American automotive industry crashing????

TOM WALSH: Auto industry is at its worst

August 30, 2005

BY TOM WALSH
FREE PRESS COLUMNIST

Is this really the worst of times for Detroit's automotive industry?

Former UAW President Doug Fraser said so last Friday. And he should know.

Fraser, 88, steered the union through the Chrysler Corp. bailout in 1980 and the severe slump that pushed Michigan's jobless rate to 16.3% in 1982, more than double the current 7% rate.

What makes things worse today for General Motors Corp., Ford Motor Co. and DaimlerChrysler AG's Chrysler Group is "11 years of declining market share," Fraser said, referring to the 1993-to-2004 span when the combined GM-Ford-Chrysler share of U.S. car and truck sales fell from 73.8% to 58.7%.

Back in the early 1980s, the whole U.S. economy was in the tank.

Not so now. Indeed, the best six years ever for total U.S. auto sales have been the last six. But the Detroit auto companies and their suppliers keep getting a smaller and smaller share of the pie.