haypops

When did the French government devest themselves of Renault? Actually I looked it up for my self and the answer is 1996. However the government still owns 15.7%. By the way Renalut owns 20% of Volvo trucks which in turn owns Mack trucks.

Actually sales figures indicate that conservative red neck beer guzzling yahoos are Toyota's best coustomers in the United States. According to a GM commercial Chevy's best sales district is Southern California which by most people's estimation fits your description.

I think it's even more than that. Japanese consumers are very brand loyal. If a suzuki coustomer wouldn't buy a Toyota or a Nissan, how can we expect them to switch to chevy. For those that were so offended by my question of why they so prefer Canadians to Mexicans please consider this. Mexican have been buying Americans cars for many years. They deserve some consideration. Also there is the language thing. They speak spanish as do many Americans while the Canadians play hockey and speak French. note: I know French is only spoken in one province but the general tone of ignorance and rudeness is wearing a little thin.

I'm sorry that I failed to save the link, but I am sure that I read that Toyota said the hybrid was just an interim silution until they got their diesel engines going.

How/why do you differentiate between CAnada and Mexico?

Don't take this the wrong way but no one expressed much sympathy for the workers who screw these cars together, or for the engineer and other white collar workers who have their jobs outsourced to Korea. These are very hard times and few people are willing to face it. Tim on another matter ... I heard that GM's contracted car hauler (allied I think) was having problems paying there bills. As a consequence owner operators weren't delivering and attempts to get other carriers to cover for them were marginal at best. Supposedly some cars ordered by dealers were taking up to 30 days to get from the rail head to the dealer (Southern California). Have you seen anything like this at your store?

Thanks for the great read. I rated it a 5 at the bottom of the article. Supposedly by rating yahoo and other articles in this manner, more people read the story. Earlier this year "The Car Connection" ran an article on the question of "soft skinned Humvees". It was their contention that Rumsfgeld was correct in not supplying armour because humvees wern't mad for that kind of abuse. Silly contention and piss poor consideration of our soliders. All Humvees were armoured in the Kosovo conflict and not one American lost their life. General Clark made sure of it.

Since the EV1 was sold(leased actually) out of Saturn dealerships, the car rags would go on and on about the panel gaps too.

Yes, however I think there are some regional differences. After all dealerships here in California are open Sundays till 10 PM in some cases. ON the east coast they don't even open. By the way there is some advantage to the closed Sunday thing. Some people will look over the inventory/new cars on a Sunday when the dealership is closed who wouldn't otherwise. The same low confrotation expectations works at the car shows too.

Doesn't all this talk of cheap electricity depend on where you live?

I wonder if there would be any thought to selling the 360 out of GMC stores only. It would help differentiate GMC from Chevy truck. It would be ironic if the most rebadged GM truck (Chev-GMC-Saab-Buick-Isuzu-?) became a GMC exclusive!

I was always of the opinion that those Saturn buyers who kept their cars paid for those who were out for a free 30 day rental.

Although I am not a Friedman fan, the NY Times refusal to publish GM's rebuttal is actually more troubling. I am shocked. If some one from GM is monitoring this thread, I suggest the following. Submit the rebuttal to http://www.huffingtonpost.com/. Ariana ia former conservative who is now liberal and runs a blog of blogs, so to speak. Lots of content here, lots of readers, and she dislikes The NY Times because of the Plame afair. This could be interesting.

You seem to be indicating above that Friedman is a liberal. That is wrong. According to Wikipedia he is a neoliberal which is definetly not Liberal. Again from Wikipedia defining neoliberalism These characteristics seem to describe President Bush's beleifs than those of classical Liberalism. Also note that the very last neoliberalism characteristic listed is OPPOSITION to ENVIRONMENTALISM. Also I would ask you to note that oil exploration is prevented by the Bush administration, not the liberals. I refer to offshore drilling in Florida where the reason given for not drilling is that the Florida beaches are nicer than the California beaches.

http://altmans.com/content.asp?id=211 1.99 gas is gowing in popularity!

Will the GXP get to compete in the same class?

May pathfinder sales were only less than 5600 compared to a trailblazer, Envoy total of 21500.

You are right in as much as I haven't driven the new Explorers but my point isn't that they are not good cars. My point is that Ford spent a lot of money (what is a lot?) and may sales were 16,700 for the Explorer and 3600 for the Mountaineer (total ca. 20,300). May sales for the Trailblazer plus Envoy were 15,500 + 6000 = 21500 sales. I can see why GM would not be anxious to spend too much money here when it did so little for Ford sales.

Isn't Ford loosing a bundle on the Explorer refresh?

Honda also sells rice grown here in Japan. Korea doens't allow this. I read that Koreans pay 5 times world market prices for rice.

I'm sorry that I didn't save the link, but Friedman has replied to GM's fastlane blog etc. Basically he says that he is right. Surprise! Actually he presents some reasonable arguements, but what he doesn't do is repeat his call for Toyota to take over GM or to call GM a drug pusher. Score one for GM in some respect.

Friedman is not a liberal, I wish that he were. From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Friedman <<from a centrist, neoliberal perspective on the political spectrum. Friedman is a three-time winner of the Pulitzer Prize (1983, 1988, and 2002), >> and from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neoliberal a neoliberal = <<neoliberalism refers to a political-economic philosophy that de-emphasizes or rejects government intervention in the domestic economy. It focuses on free-market methods, fewer restrictions on business operations, and property rights. In foreign policy, neoliberalism favors the opening of foreign markets by political means, using economic pressure, diplomacy, and/or military intervention. >> In other words Friedman is Bush lite.

The above is my contention also. I do think, however, you are a little too understanding of Toyota/Honda cars. The domestic fans on the other hand assume a Toyota built in Kentucky is no better for the U.S. worker than one made in Japan. No explanation/excuse is given. Likewise the assumption that 1/3 of the cost of a car is profit seems innacurate. Finally for all of those Ford and Honda owners who are so pleased with their longetivity consider this.

OMG! can you see me through the monitor? One more donut and my pot belly will have it's own pot belly.

I read that this is the last Solara because they need the produiction capacity for yet another Camry derived crossover!