The Show Must Go On? Nope. |

I remember how excited I was back in 1964. Finally, there would be a World’s Fair near me. (Seattle was just too far and too much money for me in 1962.) I’m pretty sure I relished the site at least a dozen times. And, not just for those new snacks- Belgian Waffles. No, the GE exhibit (despite the fact that Ronald Reagan had gone to the VERY dark side [Goldwater!!!]), Walt Disney (It’s a Small World After All), the various countries, and the ATT, Ford and GM exhibits.

1964 World's Fair

My last visit was to the Montreal World’s Fair in 1967. By then, things were greatly attenuated. Today, no one ever mentions a World’s Fair.

That same thing is happening now to those auto shows. When I was younger, their draw was pretty uniform. At least among young boys (who ranged in age from 4 to 90). The last one of those I attended was when my son was almost 10. He deserved the opportunity to see what was once a grand pageant.

But, now the issue is slightly different. I think the auto shows are dying off because they don’t know how to excite us, to entice us to visit. In America, the granddaddy of them all was the Detroit (Cobo Hall) show. For the rest of the world, it was Frankfurt. (While attendance was up this year for Cobo, it’s been so bad generally, the convenors stopped providing attendance data!)

Concept cars are becoming more scarce. Now, the issue is what really is an auto concept. How to envision the car industry of the future.

It’s not just the transition to electric cars. Or the fact that V-8’s or slant 6’s are no longer available to us, to provide us the power under our feet that excited us to buy those behemoths. Or, the fact that so many European vehicle manufacturers falsified emissions or the Japanese used substandard air bags.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qhR8GZ_WWMM

No, the salient factors are very different. It’s not which car will we buy- but will we be buying cars at all? Will we only be renting them? Or, perhaps sharing them among a select group of friends- or even strangers. How many houses have you seen advertised that have excellent “walkability”? Or, that condos and hotels now lack parking lots. Not to mention those scooters and bike rentals that litter our sidewalks.

For the past decade, America no longer maintains at least two cars per household! Or, that the average age of car owners is now 55! (Which brings up the fear that we’ve reached “peak car”- that the number of vehicles sold each year will no longer increase. And, instead of selling us smaller cars, the manufacturers are erasing them from their lineup, bulking up with SUV’s and trucks [which have much less intense safety regulations, to boot].)

These factors are what makes the UAW-GM strike so curious. Sure, GM’s been making money hand over fist (thanks in no small part to the wonderful leadership of Mary Barra). But, they’ve been doing so by demanding concessions from the union, running three (or more) different tiers of workers. (7% of GM’s hourly manufacturing staff are temporary.). 4 decades ago GM alone employed more than ½ million hourly workers. Nowadays, that slashed census is reflected in the fact that there are but 49,000 striking GM workers.

(Sure, GM just promised that they will reopen two of the four factories being shuttered to build an electric pickup truck and a battery manufacturer. But, those sort of promises are too often lost in fantasyland.)

Here are some other key facts. Despite the BS spewed by TheDonald, manufacturing in the US has taken a big hit. Consider that auto wages (as a whole) are now around $25 an hour, down from their peak of $30.90 back in 2002. But in 2002, those wages led the US average by almost 50%, now the auto sector is but a dime ahead of the typical worker. And, the auto worker in Mexico reaps about $3.50 an hour- with reasonable productivity. So, it’s hard for a manufacturer to justify instituting a new plant in the USA over Mexico.

There’s going to have to be some (what my ex-wife loved to call) “Come to Jesus” moments on both sides. Especially since the UAW will be using whatever they obtain from GM as a paradigm for Ford and Chrysler- and even those foreign manufacturers that dot our southern states.

It’s clear there won’t be a winner on either side of this battle.