Purchase
An in-depth, hard-hitting account of the mistakes, miscalculations and myopia that have doomed America?s automobile industry.
Currency
September 2004
368 pages
ISBN: 0385507704
Trade Size (reprint)
Add to Wish List
Non-Fiction
In the 1990s, Detroitβs Big Three automobile companies were riding high. The introduction of the minivan and the SUV had revitalized the industry, and it was widely believed that Detroit had miraculously overcome the threat of foreign imports and regained its ascendant position. As Micheline Maynard makes brilliantly clear in THE END OF DETROIT, however, the traditional American car industry was, in fact, headed for disaster. Maynard argues that by focusing on high-profit trucks and SUVs, the Big Three missed a golden opportunity to win back the American car- buyer. Foreign companies like Toyota and Honda solidified their dominance in family and economy cars, gained market share in high-margin luxury cars, and, in an ironic twist, soon stormed in with their own sophisticatedly engineered and marketed SUVs, pickups and minivans. Detroit, suffering from a βgood enoughβ syndrome and wedded to ineffective marketing gimmicks like rebates and zero-percent financing, failed to give consumers what they really wantedβ reliability, the latest technology and good design at a reasonable cost. Drawing on a wide range of interviews with industry leaders, including Toyotaβs Fujio Cho, Nissanβs Carlos Ghosn, Chryslerβs Dieter Zetsche, BMWβs Helmut Panke, and GMβs Robert Lutz, as well as car designers, engineers, test drivers and owners, Maynard presents a stark picture of the culture of arrogance and insularity that led American car manufacturers astray. Maynard predicts that, by the end of the decade, one of the American car makers will no longer exist in its present form.
 Media BuzzDiane Rehm Show - NPR - March 19, 2014
Diane Rehm Show - NPR - December 8, 2005
| 
© 2003-2026