Re: General Motors to End Hummer H1 Production

From: MV (MV@dc9.tzo.com)
Date: Sun May 14 2006 - 21:08:17 PDT

Good question.

There is a HUGE difference. Honda - Marysville plant is about 150 miles
from my place. It is a very large plant - employees a lot of people.
Unfortunately the vast bulk of the parts for the Hondas do not originate
in the US. The cars are assembled here. Toyota, Isuzu, and the rest
are the same. They design the cars overseas, find parts suppliers
overseas, and assemble the cars here. Sometimes a parts supplier will
decide to build a plant here to make parts to feed Honda and Toyota
plants. So they have the building built here, import all of the
machines, and hire people at $8.00/hr to run the machines. GM, Daimler
Chrysler, and Ford still have engineering and design staff here. They
look for low cost suppliers near their assembly plants first to maintain
Just in Time inventory levels. When you have an engineering question
regarding a GM, Ford, or Daimler-Chrysler production machine, you call
the guys in Detroit. When you have a problem with a Honda production
machine, you call the guys in Japan. Daimler-Chrysler still operates
like an American company.

I once read that in Indiana, there are about 250 parts suppliers to GM
located here. There is only one GM assembly plant in Indiana. There
are roughly 40 parts suppliers to Toyota in Indiana and there is one
Toyota assembly plant here also. Huge difference.

Dave

Ryan Gill wrote:
> At 11:57 AM -0400 5/13/06, MV wrote:
>
>> > We'll be down to Honda, Toyota (Seen the new FJ Cruiser? Its METAL!!!)
>>
>>> Volvo, S&S, Dodge, and a few others like Volvo.
>>
>>
>> It sure would be nice if some of these were actually American companies.
>
>
>
> Well, if they have parts and manufacturing here, what's the difference.
> Dodge isn't really American any more by your standards. Heck, Ford had
> plants in the US, UK and Germany during WWII. Made trucks for both
> sides, not that I think the management in the US had anything to say
> about the out put in Germany.

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