The End of Detroit: How the Big Three Lost Their Grip on the American Car Market

by Micheline Maynard

Book Overview

An in-depth, hard-hitting account of the mistakes, miscalculations and myopia that have doomed America's automobile industry. In the 1990s, Detroit's Big Three automobile companies were riding high.... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0385507690
• ISBN13: 9780385507691
• Release Date: September 2003
• Publisher: Broadway Business
• Length: 327 Pages
• Weight: 1.40 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 6.5" x 9.6"

Customer Reviews

Maynard is the Oracle of Detroit

Here we are, March 2006 and reading this book for the second time will give one chills! Wagoner had a road map predicting the demise of GM and yet stayed the course. This book combined with The Toyota Way makes the unfortunate End of Detroit painfully clear and often sheds more light on cultural paradigm than business sense!

The End of Detroit, seven years later painfully true

This is a well-researched book. Since 1973 Detroit has lost market niches and market shares to foreign brands due to inept management. In the seventies, Detroit lost out the fuel-efficient market. In the eighties, Detroit lost out the sedans market. In the 1990s, foreigners gained in the minivans, SUV, and luxury car markets. Managerial mediocrity and lagging technology has sunk Detroit. Foreigners are more efficient producers of higher quality car, with better styling. While foreign manufacturers' CEOs are engineers focused on manufacturing, research, design, teamwork, and continuous improvements; American CEOs are financiers focused on economies of scales. The foreign engineers deliver quality, strong consumer ratings, and long term consumer satisfaction. The American financiers attempt to deliver short-term profit margins, but have instead suffered devastating losses and loss in market shares. Foreigners (Toyota, Honda) are loyal in supporting their main brand name (Camry, Accord) to retain core customers. Americans are not so concerned as Ford torpedoed their most valuable brand name (Taurus) for higher short term profits in SUVs. Meanwhile, Camry and Accord remain the dominating sedan brand to this day. Maynard does an excellent job of differentiating the corporate culture and engineering feats of the main foreign manufacturers. Overall, the foreigner onslaught is lead by Honda and Toyota. Their respective successes overshadows everyone else. She mentions that repeat customers account for 65% of sales at Honda, 50% of sales at Toyota, but only 28% at Nissan. Also Asian manufacturers sell 43% of their cars to customers who formerly owned American cars. Meanwhile, the Big Three sell only 10% of their cars to customers who owned Asian ones and that is typically a pick up truck or a SUV not replacing the Asian sedan. That kind of math will cause a continuing crippling loss of market share for Detroit. Detroit's main competitive strategy is price discounting, including: 0% financing, rebates, and wholesaling to rental companies. Such a strategy is a disaster as it hurts cars resale value and customer loyalty. As things go, the Americans are positioning themselves to become low quality high volume wholesale provider to the rental companies leaving the more lucrative retail consumer markets to foreigners. The big problem is that American manufacturers have not demonstrated this is a financially viable solution as they are incurring crippling losses by doing so. Foreigners competitive strategy entails pouring $ millions into R & D and market research. Thus, they have developed a huge technological lead, and have a better understanding of American consumers taste than Detroit. Honda and Toyota have produced hybrids for over ten years. By 2002, Honda, Toyota and Nissan have already sold their first fuel cell autos to government fleets. Meanwhile, Detroit has yet to be competitive in hybrids. Foreig

Clearly touching a nerve

This is an interesting, bold and lively book that is clearly touching a nerve in the auto industry. No matter what you think of the book's conclusion, something has gone wrong with the American auto industry, and Ms. Maynard is the first author who has tried to figure out what happened. She does it in a way that is within the grasp of all readers, whether you know a lot about the car business, or just wondered why Detroit cars are constantly "on sale" while people line up to buy those from Japan and Germany.There's a reason why all those factories have closed up north, and are being opened down south, and she writes very clearly and usefully about all the issues involved.I hope what Ms. Maynard predicts won't come true: but I am glad that she published this book so that we can all see the danger that one of our most important industries is in. Maybe it isn't too late, but I agree with her that Detroit has to treat customers with respect and not just count on our business.

Right on the Money

Outstanding. A thorough and convincing analysis of Detroit's decline. Millions of consumers know that foreign--especially Japanese--cars are better and more reliable than their American counterparts. Maynard explains why this is unlikely to change. American car companies occasionally show flashes of geniuse--as, for example, with the Ford Taurus, or with minivans and SUVs--but they quickly fall behind again, as foreign competitors move in with better and more reliable versions of what Detroit first envisioned. American companies are almost always one step behind. They have no effective long-term strategy for building consistently high-quality vehicles that will maintain or expand their customer base. Maynard's constrasting analyses of the Asian and American car companies implies that this will likely never happen. They are too many structural, financial, and psychological barriers to overcome. In the early days, Japanese companies learned from the American companies, borrowing successful methods these companies used. But American companies have been unable to successfully learn from the Japan, or at least duplicate its successful methods. It is ironic that despite the tremendous success of foreign automakers (mostly German and Japanese), the U.S. economy is still the strongest in the world, while Japan has been in a slump for 13 years and Germany has had double-digit unemployment for even longer. Even in the electronics industry, Japan rules. Yet the good news, as Maynard points out, is that it is precisely this free economy that is benefitting us even if our car companies continue to decline. Where are Japan and Germany building the plants to build the cars that Americans want? In America, creating hundreds of thousands of jobs and doing of a better job of what Detroit once did.

Maynard Gives Detroit A Reality Check

I grew up in Detroit. My family and friends worked for the Big 3. When I saw Micheline Maynard in an interview on CNBC talking about her book, "The End of Detroit", it peaked my curiosity. Was it possible that the driving force behind my home town, "The Motor City", was running off the road? Could the Big 3 in 2003 really be GM, Ford, and Toyota? I had to buy the book.I'm glad I did. "The End of Detroit" isn't about bashing U.S. quality versus the imports, the American nameplates have worked to put that issue to bed. The book is not about cookie-cutter models shared by different divisions of the same company. It's not even about manufacturing techniques and efficient new plants, the Big 3 have those too. No, what "The End of Detroit" is about is a wake up call for anyone who thinks the status quo of GM, Ford, and DaimlerChrysler will always anchor the world's auto industry.Maynard's insight into the evolution of the global industry is a profound reality check. It explains a lot to those who may even stop to question why the top selling cars in America year after year are from Toyota and Honda, not Ford and GM. "The End of Detroit" is a look behind the gleaming front grills of the Detroit machines. It questions some of the strategic decisions the Big 3 have made, and offers a signpost for travelers wondering about the road ahead.