 6 feet wide, and still do not have enough space?"); 2) proposing the "muscle-bound Camaro" as  its next big thing (instead of a much-more-responsible competitor to Toyota's Prius); and, 3) the failure of GM executives to perform ritual suicides in the face of their company problems, like the Toyota President Katsuaki Watanable symbolically did in a press conference while lamenting Toyota's recent quality problems. (The problems compelled Toyota President Katsuaki Watanabe to bow to reporters in July and say, "I take this seriously, and I see it as a crisis. I want to apologize deeply for the troubles we have caused." You never see the CEOs of Detroit bow in apologia.)

How ludicrous is this? A columnist chiding an auto manufacturer for expensive gas, big vehicles with too little interior room, product rollout choices and insufficient humility!

Give me a break. You can almost hear Darth Vader's strained breathing when Jackson describes those Detroit evil doers!

But then, here comes Steven Harris to defend GM's honor: Yoda at his side, Obi-Wan on his shoulder, and Luke's light-saber blazing! The good guys are here!!

Here's his measured rhetoric:

General Motors is working hard to build a stronger America that’s less dependent on oil, and we’re making significant progress. What we don’t appreciate is the kind of cynical propaganda that Mr. Jackson has engaged in recently, which seeks to portray Detroit automakers as buffoons and our Japanese competitors as flawless. It’s almost as if he wants the U.S. auto industry to fail. Why?

Harris is puzzled: "We're trying, we're really trying so hard; why don't people like us?"

Why?

Um...because you screwed us for decades? Because you didn't give a lick about safety when seat belts were proven to save lives? Because you waited until cars burst into flames before recalling them? Because you made expensive products that rusted out in three years?

Do I really have to go on?

That's why people don't like you, or trust you.

Here's an oldie but goodie that comes back to me at times like this, Mr. Harris: "You can't talk you way out of something you behaved your way into." Trust comes from action, not words.

I actually believe GM's on the way towards re-establishing credibility, in some small part due to Bob Lutz's blogging. But they obviously still have a long way to go.

And with folks like Derrick Jackson making them out to be evil incarnate, I think they might be getting the picture about just how tough a road this one might be.

Hey, GM, nobody ever said this was going to be fair. But, may the Force be with you!

Comments

[Jon Heikkila]

So show us where Toyota gave a lick about safety by installing seat bets before GM. GM invested money in air bag developement and introduced a car with an optional air bag before Toyota did. Show us why Toyota is investing billions on a new plant for a new larger heavier truck with a larger engine and a design that will shortly thereafter spawn a larger SUV and that the same criticizm is not leveled at them. Talking about vehicles rusting out in 3 years was a reference to Toyota isn't it? Toyota's average fuel economy has dropped over the last few decades. Toyota's gain in the US market is as much the result of gains from large vehicles as it is from hybrids.

Being fair is showing the errors of everyone involved. Being biased is blaming only GM for a problem Toyota is just as guilty of.

[Tom Guarriello]

Thanks for stopping by, Jon.

My comments were designed to provide a rationale for the consumer's lack of trust in American car makers, in general, and GM, in particular. Their new-found customer-centrism is in sharp contrast to their behavior in the period during which they had no foreign competition. American car makers fought every attempt to deliver safety or economy measures to the American consumer, always under the guise of wanting to resist regulation. At the end of the day, market forces achieved what regulation never could: they opened GM's eyes to the folly of the kind of "planned obsolescence" we folks brought up in the 50s and 60s came to regard as Detroit's version of business as usual. This has nothing to do with Toyota, except insofar as Toyota's marketshare being the big factor that got GM's attention.