Stuck in the past

Wednesday, July 9, 2008 | 2:08 a.m.

Giving customers what they wanted had been a credo of American automaking giants General Motors, Ford and Chrysler for generations. They could deliver luxury, comfort, power and speed at reasonable prices and sustain large workforces that kept America’s economy humming. Little by little, though, foreign automakers such as Toyota and Honda began chipping away at the once-dominant U.S. market share enjoyed by the Detroit automakers.

Today one cannot pick up a newspaper or watch a TV news program without constant reminders that American automakers are in a world of hurt. Instead of making headlines with new product lines, U.S. companies have contributed of late to longer unemployment lines. They have been closing plants and thinning their workforces through buyouts and layoffs faster than they can say “zero percent financing.”

Shares of General Motors stock last week fell below $10 to reach a 54-year low. The most popular vehicle sold in America is no longer the Ford F-150. The top of the heap is now ruled by Toyota and Honda sedans.

At least some of this carnage could have been avoided had American manufacturers not so adamantly opposed 1990 legislation by then-Sens. Richard Bryan, D-Nev., and Slade Gorton, R-Wash., to increase the average mileage of vehicles sold in the United States — known as corporate average fuel economy standards — from 27.5 miles per gallon to slightly more than 40 mpg by 2001. Bryan argued at the time that the bill would save Americans 49 billion gallons of gasoline between 1995 and 2001, would lower this country’s dependence on foreign oil and cut emissions. It took Congress until last year to approve an increase in fuel economy standards to 35 mpg, which must be achieved by 2020.

But the damage to Detroit’s manufacturers had been done and may be irreversible. American automakers, which controlled more than 80 percent of the domestic market in the early 1980s, are struggling to maintain a 50 percent share today.

Their collective well-being undoubtedly would have been greater had they taken the sage advice from Bryan and Gorton to convert a greater percentage of their fleets to fuel-efficient vehicles. Had this action been taken in the 1990s, there is no doubt Toyota and Honda would not be as strong in this country as they are today. Instead, it was the Japanese automakers that first recognized the thirst among American consumers for low-cost, fuel-efficient cars.

Customers are screaming for more gas-saving models. There is no law that says you cannot add comfort and amenities such as leather seats and sun roofs, if so desired, to a fuel-efficient vehicle. General Motors, Ford and Chrysler must once again prove they can deliver what Americans want in an automobile. They should have listened to Bryan and Gorton when they had the chance.