Detroit Needs Jobs, Automobile Manufacturers Need Sales and Consumers Want Hybrid Vehicles

Detroit's citizens need employment, General Motors, Ford, and Chrysler need sales, and consumers need vehicles with improved gas mileage. Unfortunately, we need government intervention to get the economic equation to work for us.

We seem to be missing something in the employment equation here in the Detroit area about automobile industry jobs. In order to be able to sell vehicles, we need to manufacture vehicles that consumers want to purchase. With gasoline prices hovering around the $4.00 per gallon mark, the main thing that consumers are looking for in a new vehicle purchase is improved gasoline mileage.

Detroit is not producing hybrid vehicles fast enough for consumers, there is a demand for the hybrid vehicle. We are being told to wait until the third generation of vehicles, that the mileage will be way better on these vehicles, and everyone will want to purchase these vehicles. The question is this, will the research and development company get these things on the production line while the consumers still have the money to purchase these great vehicles?

Another thing - the compressed natural gas vehicles such as the Ford Crown Victoria and the Ford Grand Marquis, are being taken off the production line, except for sale to law enforcement agencies, which makes a lot of sense in this day of rising gasoline prices. These vehicles, introduced in the 1990's, are being withdrawn from production just as the general public is becoming aware of the need to possibly switch to some fuel other than gasoline. The marketing executives in Dearborn and Detroit were not able to bombard the public with the idea that compressed natural gas engines would be an alternative for the near future to continue the models. We needed to have government-subsidized public service announcements.

We need to develop a coherent marketing plan for these alternative energy vehicles, we need to develop a program to train mechanics nationwide to repair these vehicles when they arrive at consumers' homes and businesses, and we need to have this done yesterday. We needed to have government-subsidized educational programs to train the mechanics to repair the cars built with greater fuel economy on a national basis.

Detroit has everything the city needs in order to get the new vehicles manufactured - namely, manpower, materials, and equipment. General Motors, Ford, and Chrysler have the blueprints for vehicles built in the 1960's and 1970's that were modified versions of existing vehicles that got 40 miles per gallon, 50 miles per gallon, or more. The general public is not lobbying to have these vehicles built, aside from a few small voices outnumbered by tobacco industry lobbyists. The state of Michigan is in economic turmoil due to the continuing job crunch within the automobile industry.

The highways around "Motor City" are, in an understatement, not properly maintained in many areas. The infrastructure of Detroit needs more automobile sales in order to be able to have a tax base to be able to do things like maintain roads, build wind-power plants, and keep the infrastructure going.

What's funny is this, BMW is hiring American automobile workers, due to our high-quality production, and our lower cost than German workers. Another thing that could be done to have the Detroit economic picture improve is to do nothing and allow Japanese and European automobile manufacturers to purchase General Motors, Ford, and Chrysler. This was already tried in the case of Chrysler, namely Daimler-Chrysler. There is something wrong with the strategic marketing plan for the vehicles. The executive vision of the Big Three automobile manufacturers is no longer working, and we need to do something.

The folks in Washington D.C. know how to market the federal government, which is something that Detroit is not doing with certification courses for mechanics nationwide, or for compressed natural gas vehicles or other alternative energy vehicles. We need help, not just financial assistance, to redirect the automotive industry into profitable parameters. We need the Department of Education to step in, and help develop training programs for mechanics nationally.

Consumers want to purchase vehicles with improved gasoline mileage, mechanics want to know how to repair these vehicles prior to these vehicles getting into the shop, people in Detroit want their jobs back. We need to get these vehicles manufactured now, Detroit and Michigan have suffered enough already.

Detroit needs jobs, automobile manufacturers need sales, consumers want hybrid vehicles. Unfortunately, we need government intervention to get the economic equation to work for us.