Maryann Keller - Recent Speech at a JD Power Conference

For the over four decades I’ve been involved with the auto industry, first as an investment analyst and now as a consultant and director se...

Economics 244: The Auto Industry

I begin teaching a 4-week-long auto industry seminar today; David Ruggles, this site's co-blogger, visits at the end of the week. For th...

Dealers Push Back

Emboldened by recent healthy profits and the prospects of a recovering economy, auto manufacturers are pressuring their surviving dealers, a...

"Turning Oil Into Salt" book review.

Book Review of "Turning Oil into Salt," a book by Gal Luft and Anne Korin If you believe in global warming, you believe we need to...

Book Review of “All the Devils are Here The Hidden History of the Financial Crisis” “Hell is empty and all the devils...

Bob Lutz – “The Triumph of “Gut” over Number Crunching”

Bob Lutz, auto industry icon, recently received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Automotive Fleet and Leasing Association (AFLA) at the...

Inside The Chrysler Dealer Arbitrations

T he Chrysler dealer arbitrations have been completed. Out of 108 arbitration hearings Chrysler maintains they won 76 of the decisions to 3...

Conspiracy Theory and Push Marketing

After the taxpayers took ownership in General Motors and Chrysler there have been a couple of interesting conspiracy theories take arise. T...

Perspectives from NADA Orlando 2010

M y first NADA convention was 1987, after the record setting 1986 model year. I recall two things in particular. First, the shrimp and cra...

It’s Unanimous!

Pre-Owned values will continue to rise as supply shrinks. Early 2010 pronouncements by industry experts bear out what economists close to th...

Rattner's "Tell All"

I have been trying to resolve a mystery for months. When it was announced that General Motors and Chrysler were terminating dealers as a par...

How Do You Measure Quality in the Auto Business?

A m I presumptuous enough to lecture J.D. Power on how to measure quality? Not really. My point is that there is more than one way to calc...

Lies, Damn Lies, and Statistics!

David Ruggles See also Cliff Banks article in Wards A s I watched the Senate hearings today on CSPAN my blood boiled. When asked about the ...

Dealerships are a Cost? - I Don't Think So!

Mike Smitka T he statements of the CEOs of GM and Chrysler at today's Senate hearing on dealership closures make very little sense overa...

The "Throughput" Myth!

David Ruggles M uch has been written and spoken by the administration and in the media about the bankrupt Chrysler and GM Dealers lack of “t...