Plywood from China

[Alan Petrillo]

Look again. Most of the "Japanese" cars sold in America are built in America, and largely with American parts. I wrote a report on this about ten years ago, but I can't find what I did with it.

I had an altercation with a guy about driving an "American" truck. He was in a Ford Ranger, and I was in a Nissan Hard Body. He didn't believe me when I pointed out that his truck was made in Mexico and mine was made in Bowling Green, Kentucky. I told him to go look up his VIN and see for himself.

The latest players in the US car market are the Koreans, with Hyundai and Kia. Not too long ago Hyundai announced that they were going to open a US plant and start building cars here.

In fact, about the only car manufacturers that are taking their plants out of the US are The Big Three, who are largely moving to Canada and Mexico. Even so, the way the rules are written, because they're US based corporations this is still considered "domestic" production.

So before you look at the manufacturer's badge and make an assumption you should find out where the vehicle was actually built.

AP

[J. Clarke]

And as far as consumer electronics (which is the industry that has been "lost"--the US still makes radars and whatnot just fine) the US consumer electronics industry shot itself in the foot by not jumping on the solid state bandwagon when transistors first came out. I don't blame that Japanese for that at all--they were working hard at coming up with innovative new products while the US consumer electronics industry was stagnating.

[Doug Miller]

And where the parts were made. My son's Firebird was built in the U.S., but an awful lot of the individual parts are stamped "Made in Canada".

[willshak]

My Nissan hardbody was made in Smyrna, Tennessee. My old 1976 Ford Elite was made in Canada. All Ford Crown Victorias have been made in St. Thomas, Ontario, Canada since 1992.

[EXT]

I once had two GM Olds Sierras, one made in Oshawa, Ontario, Canada and one made in Georgia, USA, the city I don't remember. While they were basically the same design, there were significant differences in the construction. The Canadian car lasted for about 10 years while the Georgia car was nothing but trouble, transmission had to be replaced, I was on the third rack and pinion steering, it would stall going over every speed bump plus other problems.

[scritch]

Just a little aside to all those who complain about creeping "socialism". From what I understand Canada has much stronger protections for workers, AND national health care, yet our great American auto manufacturers find it cheaper to build cars and parts in Canada than here in the good ol' "free-market" United States.

Maybe, just maybe, to achieve living conditions that benefit more people rather than a few at the top, it's worthwhile to consider ways of running a society that virtually every other industrialized country has adopted.

[dicko]

hahaha... I got a laugh out of this.

Its not that the US industry was caught flat footed. The US was innovating... Doing everything to fight the transistor.

First there was the Compactron tube. Remember those... It jammed the functionality of multiple tubes into one envelope and cost a fortune to replace.

Then there was a whole slew of 1 volt filament tubes that enabled the US industry to make "portable" radios that ran off a bunch of D cells and a 45v B battery.

And finally there was the "Nuvistor". It's name even sounds like Transistor. It was a teeny little tube designed specifically to fight against the transistor. It looked just like a transistor too.

So yep, we killed ourselves. But it's not that we weren't innovating. It's just that we were innovating the wrong things.

[news]

How true - my 2008 Toyota Tacoma was built in California on the same line that built some Pontiac models that year. The previous vehicle was a 1989 Nissan pickup that was built in Tennessee.

A true US-built car? One that's built in your garage, using 50-year-old tools and a

40-year-old Briggs & Stratton engine ;-)

John

[Robatoy]

THIS!

[DGDevin]

It costs GM $1,200 per vehicle less to build cars in Canada than in the U.S. because they don't have the cost of an employee health plan. However everything has to be paid for, and the monthly health insurance fee Canadians pay only covers a tiny fraction of their govt.-run provincial health insurance expenditures. So guess who gets to pick up the difference? That's right, the taxpayer. Unfortunately there's never enough tax money fill the gap, so the quality of health care in Canada has been declining for some time. In 2005 a lawsuit by a guy who had been waiting over a year for hip-replacement surgery went all the way to their supreme court which ruled that prohibiting people from going outside the govt. system was unconstitutional given that life-threatening delays in diagnosis and treatment had become widespread.

Sure, the U.S. health insurance companies manage to absorb a quarter of all the money they take in for administrative overhead, double what the govt. insurance plans in Canada consume internally. Ten percent of what Americans with insurance pay is "shifted" by the health care industry to cover their costs when they have to treat uninsured patients, aside from billions more in tax dollars. And one in six Americans has no health insurance. The U.S. system (or lack of a system) is a shambles, but just copying the Canadian system is probably not the solution.

[Dave Balderstone]

Ever heard of the Auto Pact between the US and Canada?

It's only been around since 1965...

"The Auto Pact eliminated trade tariffs between the two countries and created a single North American manufacturing market. Tariffs between the two countries were eliminated on cars, trucks, buses, tires and automotive parts. The single market allowed Chrysler, Ford and General Motors to rationalize production in Canada and the United States and form a single integrated production and marketing system."

[Swingman]

Except at the beginning:

[dpb]

overall state of affairs. Philco had the Transac S-2000 series computer out which included them new-fangled solid state devices quite early (1958). They had hybrid models of the series even earlier (showing my age, I used them... :) ).

The application in consumer products was a different story as the economics weren't the same.

[Dave Balderstone]

Sorry, should have read "between 1965 and 1996"

[Lew Hodgett]

I don't know whether you wish to consider the automotive alternator a consumer product or not, but like the automotive radio, we can thank Motorola for its existance..

For the alternator to be practical, a 3 phase rectifier bridge was required.

Prior to the solid state rectifier, germanium was used, which was a problem.

There simply is enough germanium to satisfy automotive production for a year, thus pricing restricted it's use to police and emergency vehicles.

When the solid state 25A, push in diode became available, it sold for $100 + $1/PIV and you needed 100PIV.

Thus a solid state diode was $200 ea or $1,200/bridge.

Needless to say, those early diodes were guarded with great care by engineering.

With that as the background, in walks Motorola to the big 3 with a proposition:

You guarantee Motorola 10,000,000 units/year, we will build a plant and sell diodes to you for $0.25 EACH.

Thus the automotive alternator became a reality.

Lew

[Doug Winterburn]

Motorola sold their semiconductor division several years ago. It's called Freescale Semiconductor.

[Lew Hodgett]

This was the 1955-1960 time period.

As usual, you can depend on Motorola to f*ck up a wet dream.

Lew

[clare]

Motorola sold off everything they were good at to concentrate on the highly competetive cellular phone market - one of their weakest product lines.

[clare]

And all the Freescale stuff is made in Thailand and China.

[LD]

It did. Millions of Transistor Radios.