Rating: 
Summary: This Book may be hard to swallow
Review: If you work within the Big Three. The End of Detroit is skillfully written to detail the rise of foreign automakers and the fall of domestic dominance. The book starts out in the first chapter with a brief automotive industry. This chapter is slow and at one point had me regretting reading this book. Then the second chapter saved the day. In this chapter, the lifecycle of the Ford Taurus is examined to reveal a trend of big three, ignoring the customer desires.
During the next several chapters, historical accounts of companies such as Honda, Toyota and BMW among others detail how each company has managed to gain a stronger foothold in the industry and subsequently squeezed out the Big three. The final chapters detail the shift of production away from Detroit to Detroit South and the epilogue details the industry in 2010. This book is a quick read, but may be controversial to those who believe that the Big Three are "The All American Way" Worth reading for yourself to determine what is right!!
Rating: 
Summary: Very readable and informative
Review: Image vs. reality. This is the coda that guides Ms. Maynard's
very readable account of the present and future of the car
biz in the U.S. No ranting and raving, no blaming, just the
facts. Lots of interviews with top execs. No off the wall
conjecture or technical mumbo-jumbo either. Just a 300 page exposition, written in a newspaper article style, that simply
and succinctly hits the mark.
This book is getting major buzz on CNBC, the Wall Street Journal,
Business Week, etc. Has potential to have huge impact, ala
Nader's "Unsafe at any speed", for its simple exposition of
every aspect of the transitional nature of the car industry.
Detroit is painted as an ostrich whose head is firmly enmeshed
in the ground as globalization and changing trends pass it by.
Detroit is shown as a myopic reactionary force, only able to
think short term(rebates and incentives, quarterly and annual
financial statements), and react belatedly to actions taken
by Asia and Europe.The gist is that the import companies know
us and research us more scrupulously than we ourselves.
The reality lies in simple facts:
Top selling sedan(Toyota Camry), #2(Honda Accord), Hottest
selling Minivan(Honda Odyssey). Fastest growing company per
market share(Hyundai).
Toyota just passing Ford as number #2 in global sales.
Yes, it's sad. Somewhat infuriating. While it would be nice
for Detroit to be on top, they are not. They are losing market
share year after year. The majority of cars registered in our
largest state, California, are imports. What's up with that?
Read this informative book to find out what, if anything,
can be done........
Finally, my personal views on the auto industry......
I want to make this simple, and just focus on the winners and
losers in the global environment.
Winners:
1.) The Consumers.
As competition kicks in globally, all companies are forced to
compete in all ways. This gives the consumer a much larger
palette of choices, faster, and more focused on true needs.
If the US-based companies continue to deny hybrid and fuel
cell technology, surely the asian companies will lick their
chops as they fill up that vacuum. Just like the late 70's-
early 80's, when the void of small, fuel-efficient cars was
filled by the imports, giving them a foot in the door, hybrids
and hydrogen fuel-cell engines will likely be similar.
Look for Toyota to take on GM as the number #1 global company
if that happens, especially if middle-east problems cut or shut
down the oil supply, which isn't too farfetched considering
what's going on out there.
2.) Foreign companies.
Again, quite simply, there is a long term loss of American
market share that goes back to the early 80's. This 20-year
timeline shows no sign of ebbing. While it is true that the
big three have bought out bits of the foreign competition
(Mazda, Jaguar, Land Rover), the major foreign players that
are kicking our collective posteriors are still autonomous.
If anything, they will buy US out(Daimlerchrysler). Don't
think it impossible that Ford could go the same route as
Chrysler if their financial bloodletting continues. That
would leave us with GM as the sole US based major player.
Look for the aforementioned market-loss trends to continue
short of a evangelical-like sea change in attitude.
Losers:
1.)City of Detroit.
Not too long ago, Detroit was a gleaming manufacturing hub,
with car manufacturing and parts suppliers as its' "raison
de existance". Now, it seems to fall farther and farther into
a hellish decay. The city itself has experienced a cancerous
bloodletting of jobs, people, and infrastructure since the
late 60's. At first, everything simply moved past the 10 mile
road to the suburbs except the factories in the city limits.
Then, even the suburban jobs started going south(literally).
Finally, the south itself became the area of choice for the
foreign companies. Detroit saw its importance in every respect
ebb into nothingness. Like neighbor Flint, the world passed
it by. If you drive the area, you almost feel as if you are
in a Mad Max apocalypse, as hulking vestiges of what once was
litter the landscape. Truly Detroit itself is the biggest loser
in the global economy per car manufacturing.
2.)The UAW.
Once, the UAW could proudly feel that they were empowering the
average industrial worker. They had a part to play, and they
played it well, liasoning with management and ownership in a
troika that kept the industry humming for decades. Hard fought
and bloody battles in the 30's and early 40's paid off, and
the post WW2 prosperity seemed as if it would never end.
Then came the oil crisis, the imports, and the UAW was never
the same since. They have been backpedeling just to keep in
place, giving away concessions like hotcakes, and now it looks
as if they have written themselves out of existence, as legacy
costs mount and the work-free, non-union southern states have become the place of choice for new plants. They are making zero inroads in the new plants, and continue to have the ones they control close or downsize, while China and Mexico become assembly
and manufacturing outsource hubs for Ford and GM. The UAW is
essentially DOA. Listen closely and you can hear "Taps" being
played in the background.
Rating: 
Summary: poor information
Review: it is true that honda and toyota and now nissan are hurting Detroit but anyone who has been to Detroit lately will tell you it is hardly the "end of Detroit." In fact Honda and Toyota keep spending more money to send more people to Detroit all the time to steal and study from Ford and Chrysler and GM. This author should not be allowed to write for USA Today because she cannot cover the industry fairly because she is so jaded and slanted toward the Japanese. It is true they are good companies and U.S. companies have a lot of work to do but this is an unfair title and attack and should end this reporter's career. Whatever happened to fair journalism? It ended with this title. The publisher should be embarrassed because the title is grossly wrong.
Rating:
Summary: No Longer So Big
Review: Obviously, this book's title should not be taken literally. The city in Michigan will not "end" nor will (in all probability) the so-called Big Three corporations headquartered there (Chrysler, Ford, and General Motors) but none resembles what it was 40-50 years ago and each will no doubt undergo significant changes in decades to come. By the way, are there any Small Others? Other reviewers have already noted this book's numerous flaws (e.g. errors of fact, dubious statistics, and typos) and disagree with Maynard about some of her opinions. No need to re-hash them here. My own reaction to her book is that it makes a useful contribution to our understanding of why the United States has lost its dominance in the the automotive industry. There are several reasons, many of which also explain foreign dominance in the consumer electronics industry. Of greatest interest to me are decisions and (yes) non-decisions by the Big Three's senior-level executives which aided and abetted the success of their German and Japanese competitors. I was surprised to learn that foreign-owned companies have built 17 plants in the United States and employ 85,000 people to produce cars and trucks many of us assume to be "imports." The same vehicles consistently rank highest in terms of quality of construction and customer satisfaction, lowest in terms of frequency of repair. They are also among the most fuel efficient. So much for the highly-promoted campaign to "Buy American." Moreover, Honda and Toyota have an enormous head start in designing and producing hybrid and fuel-cell cars. The Big Three may not be dead and may never die but they certainly have serious problems which could well become worse. What about the Big Three's strategy to offer rebates and deep discounts? Their short-term benefits (other than to the consumer) may result in a spike in sales but almost wipe out dealers' margins and OEM's profits while creating bloated inventories of used vehicles. My wife drives a Honda Accord and I a Nissan Altima. Although the purchase price of each was somewhat more than that of its US counterparts, our extensive research indicated that the total cost of both would be substantially less and that has proven to be true. Reliability is very important. Other than routine maintenance, our Honda and Altima have been care-free. We expect them to have a higher value than their counterparts would when we replace them. Despite its deficiencies, Maynard's book addresses several important issues which have great significance and profound implications. The lessons to be learned from the Big Three's blunders during the past 20-25 years are directly relevant to all other US companies as they now struggle to compete profitably in the global marketplace.
Rating: 
Summary: Disappointing
Review: Others have already noted the various factual errors and sweeping generalizations. The thing that really irked me about this book is that its title leads you to believe that most of the reading will be about the US car industry....in fact, you read chapter after chapter about imports, with references to how Detroit compares to the imports. One whole chapter on Camry, one whole chapter on Hyundai/BMW, one whole chapter on the ENTIRE history of Toyota & Honda, etc. gets pretty boring, as I really could do without a complete history lesson of the major import manufacturers. The book should have focused on what has been going on at the Big Three (decisions made, models produced, sales info, market trends, quality/reliability) and how consumer preferences have led to the imports' increased market share in the US...... There was just too much emphasis on specific imports with too little relevant content as pertains to the title of the book.
Rating:
Summary: Right on the Money
Review: Outstanding. A thorough and convincing analysis of Detroit's decline. Millions of consumers know that foreign--especially Japanese--cars are better and more reliable than their American counterparts. Maynard explains why this is unlikely to change. American car companies occasionally show flashes of geniuse--as, for example, with the Ford Taurus, or with minivans and SUVs--but they quickly fall behind again, as foreign competitors move in with better and more reliable versions of what Detroit first envisioned. American companies are almost always one step behind. They have no effective long-term strategy for building consistently high-quality vehicles that will maintain or expand their customer base. Maynard's constrasting analyses of the Asian and American car companies implies that this will likely never happen. They are too many structural, financial, and psychological barriers to overcome. In the early days, Japanese companies learned from the American companies, borrowing successful methods these companies used. But American companies have been unable to successfully learn from the Japan, or at least duplicate its successful methods. It is ironic that despite the tremendous success of foreign automakers (mostly German and Japanese), the U.S. economy is still the strongest in the world, while Japan has been in a slump for 13 years and Germany has had double-digit unemployment for even longer. Even in the electronics industry, Japan rules. Yet the good news, as Maynard points out, is that it is precisely this free economy that is benefitting us even if our car companies continue to decline. Where are Japan and Germany building the plants to build the cars that Americans want? In America, creating hundreds of thousands of jobs and doing of a better job of what Detroit once did.
Rating:
Summary: A Detailed and Engaging Account of the Big Three's Downfall
Review: Take a drive on most U.S. highways and even consumers wholly uninterested in the auto industry would have to agree with New York Times automotive writer Micheline Maynard --- the Big Three's dominance of the American car market is over. Imports dominate California's car-clogged roads. In Texas, once dominated by domestic truck brands Chevrolet and Ford, imports are increasingly popular with younger, more affluent consumers. Even in the Big Three's home state, Michigan, import brands have built some of the biggest and most extravagant dealerships in the country to serve a growing number of customers. In August 2003, cold hard facts began piling up alongside such anecdotal evidence. For the first time ever, Toyota outsold Chrysler, now owned by the German-American company DaimlerChrysler. It was a seminal point for the domestic carmakers that had tried everything short of giving away cars to shore up their faltering market share in the past two years. By September, the Big Three's market share hit 57 percent, a historic low. How and why Toyota surged to this position and how once-dominant brands of Ford, General Motors and Chrysler let it happen is at the heart of THE END OF DETROIT. Ms. Maynard deconstructs how imports from Korea, Japan and Germany systematically have eaten away at the market share of U.S. car brands. Through detailed and engaging reporting, she shows how these companies consistently offered consumers higher quality, cheaper prices or more dramatic styling and performance. She also talks about why the U.S. companies have failed to stop the imports in their tracks. Ms. Maynard does a superb job of offering insight and evidence as to how Toyota and Honda grew from offering cheap energy efficient cars in the 1970s to full-line auto makers with trucks and sport utility vehicles that rival the power and performance of the domestic makers. She dives into the differences between Honda and Toyota, explaining how divergent these two Japanese companies really are, despite the fact that they are often "mentioned in the same breath --- Toyota-and-Honda, all run together --- as if they were one big company instead of two." Ms. Maynard, however, rightly points out that the two companies are following very different corporate paths to win consumers. Both corporate strategies spell trouble for the domestic automakers. Toyota has plans to be the world's No. 1 automaker, overtaking General Motors by the beginning of the next decade. Ms. Maynard believes Toyota's domination is inevitable; she even writes a fictional news story in which Toyota announces this fact. While it is hard to argue with Toyota's superiority, Ms. Maynard doesn't discuss in detail whether Toyota could fall prey to the same problems as the domestic makers while it pushes for world domination. By contrast, Honda is content to build vehicles for its small but zealous customer base, Ms. Maynard says. Sometimes, ironically, those zealous customers are in fact its biggest competitors. General Motors now buys Honda engines for use in its vehicles. She also outlines the comebacks of upstart brands such as Korea's Hyundai and Japan's Nissan. Hyundai dominates the low-end of the market with its inexpensive sedans and small sport utilities. Nissan is pulling a flanking position by offering flashy, high performance products like the 350Z and even a sexy minivan called Quest. But when Ms. Maynard turns her attention to the U.S. automakers, it is with less of the fine detail with which she brought the imports' story to life. Her broad brush of the U.S. industry may leave readers wanting more stories and details on how the Big Three lost their grip. Instead, her re-telling of how Ford neglected the Taurus family sedan and lost its No. 1 ranking to the Camry has an outsiders' feel, which contrasts to the insider's feel of her reporting on Toyota and Honda. Despite this, her conclusions about how the Big Three lost control of an industry they once dominated are in depth enough for executives in any industry to learn from. Ms. Maynard writes that the Big Three continued to produce inconsistent, poor quality cars that didn't meet consumers' changing needs, even as a growing list of competitors upped the ante. Worse yet, the Big Three blamed everyone but themselves for the problems besetting them. And finally they suffered from a major case of hubris, believing that their consumers would keep coming back if they added enough macho sizzle to cars. A telling anecdote in that regard comes in one of the book's final chapters. Over lunch Ms. Maynard asks Robert Lutz, a former Chrysler executive that GM hired to bring passion back to its cars, which automobile he wanted buyers to think about when they thought GM. She writes, "Lutz unhesitatingly chose the Chevrolet Corvette." Low slung V-8 sports cars popular with retirees aren't likely to help GM beat Toyota and other imports in the coming years. Ms. Maynard predicts that by 2010 the U.S. carmakers will account for just 50% market share, a slide of nearly 40% since the 1960s. She predicts that by 2010 the Big Three (if all of them survive) will compete in a market more akin to Europe's, where a dozen strong competitors compete to control smaller slices of market share. If this could happen to the once mighty Detroit, readers will take pause and think about what industries could fall next. --- Reviewed by Fara Warner
Rating:
Summary: PR book for Toyota and Honda?
Review: The author wrote this book from a view point of a consumer (rather than a journalist) who was fed up with, as she put it, "junk" quality of Detroit cars. As a Japanese who used to live and drive in the west and east coasts of the US, it was extremely interesting to learn about how Toyota, Honda and BMW achieved their success, how Big 3 and Mercedes lost their reputation, how Hyundai is fairing in the US market and how the future might look like. This book must be flattering to Japanese reasders who will be reading the Japanese edition soon. As I finished about the two thirds of the book, however, I could not help but wondering whether this might be the work of propaganda mainly for Toyota, Honda and, to a lesser degree, Nissan's current president Carlos Ghosn. This book contains nothing but sheer praise to Toyota and Honda, and bitter criticisms against Detroit.
Understandably, the author received super thick red carpet treatment from those companies as she went on facts finding trip around Japan and the US. Japan's Big Three granted top management interviews (in the case of Toyota, both CEO and COO, as well as top US officers). In Japan, there are hundred of books written in much greater details on Toyota, Honda and Nissan. Some of them are sponsored by a certain automotive maker as PR book. Among those I've read, they all point out problem areas, in addition to achievements, which Marian fails to do. In this sense, I find it difficult to accept this book as a work of journalist who writes for one of the top quality newspapers in the US.
But let's not forget the fact that up until the end of the 60s, Japanese automobiles were no competition to Detroit. Who knows, what the future holds!
Rating: 
Summary: Domestic? Foreign? Who Wins?
Review: The End of Detroit is a outstanding and well-researched book about the automotive industry in Detroit. From the explanations about the fall of the domestic market to the rapid gain of the foreign market, the book always has an answer to the many problems the industry faced over the years. The book is a quick read, but can be bias in spots in favor of the foreign market and the takeovers they have made over the years. The first half of the book is like a history lesson and at times spends too much time focusing on one topic and forgetting the rest of the automotive world. The middle and near end of the book, talks more about companies like Honda, Toyota, and BMW and their stronger gains in the industry. These companies in the end caused the squeeze out of the big three and forced many changes to occurre. The final portion of the book gives a brief depiction of what the author thinks will happen in the end. She touches very little on the issues at hand today like, gas, car size, and environments issues and spends more time on the foreign markets future. Witch car is better? After reading this book, you also will have a confused and more difficult time making that decision.
Rating:
Summary: A RIP OFF OF A REAL BOOK
Review: This book is a wanna be ripp off of a great book called "COMEBACK". This woman has got to go back to high school Comp101 and learn to check her sources, or take up truck driving.Then she would be driving american wouldn't she?
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