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Solutions To Our Auto Problems; We Can Dream It, But We Can’t Do It

Posted on | November 19, 2008 Time: 1:18 pm |

As I sat and watched the testimony of the Big 3 CEOs yesterday, I began to zone out (hey, it’s been a long month) and dream about a solution that many folks seem to have in one way or another, yet will never see the light of day.

Part of me would love to see what happens if the Big 3 don’t get any money, if they just plod along into the unknown. I’ll admit I’ve got sort of a sick fascination with the idea, like the prospect watching an asteroid strike some random, far-off planet.

Only if Big Auto in the United States fails, it’s not in a far-off place. It would permeate; it would be ugly and everywhere all at once. It would create not only financial fissures, but social fissures, and ignite old ideological differences that we are so tantalizingly close to eliminating through the forces of capitalism.

So what’s the perfect solution? Damned if I know. But in my mind I can envision the framework of a package, one that includes the $50-$75 billion necessary to completely transform the auto industry. In my mind’s eye we aggregate our massive existing auto infrastructure, and figure out the best ways to integrate all the assets. We demand a complete scrapping of existing labor contracts (bear with me, this is fantasy time…)

We (by which I mean Big 3 management, government-by-committee, economists, trade regulators, and IB/consulting groups) put together multiple business models to cover clean technology, fuel cells, design rebuilds, fueling infrastructure….the whole lot of what it would take to have multiple clean/hybrid technologies up and running with aggressive production targets.

Once the plans are in place, 3 or 4 “new” corporations re-capitalize, issue shares, head out and compete.

Alas, this fantastically impossible but beautiful situation will only exist in my mind’s eye. Our government simply doesn’t have the potential to accomplish this. It doesn’t even matter why; the list is long and only would incite arguments that take us nowhere near a feasible solution. And while I fully believe that the talent, the sheer will and the brainpower needed to do it exists, the fact remains that the people with those traits - save a surely frustrated few in the industry - are not in our Congress, and are not running our auto companies.

Parting Shot

The Pragmatic solution? I’ve given up on noodling over that one. Whatever it is, it’s likely to be an expensive equivalent to sticking a wad of bubble gum in the hole of a raft.

Ryan Barnes

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