Friday, May 23, 2008

Will the real bubble please stand up?

Say goodnight to the SUV bubble and the associated cheap gasoline consumption bubble.

The guy running GM needs to be thrown out. [Mulally at Ford came in from Boeing a couple of years ago and thus gets some slack.]

Wall Street Journal: Ford Stumble Signals Rising Risks.

Quotes:

Ford Motor Co.'s plan to return to profitability got run over by a truck.

The rise of gasoline prices toward $4 a gallon is causing a major shift in the U.S. auto industry that threatens to push the Big Three auto makers and some of their rivals to a new level of peril. In recent weeks, sales of pickup trucks and sport-utility vehicles -- already falling in recent years -- took an unexpectedly sharp tumble.

....

In a Thursday conference call, Chief Executive Alan Mulally said the industry has "reached a tipping point" and that the falling truck sales represent a long-term shift in the U.S. auto market, not a short-term dip.

"We saw real change in the industry demand for pickup trucks and SUVs in the first two weeks of May," Mr. Mulally said.