I remember several years ago, seeing a print ad for GM. It features an engineer who said he had worked for the last three years on daytime-running lights. THREE FRICKIN' YEARS!!! I mean, come on ... how tough it is to design a connection that says "turn car on, light on; turn car off, light off"? My thought was "these have to be the most stupidly engineered cars in the world."

Times haven't changed in Detroit. It's all small ball, played at slow pace.

I'm not sure the Design News writer has identified the problem. Apparently he thinks GM's crisis can be solved with a "General Motors Loves the Environment" ad campaign.

What they need is a car people want to buy at a price they're willing to pay. Five interior designers to two environmental designers strikes me as just fine.

GM factory worker wage: $78/hour
Toyota factory worker wage (in USA): $48

... and how much did the UAW donate to the Dems this year?

"how tough it is to design a connection that says 'turn car on, light on; turn car off, light off'?"

It's a piece of cake. However, designing a circuit to do that without significantly decreasing the bulb lifetime, and without adding more cost to the vehicle than the customer is willing to bear--now that took 3 years. The concept itself was obvious enough, mostly it involved getting such a thing designed in silicon and into mass production such that the chip cost didn't significantly affect vehicle system controller price.

It's easy to say "just do it", and yes there's a lot of Dilbert-itis, but there's also some real difficulties that have gotten in the way. Most of them have to do with the "what the market will bear" end of things.

That's the curse of the Information Age--things that seem easy in concept, but are difficult when you put the pedal to the economic metal, so to speak.

The idea that resources will then flow to companies that want to build innovative cars is a mistake.

The purpose of bankruptcy is to shed obligations that cannot be met and save what can be saved.

Neither GM or Ford will vanish with bankruptcy. They would become much smaller and emerge with some prospect of returning to profit.

Their creditors, suppliers, and contracted labor - mostly in the UAW - would suffer. But they will suffer even more if matters continue as they are.

Of course if the government is to keep them in business despite losses then it would be nice to identify the cost as a surtax on the income tax forms.

Perhaps $30B/year paid by $100M filers. Sounds like $300 per return. But the rich would pay it. Never mind!

I've driven GM and Ford products since 1998 and 1991. I'll continue driving that car and pickup until the wheels fall off :-)

Consumers like me don't help the auto industry at all, so my opinion is worth diddly here.

Except... if I have to pay for the automakers to 'exist' I would like to have a new car in return.

Maybe they shouldn't make them so good?

@Neil --

Somewhere between "three years" and "just do it" lies a reasonable time period. I don't know this for certain, but I would strongly doubt it would take engineers at Toyota or Honda (or even a laggard like Nissan) three frickin' years to engineer something so basic as daytime running lights. (And if it did, they wouldn't trumpet the slowness in a marketing campaign!)

American cars are better designed, better engineered, and better built than they were 20 years ago. However, they still do seem to lag technologically behind the leading-edge Japanese companies. They just can't get innovations to the market very quickly. Is it because of the obscene differential in labor costs, that they can't bring innovation to market until it's cost effective? Could be. Is it because Detroit is focused on the mass market and is afraid to have a product designed to appeal, even initially, to a niche market? Could be. Is it because are best and brightest engineers give Detroit a wide berth and would rather work for a fifth-rate tech company than an automobile manufacturer. You've got to admit that's part of it.

I still don't see how repeated infusions of $25 billion for companies with market capitalizations of a fraction of that solves these problems.