Why are the big three automakers ignoring mass transit?

Denny

Lets face it, the logical outcome of peak oil will be less, not more, use of the auto. I would not be surprised if the largest auto sales year we will ever see is in the recent past.

Seeing that, why have the big three auto companies not gotten into mass transit? In fact, they have removed themselves. General Motors used to manufacture buses and it was also the largest locomotive producer. Yet, they have all kinds of market research people and high paid executives.

They have the size of plants, the kind of machine tools and, most importantly, the skilled trades people, especially toolmakers, needed to adapt the business to the future.

As it stands, most North American bus production is done by a mix of lower tech companies, although Daimler is involved. When it comes to rail, Bombardier seems to command most of the passenger rolling stock manufacturing. General Electric now leads in locomotives.

What makes me think of this is the memory of first boss, who worked on setting up General Motors of Canada's armored vehicle production way back in World War II. This was done even before the government commanded the production halt to passenger cars. So, they did look ahead ans saw the writing on the wall. It seems the auto companies actually had more foresight way back in time than they do today, in terms of diversification.

They need to think out of the box, and think of their strategic advantages. But, instead they are still investing in the past. For instance, GM recently restyled its pickup truck line and did some minor mechanical refinements, which was a billion dollar outlay. For what? They aren't even selling as well as last years versions, and they have not even picked up any real market share. Its like they have blinders on.

Looking back, we should recall how flexible the automakers were. The largest bomber plant was operated by Ford, the largest tank plant by Chrysler, and huge volumes of aircraft engines by General Motors.

I think we are going to need new mass transit production on a massive scale in the near, not distant, future.

Pops

And what are the readers of this forum going to do with this information Denny?

This is the Doing forum as you know, where would this info best be moved?
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diemaker · Coal Joined: May 30, 2008 Posts: 2

Denny Wrote They have the size of plants, the kind of machine tools and, most importantly, the skilled trades people, especially toolmakers, needed to adapt the business to the future. As a retired Tool & Die maker from G.M. I can tell you they have suffered a major brain drain with all those early retirements. First post great web site been reading a long time. If somthing is out of wack with the post let me know how too fix it. Crying or Very sad

Denny

TreebeardsUncle · Intermediate Crude Joined: Jun 15, 2006 Posts: 598

Mass transit is the enemy for them. Standard oil, GM, and Firestone systematically bought out the trolley lines in many cities in the 20's through 40's, shut them down, and broke up the rights of way. They did this to increase market share when somewhere around 10% or so of people in the 1920's used cars. The rest used electric trolleys, horses etc. GM brought in buses too as a way of discouraging use of the trolleys, trains etc.
American business does not so much innovate as try to get more people to buy the same stuff they made a lot of money on recently. Hollywood resisted Lucas before he came out in Star Wars in 1977 so he made the movie in Tunisia etc and through a British outfit. For the last 30 years Hollywood has been immitating him, more or less coming out with the same movie (emphasizing guns, cars, anti-intellectualism, and quick violent simplistic solutions to complex problems) since then.
g

FreddyH

It is not well known that since 1930, most of the world's diesel locomotives were built by GM, principally in their plant in London Ontario. This division was sold to Berkshire in 2005.
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