Suffering from sticker shock
I recently learned why American automakers are in trouble — by buying a car.
My husband and I were on our way to get a Sunday-afternoon ice cream when we stopped to look at a fuel-efficient hybrid vehicle. The dealer was sold out — they only had three to begin. Electric-gasoline hybrids may still have kinks, but they offer economic and environmental life rings, so why aren’t they more readily available and affordable to anyone who wants one?
The Big Three — General Motors, Ford and Chrysler division of DaimlerChrysler — must stop telling us we want honkin’ SUVs that keep our children fighting for oil in Iraq and contribute to global warming and air pollution, and start providing us with what we need. Their economic salvation and our motoring future depend on well-built, cost-effective, energy-saving vehicles that free us from dependence on foreign oil.
Frustrated at not being able to test-drive a hybrid, we wandered over to the dealer’s used car lot. It was the last day of the month, when salesmen scramble to meet their quotas. Five idle men snapped to attention; Neal got to us first and wouldn’t let go.
Four hours later, Neal made his quota when we bought a used lemon-yellow pickup with 33,000 miles on it after bargaining nearly one-fourth off the sticker price. The finance manager who approved our 4.5-percent loan said Ford reaped a profit of $1.38.
That’s no way to run a car company.
The Big Three eventually will go under unless they stop selling cars the way Ford did to me. Low-ball pricing such as this summer’s “in-house” employee discounts to the public and below-prime financing won’t pay overhead, let alone stockholders.
Now GM and Ford say they intend to lower prices even further in an attempt to wean consumers off of the psychological incentive of rebates. Like lemmings, we’ve been influenced by advertising’s allusions that sex, security and entertainment will be ours if we keep buying bigger, faster cars that come with “free money.” It will take awhile to recondition us to accept that if we want a car, we will actually have to pay what it costs to make it.
It will take even longer to overcome our spoiled attitude that our cars are our playpens. In reality, they’re just hunks of metal to get us from point A to point B. Why should they have to entertain or seduce us? Airbags are OK, but TV screens for drivers? Excessive. Seat warmers? Ridiculous.
While waiting for my husband to finish test-driving every pickup truck on the lot, I watched two moms roll away in brand-new SUVs as big as boxcars. One had a pair of toddlers; the other had a teenager.
Their husbands signed checks while these women dickered with salesmen over backseat DVD players and navigation systems. Can’t they spell bio-diesel? I’ll bet if you asked them whether satellite radio on the dashboard was worth the life of a single American soldier they’d say “No!” with a horrified shout. But ask them to give up wide-bodied leather seats and individual climate control and they’d squeal like a stuck pig.
My mother hauled us around in a Pinto, a Ford Falcon and a used Mustang. None were air-conditioned. When we’d complain we were hot she’d say, “Roll down the window.” If we groused we were cold she’d say, “you should have dressed warmer.” We walked to school, piano lessons and baseball practice while our parents took their vehicles to work. Our car was transportation, not identity.
Since then, we’ve erroneously been persuaded that we are what we drive. We want a Hummer because it infers we’re a Schwarzenegger. A Lexus RX400 hybrid offers guilt-free luxury. A Dodge minivan fairly shouts “baby on board.”
It’s time for Detroit to show more courage, and for consumers to respond in kind.
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