Auto Industry will be happy after 15 days to the demise of the oil bubble. The oil producers and commodity operaters will be at each others throats.

The problem with the auto industry is this same as with any other business: greed.  The U.S. is in chaos over this oil crisis and the housing market.  Yet, no one wants to come down on the cost of their merchandise to make things more affordable.

Even if the auto industry come up with cars that are more fuel efficient, the cost of the cars will be higher; save money on gas, but at a cost.

The answer would be to offer cars at a reduced price and sell more instead of trying to get filthy rich from selling fewer.  We all know that the actual cost of cars are not near the price consumers are paying.  So, we all, the auto industry included, need to ride this economic crisis out with a little more personal responsibility.

But the reality of business is that the CEOs will try to squeeze every penny from the consumer and company's before bailing out before the company go under.  In a capitalist economic, there is never a real concern over the struggles of consumers.

What happens to all the employees of Ford,with production finished only 5 1/2 months into the year? Nobody wants to come outright and say it and even in '29 they didn't either; but the looming threat of depression looks more real everyday.

H.E.A.T, you are exactly right.  Greed and stupidity is why they are struggling.  But they made their beds also.  They were in line with the oil men for this whole time.  You know they had the capabilities to make hybrids along time ago but they didn't.  Now they are scrambling.  Look at the scraping of the electric cars.  Bet they wish they hadn't done that now.  I don't feel sorry for them or the airline industry.  They are another bunch of idiots.

The auto industry and the UAW have no one to blame but themselves.Instead of focusing on producing quality bproducts at reasonable prices they have given us increasingly shoddy products at ever increasing higher prices and high repair bills.Each time there has been a threat to them they wave the American flag or show some Hollywood cowboy using their products instead of concentrating on the root problem: ever increasingly poor products at higher prices.The topper came this year when Ford had to finally compare itself in quality to Toyota.Remember when Lee Iaococca had to rescue Chrysler in the 70s. 3 years after he left the the quality of the minivans deteriorated when the MBAs from Wharton,Harvard and Stanford were back in control.They just don't get it in Detroit and they never will: production of good products at reasonable prices and paying attention to who really pays their salaries..the American consumer.I think its time for them to steal away into the night.They had a good thing going for them but ruined it with their greed on both sides.The days when these dinosaurs on both sides ruled the earth are gone.They are becoming extinct and it didnt take an asteroid just their greed.

Sorry to disagree with you, american built cars are very well built even when compared internationally. Yes I suppose greed is a capitalist idea, however, making a profit for your investors seems more logical than making marginal products and working for your government. Hybids are a joke, they currently cost 3k to 5k more than the non hybrid car and need the batteries replaced in 4-6 years at a cost of 4K, run those numbers, even at $6 per gallon, and you'd have to drive a lot of miles to justify a hybrid anything, plus the issue of what to do with the old batteries, electric cars just transfer the power/pollution from the road to the power company. for now, it's exploration and maybe bio fuels. The real problem in Detroit is too many college educated bean counters and not enough car guys (people) who are dynamic and innovative.

What the U.S. news media does not publish is the fact that Toyota is not doing well either, their quality has been consistantly dropping over the past few years, profits are down 28% from last year at this time, and they too missed the boat by coming out with a line of full size vehicles that they can't give away.  Instead of going smaller, they went with a full size Tundra, and Sequoia.  They also have stopped all new construction on plants in the U.S. and are cutting production just like the U.S. auto companies.  For some odd reason, the U.S. consumers dislike the U.S. auto companies, which is fine, but just realize our country will be in a whole lot more hurt if a company like GM or Ford goes out of business.   GM in one way or another, pays 2.5% of our entire countries health care benefits and has a huge percentage of our countries revenues.

No one is to blame but ourselves!!! Stop buying their crappy cars and trucks. When you explain to the salesman there isn't anything on the lot that suits your needs and wants, then you will see change. I suspect the change would come quick if consumers stand up and DEMAND the products they need and only BUY products that fit the need. Period.

It is greed - and stupidity/arogance/ignorance on our parts.  Some of the burden of our current situaiton rests on our shoulders - the consumer never before made outright demands for highly fuel effcient cars when these gas hog behemuths were flying out the doors and into the driveways of a home bought with no money down, credit check/financial verification who are now running from their mortgages in that same SUV that gets 15 mpg highway - they're not going to get far considering gas will be $5/gal by the end of this month!

These car companies - all of them - need to fast track the development of smaller, turbo charged, high mpg vehicles - cars such as the Aptera is what we all need (only if those were a little more reasonably priced)!