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US Car Sales in April Outpace Trucks for Second Month in a Row
2 May 2008
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| Monthly sales of cars and light trucks in the US, January-April, 2007 and 2008. Click to enlarge. |
Sales of passenger cars in the US in April exceeded the number of light trucks sold for the second month in a row, with 655,432 units sold compared to 591,122, according to figures from Autodata.
The US new vehicle market has been generally characterized by greater share of heavier light truck sales for a number of years, with light truck sales finally exceeding those of cars in 2001 on an annual basis, according to the Transportation Energy Data Book. However, car sales have recently occassionally exceeded those of trucks—in May 2007, for example, and before that in 2002.
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| Cars and light trucks percentage of annual new vehicle sales. Click to enlarge. |
The gap between cars and trucks widened in April, however, compared to March, and comes in the overall context of declining sales and rapidly rising gas prices. Total light vehicle sales in April 2008 declined 6.9% compared to the year before, according to Autodata. However, sales of cars increased 5.2% compared to April 2007, while light truck sales dropped 17.4%
The full-size pickup truck and full-size SUV segments have softened for the entire industry—down 15 and 26 percent, respectively, through the first quarter of 2008.
GM—the segment leader for both full-size trucks, with 40% share, and full-size SUVs, with more than 63% share—is eliminating one shift of production at its full-size pickup truck assembly plants in Pontiac, Mich.; Flint, Mich.; and Oshawa, Ontario; and its full-size SUV assembly plant in Janesville, Wis.
Under this plan, approximately 88,000 units of full-size pickup and 50,000 units of full-size SUV production will be removed from GM’s North American production capacity for the remainder of the 2008 calendar year.
With rising fuel prices, a softening economy, and a downward trend on current and future market demand for full-size trucks, a significant adjustment was needed to align our production with market realities.
—Troy Clarke, president GM North America
GM, which saw its sales drop 16% by volume in April 2008 from April 2007, essentially held its car sales flat (120,824 units in April 2008 vs. 121,009 in April 2007); the 16% decline in total sales was driven by a 27% collapse in light truck sales to 136,814 units from 186,545 the year before.
Likewise, Ford saw most of its 12% decline in total sales driven by an 18% drop in light truck sales (to 120,814 from 147,891 units). Ford’s passenger car sales saw only a 1% decline (to 79,912 from 80,732). The venerable F-Series, Ford’s best-selling brand, saw its sales drop 21% in April to 44,813 units from 56,692.
Chrysler was pummeled in both sectors, with a 19% drop in car sales (to 39,564 units from 49,054 units) and a 25% drop in truck sales (to 108,187 form 144,050).
Toyota saw its sales increase to 217,700 units in April 2008 from 210,457 in April 2007—an unadjusted increase of 3%. Toyota passenger car sales increased 12% to 134,863 units from 120,556 while its light truck sales declined by 8%. (Within those results, however, sales of the Land Cruiser more than doubled to 473 from 191; sales of the Sequoia increased 34% to 2,675 units; and sales of the LX more than trebled to 799.)
At the time of this writing, Honda had yet to release final sales numbers for April, “due to technical difficulties.” Preliminary data indicated an increase in total sales of more than 6% to more than 134,000 units.
Nissan sales increased 7% by volume in April 2008 to 75,855 units. Passenger car sales increased 20% to 48,990, while light truck sales dropped 12% to 26,865 units.
Resources
Transportation Energy Data Book, Ed. 26
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I am still amazed that the car industry sells as many units as they do in the U.S. It is not like cars are fashion and you have to have a new one every few years. I think the easy money home refinance piggy bank may have come to and end. People might start hanging on to their cars longer from now on.
Posted by: SJC | May 2, 2008 3:30:22 PM
SJC,
If you take the current inventory of 235 million cars and light duty trucks give them an average life of 20 years (considering used vehicles at the end of their life as well as newer vehicles that are totaled) and you still have a possible 1 million vehicles being taken off the roads every month and considered no longer driveable.
Posted by: Patrick | May 2, 2008 3:41:13 PM
OT: Has Sungri been covered here already?
http://www.sunrgi.com/media.html
"SUNGRI Announces Xtreme Concentrated Photovoltaics ™ (XCPV™) at The National Energy Marketeers Association's 11th Annual Global Energy Forum in Washington, DC"
"washington, dc - A new solar energy system will soon make it possible to produce electricity at a wholesale cost of 5-cents per kWh (kilowatt hour). This price is competitive with the wholesale cost of producing electricity using fossil fuels and a fraction of the current cost of solar energy."
They made the announcement at a energy marketing forum.
11th annual NEM global energy forum.
http://www.energymarketers.com/agenda/2008/Annual08Agenda.htm
Robert Blocks down page on right. They expect it to be commercially available in 12-15mos.
Is this trustworthy news? Or wild expectations?
Posted by: Michael | May 2, 2008 4:31:06 PM
All I see is glass half empty.
News like this tend to become fodder for people who believe that somehow US market is changing. But the way I see it, it just means the winding down of one fad (vanity trucks), and same demographics will simply shift into another (CUVs, muscle cars, loud gas-guzzling road hogs, etc.) Small cars and hybrids are small niche markets, and even 100% increase in sales just equate to "two drops" in the bucket.
Right now, I believe the downward trend is mostly due to consumer pessimism. If nothing drastic happens in the next year or two, if the economy bounces back, the auto market will shift back to the old paradigm: bigger, faster cars still get price premiums, and only losers shop based on fuel-efficiencies.
All in all, I see little change, but maybe less new cars being sold over year to year.
Posted by: Charles S | May 2, 2008 4:52:45 PM
Charles:
I don't see how you can say that--the NYT said that small cars made up 1/5 of the market, up from 1/8 in I think 2000. If you consider that hybrids are now close to 3% market share, and that the prius accounts for about half of all hybrids, the prius alone has about 1.5% market share and has the fastest growing sales of any major vehicle. Also, 4 cylinder engines have replaced 6 cylinder engines as the having the largest market share. I predict between this and all the other things going on, US oil consumption will fall rather dramatically over the next ~5 years. Whether it'll be enough is a fair question, but it's in the works.
Posted by: Dan A | May 2, 2008 6:13:41 PM
It is incredible that after almost 4 years in a row of oil price increase, more than 50% of people are still buying truck, and the same people are complaining that the gas is too expensive. Hope it will be even more expensive soon, so we don't see all these trucks anymore.
Posted by: treehugger | May 2, 2008 6:24:15 PM
I concur on the still buying trucks comment. It is like the deer in the headlights that runs into the bumper. DOH!
Posted by: | May 2, 2008 6:40:27 PM
After 9/11, I was telling anyone who'd listen that those who bought the big guzzling pickups and SUVs wer giving aid and comfort to the planners and supporters of ObL and Mohammed Atta. Now those people are hurting, but it's too late.
If people had gotten the right message in 2001, Chrysler might have continued with the ESX-3 and turned it into product. It would be hotter than any Toyota or Honda... if it was in showrooms today. It's not, and that fact may take Chrysler down all by itself.
Posted by: Engineer-Poet | May 2, 2008 7:39:50 PM
The ESX-3 was a nice prototype. In 2000 when gas was $1.50, it may not have seemed like a good idea to make it. That is what CEOs are suppose to do, have vision and plan ahead. I would have said that this is an oil guy wanting to get even in Iraq, I bet oil is going to go up in price. Better consider at least keeping the PNGV program on the back burner, just in case.
Posted by: SJC | May 2, 2008 7:49:51 PM
I could say that the management of American car companies were visionless fools, and I probably wouldn't be entirely wrong, but every other car company in the world seems to have ultimately produced some giant gas guzzling trucks for the American market. This tells me that Detroit was just doing what made sense in the market that existed in America until recently, and the blame for that belongs with our political leadership. (speaking of visionless idiots...) Maybe we can ship some of our excess Escalades and Hummers to Venezuela, where gasoline is 12 CENTS a gallon!
Posted by: George | May 2, 2008 8:55:53 PM
That's one way to get Hugo Chavez: squeeze him between rapidly sinking production and subsidized domestic consumption. When his exports head toward zero, the foundation of his political empire crumbles.
Posted by: Engineer-Poet | May 2, 2008 9:58:51 PM
I never knew excess consumption was a strategic weapon.
Posted by: SJC | May 2, 2008 11:46:46 PM
George
Pardon me but you can blame only the politicians for their lack of vision, in the end 70s president Carter wanted to imposed more agressive Cafe standards, but he was blocked by Detroit
Posted by: treehugger | May 3, 2008 1:05:21 AM
The public drives the market. McDonalds still sells more big macs than salads. Americans don't change until they feel chest pain. Can we really blame that on the person flipping the burger?
Posted by: steve | May 3, 2008 4:52:42 AM
While there is plenty of blame to go around, it accomplishes nothing. Cigarette use in this country is not down by accident. Start changing consumer behavior by banning advertising for truck based vehicles.
Posted by: Tom Street | May 3, 2008 6:22:47 AM
Tom I like your thinking, but I would tie the percentage of the companies advertising dollars spent to the efficiency of the vehicles. This would be much harder for them to oppose then a straight ban. The most efficient vehicle must have the largest advertising budget. The least efficient vehicle would have the lowest percentage of the advertizing dollars. They could still make negative commercials like they did for the EV-1 on the efficent cars, but I can’t see them wasting money too long that way.
Posted by: Dave | May 3, 2008 7:25:47 AM
Warren Buffett just said that American car makers and their workers have to change or disappear.
That's a very strong statement from the richest American but he is most certainly correct.
Will buyers force the Big-3+ and the unions to adapt to new realities within the next 3 to 5 years? They will have to or fade away.
Ford Canada and the Automobile unions just signed a 3-year contract without a raise in pay (for the very first time) but with major reductions in fringe benefits (the untouchables have been touched). This trend should filter througout the industry before end of 2008.
Will the Big+ produce more efficient smaller cars and less huge gas guzzlers in the next 3 years? The trend has already started. Gas guzzlers sales are going down month after month.
Can the Big-3+ compete with Asia and Europe making efficient smaller cars? Yes, they could if parts and sub-assemblies are manufactured in countries where labour cost is much lower, or if the local unions are convinced to do more for less to retain their jobs.
Tough times ahead for that industry in North America.
Meanwhile, my wife and I will seriously consider buying the Prius next generation in early 2009. My excellent Maxima and her excellent Camry will have to go.
Posted by: Harvey D | May 3, 2008 7:39:08 AM
Some of the big-3 jobs will morph away from the typical mechanics of ICE assembly to electro-mechanical and electronic assembly - especially with EVs. These lighter duty jobs and some benefit moratoriums will let unions negotiate longer term contracts preserving their role in NA auto manufacturing.
Not sure legislating ad expenditures will go over on Madison Ave. - but advertisers will quickly adhere to a natural trend to efficiency as gas remains expensive. Another angle might be for Homeland Security, DOE and mil budgets to "reward" NA vehicles of outstanding efficiency with endorsements. The winners are praised for domestic sustainability, security and safer tours of duty for enlisted men and women. Nationalism can be powerful persuasion.
Posted by: gr | May 3, 2008 8:13:37 AM
Some of the big-3 jobs will morph away from the typical mechanics of ICE assembly to electro-mechanical and electronic assembly - especially with EVs. These lighter duty jobs and some benefit moratoriums will let unions negotiate longer term contracts preserving their role in NA auto manufacturing.
Not sure legislating ad expenditures will go over on Madison Ave. - but advertisers will quickly adhere to a natural trend to efficiency as gas remains expensive. Another angle might be for Homeland Security, DOE and mil budgets to "reward" NA vehicles of outstanding efficiency with endorsements. The winners are praised for domestic sustainability, security and safer tours of duty for enlisted men and women. Nationalism can be powerful persuasion.
Posted by: gr | May 3, 2008 8:14:41 AM
Some of the big-3 jobs will morph away from the typical mechanics of ICE assembly to electro-mechanical and electronic assembly - especially with EVs. These lighter duty jobs and some benefit moratoriums will let unions negotiate longer term contracts preserving their role in NA auto manufacturing.
Not sure legislating ad expenditures will go over on Madison Ave. - but advertisers will quickly adhere to a natural trend to efficiency as gas remains expensive. Another angle might be for Homeland Security, DOE and mil budgets to "reward" NA vehicles of outstanding efficiency with endorsements. The winners are praised for domestic sustainability, security and safer tours of duty for enlisted men and women. Nationalism can be powerful persuasion.
Posted by: gr | May 3, 2008 8:15:13 AM
I would rather have taxes on pickups not used for commercial purposes than ban ads. A pickup is a piece of capital equipment. I would not buy a road grader nor a backhoe to drive around, they would be purposeless and inefficient.
Large SUVs serve very little purpose that can not be done with a smaller more efficient vehicle. They are a waste of resources. If people insist on buying them they will pay the price. 10% surcharge on the price and double registration fees for the life of the vehicle.
The specifics are not important, but the results are. You want to discourage people from being wasteful. If they insist, they will pay a price to society to offset their wasteful habits.
People pay second and third brackets for their electricity. There is a baseline that is considered minimum and if you use over that amount, you pay more per unit and so on. We might not easily to this with gasoline consumption, but the principle is valid.
This may not be expressed in the best way, but "wealthy enough to be wasteful" must stop for the good of all.
Posted by: SJC | May 3, 2008 8:29:04 AM
gr,
That's a very interesting idea. How about an advertisement for the Marine Corps saying something like "the few, the proud, ... and for the rest of you how about helping by buying a smaller car?"
And instead of eliminating the gas tax we should phase in a tax increase if and when the price of oil declines. $3/gal gas didn't change behavior very much because people thought it was temporary. $4/gal is making a bigger difference, and people are starting to get the idea that this isn't going away any time soon. Now we're seeing some progress.
Posted by: JamesEE | May 3, 2008 8:44:11 AM
"The public drives the market" ???
Maybe this is true in a simple world view but the world ain't that simple. In the real world industry drives the public with marketing - year to year more money is spent pushing the SUV than all other vehicle types combined.
In the real world industry drives government policy, they lobby lawmakers for/against regulations - they convinced them large vehicles (like pick-up trucks, vans and SUVs) were "inherently safer" and therefore didn't need to meet the same testing standards as cars.
And then there is the infamous SUV tax loophole -
http://www.ucsusa.org/clean_vehicles/cars_pickups_suvs/tax-incentives-suv-loophole-vs-clean-vehicle-credits.html
There do you think that came from?
Posted by: ai_vin | May 3, 2008 9:20:00 AM
You could structure a tax so that the price of gasoline does not go down. An oil import fee, price floors, percentages, there are lots of ways. The time for raising gas taxes was in the 80s and 90s when oil was cheap. We might have been paying $2.50 per gallon in 2000 when the price was $1.75. The money would go to roads, bridges, public transport and efficient autos.
This may be yet another failing of democracy. If any politician wanted to raise gasoline taxes in the 90s they would never get into office. 18 cents per gallon has been the fixed federal tax for a long time, now they are talking about suspending it for the summer..ridiculous. This tax is not even a percentage, like 10%, it is fixed. At least change that tax to a percentage so we pay 10% of wholesale price or 25 cents on $2.50 gallon of gas. That extra 7 cents times 150 million cars would bring in billions of dollars to fix all those bridges that keep collapsing.
Posted by: SJC | May 3, 2008 9:29:30 AM
There is a very real danger that the price of oil will fall back to $70/barrel sometime over the next 5 yrs. That would get us back to $3/gal gasoline and put millions of new SUVs on the roads. And a tax on oil imports would give a windfall profit to producers of domestic oil. They don't need that.
A new gas tax should be designed to prevent a large price decline. Yes, it's unpopular, but I hope our next president is a leader who can convince people that this is good for our country. Don't tax imports of oil -- tax oil consumption.
Posted by: JamesEE | May 3, 2008 10:04:01 AM
I think shortages are more likely and dangerous than backsliding. I had a more detailed explanation, but TypePad blocked it for some reason.
Posted by: SJC | May 3, 2008 10:13:34 AM
Hi Guys
Do you know how many hydrids GM sold this year ? 800, yes 800 despite all the hype about their Tahoe Hybrid, there is such a sticker price, plus they don't deliver when you try to buy one. GM has no intention to massively produce fuel efficient. You think they will change that with the Volt ? think again, there is rumor that the volts is going to cost them 48 000$ how can they possibly massively sell it ? if they wanted to make a plug-in they would have designed a prius type of car and they would have target a 9kWhrs battery, instead they designed an extremely heavy vehicle that will require a 18KWhrs battery which weight is 400 Pounds and cost 10.000$. Plus they selected the series architecture, the pertinence of which is still highly controversial and debatable on a medium car, in clear they took the maximum risk with non proven technology agaisnt the proven parallel architecture. Plus they chose to make it through an hyper mediatic communication. I think they will hit a wall, because their Volt will be unsoldable. In the same time a Prius retrofitted with a 8KWhrs A123 kit will get the big share of the emerging plug-in market.
Posted by: treehugger | May 3, 2008 11:15:22 AM
Warrn Buffet is quite a smart guy, and he has a reputation of anticipating and seeing cleraly in the futur where the money will be, in particular he avoided the trap of the techno bubble in 2000. So in clear we can trust its judgment, by the way I saw an interview of him recently where he made clear that he was "peak oil" aware, so that probably help him to see more clearly the future of the american car industry. The problem of the industry today is that they focus on high margin product which makes sense, and fuel efficiency is certainly not a high margin type of product but in the same time there is no other choice if we want to to keep our mobility in the future.
Posted by: treehugger | May 3, 2008 11:24:14 AM
sorry about the triple post... CPU hiccup
Posted by: gr | May 3, 2008 12:33:25 PM
Excess consumption isn't a strategic weapon so much as an own goal. It's what the Saudis have been using against us.
Posted by: Engineer-Poet | May 3, 2008 2:08:12 PM
You guys obviously don't understand much about the car buisness. The reason why the big 3 spent all their money on developing trucks/SUVs and neglecting small cars is because that's where the profits are. For the big 3, partly because their astronomical labor costs, small cars are often sold for a loss. That meant that little attention was paid to quality (nobody wants to raise production costs on vehicles with non-existant profit margins) and little R&D and marketing budgets. The situation is even worse for hybrids--the prius was sold at a loss for years, and it's only in the last couple of years that toyota has said that they've made a profit on the prius, and it's probably miniscule. The only way that the prius was a sucess for toyota financially is from the PR value. Meanwhile, SUVs/pickups have quite healthy profit margins. As Jim Cramer so aptly put it, US car companies for the last few decades were financing companies with nice truck divisions.
Posted by: Dan A | May 3, 2008 2:54:11 PM
I think most of us understand the structure. We understand the high margin motivation and if you have read the posts over the months, you will see that.
It used to be that CAFE caused car companies to make small low margin cars to offset their averages. With the E85 loophole and light truck classifications, they can work around that.
I do not think that it was a good idea to social engineer the cars available. That is, the rich buy the high margin cars that pay for the low margin cars. I do not know if that was the intent, but that was a lot of the outcome.
Do people really want big SUVs or was that an effect of marketing? It was both I would say. Now dealers do not like to take them in trade and people that have them drive them less. I think that if we use 10% more oil as a nation because of pickup trucks and large SUVs that is bad. It drives the price of fuel up and can create scarcity.
Posted by: sjc | May 3, 2008 4:23:26 PM
sic
you mean we use 50% more oil because of SUV and Truck, US consume 3 times more energy per capita than europea, US sucks 25% of the world oil production for only 5 % of the world population
Posted by: treehugger | May 3, 2008 5:57:50 PM
I understand, but I was just comparing the U.S. now with a U.S. where instead of those people driving pickup trucks and large SUVs, they drove vehicles that got average mileage. My car averages almost twice the mileage of a huge SUV, so as far as I am concerned they are using fuel for two. They are using someones share of gasoline.
Posted by: sjc | May 3, 2008 7:13:56 PM
treehugger;
Another stat you could use:
1) Japan produces (GDP 2006) $3611/gallon of fuel
2) California produces (GDP 2006) $1382/gallon of fuel
Note: Japan and California have the same land area.
The main difference is individual behavior.
Californians have enjoyed very cheap gas and have been convinced that bigger is better, the outcome is 3x fuel consumption for the same unit of production. That's hard to take, because we have been told for decades, that our very high fuel consumption was justified by our high GDP/per gallon. That's was not realy true but we liked to believe that it was. We have been had for years.
Here's is another one. Our Big-3 can't economically build good small vehicles in USA? Why are US built Toyotas & Hondas doing so well and are good profit makers? Is this another untruth from our national car manufacturers and auto-unions?
It seems that the reasons may be more with poor Big-3 management (at all levels) and poor contract negotiators etc.
If GM, Ford & Chrysler can't do it right any more, the time may have come to transfer their design, management and production responsabilities to others.
Posted by: Harvey D | May 3, 2008 7:14:32 PM
"Here's is another one. Our Big-3 can't economically build good small vehicles in USA? Why are US built Toyotas & Hondas doing so well and are good profit makers?"
Or what makes small car profit makers when they are made and used in other counties? In Japan they have something called Kei cars. European car makers don't have a problem selling more cars than trucks in Europe.
Posted by: ai_vin | May 3, 2008 8:05:12 PM
Harvey:
The big-3 couldn't (or more accurately didn't/didn't have the incentive to) build quality cars because they weren't profitable because they had almost or over double the labor costs of the Japanese car companies. Even Japanese transplant factories use non-unionized labor. So in effect, the UAW was more at fault for the big 3's lack of foccus on small cars. You couldn't expect the big 3 managment to sink massive R&D and marketing resources into unprofitable vehicles.
Posted by: Dan A | May 3, 2008 10:27:28 PM
It is said that the non union workers at Toyota, Honda and other plants benefit from the union contracts elsewhere. If the unions were gone, there would be no reason for any of that. The 40 work week, vacation and sick pay all came from union efforts and everyone else benefits from them. Do you think non union employers do this out of the goodness of their hearts?
I personally would pay $1000 more for a $20,000 car if we could keep a good standard of living and job security in the U.S. There are people that buy Toyota vehicles and I think they are traitors. They are the ones ruining the country, not the unions. Unions have brought us all a decent standard of living and the WalMartizing of America will bring about its ruin.
Posted by: sjc | May 4, 2008 9:29:09 AM
sic
Your comment is pointless, people buy Toyota because american automakers are not capable of making decent small or even medium cars. The Union sytem is a failure because they obtained social benefit that apply to a given company only, if the country was fighting to get social benefit at a national level (like in Europe) then GM could compete with Toyota.
Posted by: treehugger | May 4, 2008 7:12:36 PM
treehugger:
I have to agree with you.
Do not buy a union made small car. Make sure that your next compact-small car in not made by UAW union members. If you do, you may regret it.
If you have the choice, buy a compact or hybrid car made in Japan. It is definately better built.
Sorry for UAW members and sjc, but those are hard (unpublished) facts.
Posted by: Harvey D | May 4, 2008 8:10:26 PM
Treehugger,
Don't forget that while the US sucks down 25% of the world's oil with roughly 5% of the worlds population the Mid-East uses more than we do but with around 3.5% of the world's population (almost even in the total amount of oil use but they edged us out in 2007).
Posted by: Patrick | May 4, 2008 10:00:24 PM
My comments definitely have a point. We are not preserving a good standard of living in the U.S. It has been based on borrowed money and no amount of retraining has turned things around. I am not saying Unions are the answer. They may have helped 100 years ago, but not so much now.
I have not heard a solution to losing manufacturing and good paying jobs in 30 years. Perhaps you would like to suggest something that can keep the standard of living for all people at a high level without debt. I would sure like to hear it. You can say the new green jobs will build wind mills. There is no investment capital and most of them are bought from Denmark and other countries. Before you go on about optimistic scenarios, put some proposals on the table that might make that a reality.
Posted by: sjc | May 5, 2008 7:33:06 AM
SJC,
Don't forget that China is losing manufacturing jobs too. It's part of the changing world economy. US manufacturing output is higher now than ever, but productivity is higher so fewer workers are needed. The same thing happened in agriculture; 2% of our people produce more food than 90% of the population did 100 years ago.
The problem is that our education system and our mentality haven't yet adapted to the new reality. There are no longer high-paying jobs ($50-100k/yr) for people with high school educations. Contrary to political promises, those jobs are never coming back. But there are plenty of good-paying jobs that go unfilled for lack of trained workers. Anyone who believes that you can drop out of school and still make a good living is delusional.
Posted by: JamesEE | May 5, 2008 10:19:50 AM
"But there are plenty of good-paying jobs that go unfilled for lack of trained workers..."
I would like to know what those jobs are and where they are at.
I know many degreed engineers in Silicon Valley that go unemployed because their jobs are taken by people from China and India on H1B visas. You can have a masters degree and still be on the unemployment line.
Posted by: SJC | May 5, 2008 10:56:40 AM
SJC,
I've spent over 20 years as a Silicon Valley engineer. There are shortages of many skill sets, here and elsewhere. Having a degree is just the start. Learning is a lifetime activity, and much more learning happens after graduation than before. Virtually all of the unemployed engineers that I have known were either between jobs, i.e., short-term unemployed, or they were people who never refreshed their skills.
BTW, if you want to know what jobs are available, and where, try two approaches. Search monster.com for engineering jobs in San Jose, CA (or wherever). Or go to the websites of virtually any company mentioned in a GCC article. On their "job opportunities" page you'll pretty much always find openings for skilled people.
The USA needs to get serious about preparing minds for the new century, and people have to lose the attitude that a job is some kind of entitlement. Everybody has to compete with workers in China, India, Mexico, Brazil, etc. OK, there are some exceptions -- teachers, firefighters, police, lawyers, and politicians.
Posted by: JamesEE | May 5, 2008 3:38:35 PM
I just want to know where those plentiful jobs are that go unfilled due to lack of ability. You never addressed the H1 visa issue.
Posted by: SJC | May 5, 2008 5:09:49 PM
SJC,
The direct answer to your question is "lots of places." Look on monster.com; certainly in Silicon Valley there are lots of jobs. H1B visas? Congress has severely limited their number -- 65,000 now vs 195,000 in fiscal 2003. That's for all industries in the entire US. The quota gets filled very early in the year. After that the "foreigners" certainly cannot be competing for "our jobs."
You post on GCC a lot, and you obviously know a lot about many subjects. So you're probably an avid reader. An interesting book is Thomas Friedman's "The World is Flat." His thesis is that it used to be more important where you were born, as far as your potential in life is concerned. Now it matters more how intelligent you are, and how much you develop your intelligence. Many still think a rich lifestyle is a birthright. Those good ol' days are gone.
I believe we aren't developing our intelligence in this country. Watch any TV sitcom. Who does everybody make fun of? Nerds, people who like to read or study! It's cool to be athletic, funny, cute, etc; it's not so cool to be smart. So kids try NOT to look too smart. What a self-destructive behavior for a society.
Posted by: JamesEE | May 5, 2008 6:37:23 PM
Monster.com has lots of listings. But how many people respond to one listing? I would guess very many. Do they every fill those positions, maybe. Sometimes they are just fishing to see what is out there. Sometimes they are looking for the bargain, the vastly over qualified person willing to work for nothing.
Back in 1984 when the economy was booming and everyone was employed we listed with recruiters to fill one engineering position. We got 100s of resumes from qualified engineers looking for a job. That told me that even in good times there are lots of people needing work.
Do not be fooled by the appearance of prosperity or the wish that it were so to make your self feel better. Everyone would like to think that they have job security, they can not handle thinking otherwise. It is in times like the ones we are facing now that people really find out if their illusions are true.
Posted by: SJC | May 5, 2008 7:43:09 PM
SJC:
Here are a few excellent opportunities to introduce USA to the new electrical energy economy:
1) Retrofit (locally-nationally) 5 to 10 million gas guzzlers (including school and city buses) a year into PHEVs (see MIRA).
2) Convert 10 to 20 existing empty factories into competitive highly automated high performance modular battery packs factories, with very large government investment programs in the form of interest free loans, shares, bonds and/or handouts etc.
3) Actively promote the introduction of PHEVs and BEVs with a progressive liquid fuel tax (5 cents/gal/month) + a meaningful incentive program to accelerate transistion from ICE to electrified vehicles with 75%+ USA content.
4) Actively promote R&D + installation of wind and solar farms with a 75%+ USA content.
5) Aggressively promote the production of biofuel from non-food feed stocks.
6) Timely promote the conversion of most existing corn ethanol plants into non-food ethanol-butanol-biofuel plants to reduce the use of corn-grain by 50%.
7) etc etc.
PS: The above could be financed by stopping oil wars and redirecting $200B to $300B a year + the new progressive liquid fuel tax.
Posted by: Harvey D | May 6, 2008 8:38:27 AM
SJC posted:
"Do not be fooled by the appearance of prosperity or the wish that it were so to make your self [sic] feel better. Everyone would like to think that they have job security, they can not handle thinking otherwise. It is in times like the ones we are facing now that people really find out if their illusions are true."
SJC, I hope you're just in a bad mood today. Are you really that pessimistic? All the time? It's spring. I can hear the birds chirping, unemployment is about 5%, inflation is still about 4%, the libraries are full of good books, and we get to read about the ongoing revolution in transportation technology on the internet every day. Cheer up dude!
Posted by: JamesEE | May 6, 2008 11:25:29 AM
JamesEE,
One thing on the debate of Engineers looking for jobs and available jobs looking to be filled:
With new graduates from universities it seems there are no available jobs. Everyone wishes for you to have 2-5 years of highly specific/specialized experience and are unwilling to train a recent graduate Engineer. When I was job hunting a few years ago I found the above to be true AND -
1. If I sought out a "technician" level job the manager would look at my education then claim that I was overqualified and would leave for more pay as soon as I get some experience.
2. Found many "corporate" jobs where they would like Engineers to fill a position you would think are better suited to those with a background in Business.
3. Found many entry level Programmer positions with a fairly high starting salary [but I was more interested in hardware positions].
Posted by: Patrick | May 6, 2008 4:14:23 PM
@sjc,
FYI, the age of the US auto fleet has been increasing from about 12 years to almost 13, over the last two decades. Half of all vehicles die, and vist the grand recycler in the sky, before they are 8 years old, based on registration data.
Certainly there are older vhecles on the road, but their percentage becomes insignificant over 12 years old. For planing purposes, you can safely say the majority of the US domestic fleet turns over before 8 years, and is virtually completely replaced in 12 years.
All this means is that the reflection of a an electrified auto fleet will be significant in a lot shorter timeframe than posters here think.
I note that people still throw the word "gas guzzler" around as if they truly stll existed. The best and most economical car in 1970 got 16 mpg. How many "gas guzzlers" today do better than that? Virtually all, beat the vernerable Beetle, even the abominable "gigantus SUVus". That's how far we have come.
In ten years, will all of you be complaining about vehicles that only get 50 mpg? I'm certain that will be the case, and you'll be calling them "gas guzzlers" too.
Many of you seem to have been taught to despise your own country. You are free to say we use so much or the World's resources for only 5% of the population. Then you have been brainwashed to ignore that we produce an enormous and outsized proportion of the world's goods, as well.
The Big Three, actuallly Big Two plus a half, can't do anything right, in many a poster's eyes.
Yet the biggest auto makers in Europe are, surprise, Ford and GM. The cars they sell there, are fully competitive with all the foreign makers there. They make EU cars for EU tastes. Most of which are too small and such pollution pigs that they would not be allowed on US shores,even if theuy could pass the safety regs which they can't.
GM is the biggest car maker in China, Brazil and is a leading seller in India as well. When you complain about the US Big 2 and 1/2, remember your complaints are about their US products for their US customers. Over half of GM's revenues com eoutside of ZNorth America, as does Ford. Only Chrysler the little half is priomarily a domestic auto/truck maker.
Japan Inc. including Toyota is worried, sick. They used to have a cost advvantage that allowed them to up-content their vehicles versus American rivals for the same price.
China is coming into their overseas markets faster than a cyclone. Toyota's quality reputation, garnered like all the Japanese brands, by building first year models only in Japan, to work out bugs, on Japanese customers, has been equaled by the US domestic makers, without the US customers being first year guinea pigs. Meanwhile the EU makers still are distinctly behind in quality measures.
JD Powers doesn't even list Toyota in the top five brands in either "Initial Quality" or "Three Year Dependability" anymore. Toyota is suffering from the growth in sales, and lots of new factories and new workers. Honda and the other Japanese makers are seeing sales lost ot the Koreans and see the Chinese threat looming. The South Koreans have a up-content advantage now. However, they too fear the coming Chinese.
Posted by: stas peterson | May 6, 2008 5:24:58 PM
GM and Ford are fools. The writing has been on the walls for years and they did not allow themselves any means to survive when gas becomes exspensive. GM and the fuel cell? Did you think we would just leave cheap gas and start using fuel cells. Ford and GM have the technology in Europe except the emissions but other companies are overcoming it.
Honda and Toyota are so well diversified they will survive and move on. I am not so sure to GM and Ford except for the large truck market.
DOPES.
Posted by: Paul | May 7, 2008 8:37:33 AM
Stan,
You made one vital error.
In 10 years, most of the people who post on this message board will be complaining about "electron guzzlers". 'You mean this car uses 200W-hr per mile??? What a pig'
Posted by: Patrick | May 8, 2008 4:39:48 PM
