I just met up with my brother tonight and he was telling me about his Sunday trip down the "Automile". The automile is a stretch in Eastern Mass where there are about a dozen various dealers within a mile strip of rt 1. Anyway, he stops at the Toyota dealership to talk to someone about downsizing his current full size PU for a smaller truck. A dozen sales people, all knee deep in customers. He says he couldn't even get a sales type to speak with him. They were all too busy. So he decides to leave and come back another time, and he passes by the Chevy dealership where the 2 sales people are hanging out the door having a smoke, not a potential customer in sight.

I have a feeling the April sales figures for the big 3 are going to be worse than March.

 

Add to that taking off the highway tax to address a supply-and-demand gas problem and we're headed for the perfect storm.

Bob Wilson

 

We will be fine, thanks to the Chinese:

Gas guzzlers are a big hit in China

Newly affluent want larger SUVs to fill with state-regulated $2.90 gas





http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24242758/
http://www.treehugger.com/files/2008...ular-china.php

 

It's been like that for a long time.
Back in 1999 I ended up buying a Ford Taurus because no one at the Honda dealership would give me the time of day (that was on a Saturday afternoon). I didn't have any trouble getting a Toyota salesman to speak with me two years ago when I bought my Prius, but I stopped by the Toyota dealer after work on, IIRC, a Wednesday evening.

 

Call me crazy (well... I am crazy, I have a dissociative disorder, har har) but if the government of China limits gas prices to $2.90/gallon and Big Oil can sell the same product everywhere else for $4-$7/gallon (worldwide), then isn't there going to come a point where Big Oil says "Uh... I think we'll ration out how much oil you get, since we've got actual *paying* customers elsewhere." That's a situation that's bound for ugliness, since China is rapidly becoming the most powerful nation on earth (thanks to Wal Mart and Bushonomics).

 

I had a similar experience with Honda as well. The only reason I put up with the rude/incompetent salespeople and the "big shot" manager wias that I REALLY wanted a Civic Hybrid.

I bought a Scion xD for my domestic partner three weeks ago. We didn't even consider going to the Honda dealer. Over at the Toyota dealer, I cut to the chase. I basically said to the salesperson, "I'm a gay witch. This is my domestic partner. I want to buy a car fom him. Any problems?"

He had no problems!

Actually, he found the "witch" part a whole lot more interesting than the "gay" part. I got treated with a whole lot more respect and honesty this time around, so I think my next car (probably in 2010 or 2011) will be a Camry Hybrid and not a Honda hybrid since cars cost too much money to be treated like crap while buying one.

 

The big oil companies don't sell cheap to China. The Chinese Government just makes up the difference. So the public is subsidized.

 

In the end the Chinese people pay for it in taxes they just dont see it at the pump.