false http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1173341124m/276265.jpg 276265 2 <p><b>An in-depth, hard-hitting account of the mistakes, miscalculations and myopia that have doomed America&#8217;s automobile industry.</b><br><br>In the 1990s, Detroit&#8217;s Big Three automobile companies were riding high. The introduction of the minivan and the SUV had revitalized the industry, and it was widely believed that Detroit had miraculously overcome the threat of foreign imports and regained its ascendant position. As Micheline Maynard makes brilliantly clear in THE END OF DETROIT, however, the traditional American car industry was, in fact, headed for disaster. Maynard argues that by focusing on high-profit trucks and SUVs, the Big Three missed a golden opportunity to win back the American car-buyer. Foreign companies like Toyota and Honda solidified their dominance in family and economy cars, gained market share in high-margin luxury cars, and, in an ironic twist, soon stormed in with their own sophisticatedly engineered and marketed SUVs, pickups and minivans. Detroit, suffering from a &#8220;good enough&#8221; syndrome and wedded to ineffective marketing gimmicks like rebates and zero-percent financing, failed to give consumers what they really wanted&#8212;reliability, the latest technology and good design at a reasonable cost. Drawing on a wide range of interviews with industry leaders, including Toyota&#8217;s Fujio Cho, Nissan&#8217;s Carlos Ghosn, Chrysler&#8217;s Dieter Zetsche, BMW&#8217;s Helmut Panke, and GM&#8217;s Robert Lutz, as well as car designers, engineers, test drivers and owners, Maynard presents a stark picture of the culture of arrogance and insularity that led American car manufacturers astray. Maynard predicts that, by the end of the decade, one of the American car makers will no longer exist in its present form.</p> 267911 2003 The End of Detroit: How the Big Three Lost Their Grip on the American Car Market total:18|5:1|4:5|3:10|2:2| 18 59 32 5 3 0 false false Wed Mar 05 00:00:00 -0800 2008 Fri Feb 29 00:23:19 -0800 2008 Sun Mar 09 08:41:31 -0700 2008 more...]]> 4 0 false false Wed Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2003 Mon Mar 23 19:21:03 -0700 2009 Mon Mar 23 19:24:03 -0700 2009 0 0 false false Sun Aug 17 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Wed Jan 21 11:17:40 -0800 2009 Mon Aug 10 10:04:08 -0700 2009 3 0 false false Tue Aug 26 04:30:09 -0700 2008 Tue Aug 26 04:31:37 -0700 2008 3 0 false false Tue May 01 00:00:00 -0700 2007 Sun Oct 14 02:54:21 -0700 2007 Fri Nov 16 03:10:58 -0800 2007 0 0 false false Sun Aug 16 19:02:44 -0700 2009 Sun Aug 16 19:02:55 -0700 2009 0 0 false false Thu Jun 18 21:24:31 -0700 2009 Thu Jun 18 21:24:31 -0700 2009 3 0 false false Fri May 22 08:06:57 -0700 2009 Fri May 22 08:06:57 -0700 2009 3 0 false false Sat Apr 18 11:52:58 -0700 2009 Sat Apr 18 11:52:58 -0700 2009 2 0 false false Sat Mar 28 20:47:06 -0700 2009 Sat Mar 28 20:47:06 -0700 2009 4 0 false false Thu Mar 05 20:17:56 -0800 2009 Thu Mar 05 20:17:56 -0800 2009 0 0 false false Fri Jan 30 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Fri Jan 30 18:03:42 -0800 2009 Fri Jan 30 18:03:53 -0800 2009 3 0 false false Mon Sep 01 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Wed Jan 07 11:34:39 -0800 2009 Wed Jan 07 11:35:00 -0800 2009 0 0 false false Mon Jul 06 10:21:44 -0700 2009 Mon Dec 15 10:25:58 -0800 2008 Mon Jul 06 10:21:44 -0700 2009 0 0 false false Sun Nov 09 13:38:03 -0800 2008 Sun Nov 09 13:38:03 -0800 2008 0 0 false false Fri Oct 10 04:32:43 -0700 2008 Fri Oct 10 04:32:46 -0700 2008 0 0 false false Mon Oct 06 14:24:23 -0700 2008 Mon Oct 06 14:24:23 -0700 2008 4 0 false false Thu Jul 31 08:29:10 -0700 2008 Thu Jul 31 08:29:10 -0700 2008 0 0 false false Tue Jul 01 18:00:59 -0700 2008 Tue Jul 01 18:00:59 -0700 2008 0 0 false false Tue Jul 01 12:22:07 -0700 2008 Tue Jul 01 12:22:07 -0700 2008 http://www.goodreads.com/book_link/follow/8?book_id=276265